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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!allegra!alice!bart
From: bart@alice.UucP (Bart N. Locanthi)
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: painless suicide
Message-ID: <5025@alice.uUCp>
Date: Sat, 22-Feb-86 16:40:46 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.5025
Posted: Sat Feb 22 16:40:46 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 08:34:19 EST
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 30


an interesting question, that of discovering a truly painless method
for suicide.  but it raises more questions, the most obvious being
what metric to judge pain by.  it seems to me that the most useful
one would be some kind of pain-time product - ripping a band-aid (tm)
off quickly is instantaneously more painful then pulling it off slowly,
yet the pain fades quickly enough that most (brave) folk with hair
elect for the quick rip method.

then of course there is the matter of anticipation.  opening a blood
vessel can't be very painful but you have to watch all your blood
flow out and go through the various stages of wooziness.  is that
painful?  jumping off a building isn't at all painful (unless you
develop nausea on the way down) and the fact that impact must hurt
like hell should be mitigated by the shortness of the event.  and
depending on your makeup, the fall could be exhilarating (how many
people do you suppose thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime (sic)
thrill only to realize on the way down they could have done it with
a parachute?).  is that exhilaration a fair balance for the ensuing
pain?

maybe someone should interview failed suicides to get a reading on
just how much pain they endured.  i'm sure the information would be
useful, even though 1) most living suicides haven't tried several
methods and therefore would not be able to compare results, 2) "living
suicide" being an oxymoron, one can't really find out about the pain
level of dying without actually dying, 3) a failed suicide may be too
embarrassed to report honestly, and 4) one who is unbalanced enough to
attempt suicide may not be able to give a rational analysis of the
experience.