Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) Newsgroups: net.suicide Subject: Re: misc. ramblings Message-ID: <1746@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 14:56:43 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.1746 Posted: Thu Sep 26 14:56:43 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 09:14:38 EDT References: <199@ikonas.UUCP> Reply-To: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin (DRXAL-RI) ) Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO Lines: 27 One area regarding sucide which I have never seen discussed anywhere is that a person who has determined to suicide must be a very valuable resource. It is hard to get someone to give up their life in order to do something that can't be done any other way; it takes a lot of conditioning so that a soldier will perform a necessary act though there is a high probablility that he will be killed doing it, or for a religious person to become a martyr to their cause. If someone is going to kill themselves anyway, they can be most valuable to any of many possible organizations, movements, or agencies by performing some sort of "suicide mission", if they are stable and rational enough to be capable of completing it. I'm sure this last factor eliminates most candidates -- by definition, we have already said that being suicidal does not allow you to be considered "rational". If we can get around that, and admit that there are those who have rationally decided that it is better to die than live, for whatever reasons they might have, they could be convinced to conduct their suicide in a manner that fills some other requirement. (Usual motivations here would be financial payments to loved ones or the like.) The traditional role, of course, is that of assassin. It is an old truism that there is no way to prevent an assassination if the attacker is willing to trade his/her life for that of the subject. Considering the number of suicides, I am surprised that there are not more assassination attempts than there are. Will Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com