They don’t know about exiting the game!
Saw this and it got me thinking –
Before the rescue, this cat was so miserable with a broken jaw, blindness, ants etc with persistent suffering, and yet it had no option but to continue surviving. Animals have no idea of suicide, and that is sad!
Isn’t this world cruel for incentivizing agents (animals) to live out their life doing things just to minimize negative rewards (pain & suffering)? Granted not every individual suffers persistently; but, when their life spirals down into a miserable one with no likelihood of improving, they cannot even discover the action to end it! Every natural attempt to end their life is met with a huge negative reward (pain), so these agents would likely never even discover the action of suicide!
Thinking in terms of evolution, let’s say an individual does discover the action to commit suicide when they are in a grave, perpetual suffering state. If they do commit suicide, that cuts off further inheritance of their qualities, lol.
But humans exist! It is interesting how we have thrived despite the knowledge of suicide, especially with the knowhow of less painful and quicker ways to kill oneself; although, the majority of people probably do *not* know of quick & painless ways to die (including me). If they did know of quick painless methods to exit the game, would a majority of them pull the trigger? If the majority would indeed pull the trigger if they had access to a quick & painless way, what does that say about the state of our society? In a free world, shouldn’t this choice be left to individuals rather than governments banning access to such knowledge & tools?
Okay well, we don’t know if the majority would pull the trigger. Whatever subset of the population would pull the trigger, would die off, and the ones remaining would be the thrivers. It would become a cultural difference and create a stigma by those who have it easy in life towards those who are miserable enough to be suicidal. Maybe it has already happened. Seems like the solution should involve more of leveling the field & improving the latter group’s lives than simply sigmatizing the topic entirely. Or, perhaps respecting that it can be an individual’s informed choice.
The topic of suicide should not be taboo. It should be discussable freely, just like depression, or abortion. Normalizing freer healthy discussions can help identify larger issues underlying society and life itself. Banning discussion on the other hand could become a tool for the powerful to keep the miserable people in control.
It’s easy to see that “powerful” above can refer to powerful people or the government; but it could very well refer to any more powerful entity – like the simulation that we possibly are in. Talking about it is necessary to potentially break the chains if at all that is possible.