Who is more selfish?

People who breed, or people who suicide?

I couldn't get to sleep, and the question popped into my head. I figured you all might provide an interesting discussion, or some opinions that I hadn't considered.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

Feh,is that a trick question?

Can I say they are both equally selfish?

If not,gee,I am going to catch hell for this one way or the other...

I think breeders are more selfish.It seems to me what they do impacts far more people (like everyone,via taxes),regardless of what all those people want.They also seem to think that everyone else should make the same mistake they did and become parents regardless of what they truly want,

I think breeders also want people to be as miserable as they are and are almost jealous of their lack of freedom.

Also,they can be selfish with their spawn.They are neglectful,careless,abusive and just stupid.They breed like rabbits are are so selfish they think everyone else should be impressed and get pissed when they are not.These kids suffer for their parents selfishness.That is far more heartless and selfish than someone committing suicide.

Breeders seem like they are committing slow suicide,just the same.They sure are sucking the rest of us dry thanks to government pandering.

I think it's a case by case basis in terms of suicide, and though I'm not a fan of kids i think people who have more than 2 are utterly pigs.

I agree that breeding is way more selfish, breeding affects way more people than a suicide. My buddys mother just killed herself a few months ago, she had a very small family, and while its hard for my buddy and the family, its affects far less people, and suicide, to me, isnt that selfish, its that persons life to do what he/she pleases

Good question Feh.

In a broad economic sense, suicides are a help, so they're not selfish. People who commit suicide are (temporarily or chronically, for whatever reason/s) mentally ill. They're mis-functioning members of society who remove themselves from it. They free up a job (if employed), and relieve the state from paying unemployment if they're not. They also relieve the state from having to pay for them in their old age thru pension, health insurance, residency, etc. If they're under a doctor's care for physical or mental problems, they've freed-up a bit of space for someone else. Sometimes they free-up housing for someone else.

In a microscopically narrow sense, if they have close family members then the negative impact on them personally is really the only drawback.

They're also not selfish because, unlike breeders, they're unlikely to go around bullying other people to commit suicide too.

In a broad ecological sense, adding more people to an already overflowing seething pot of humanity is incredibly selfish. Economically, getting new people to replace SOME dead people is a good thing, but the globe's population passed that point about 50 years ago. If advanced aliens ever encounter the Earth, they'll probably be tempted to do some spraying, lay some traps, put out irresistable trays of poison to knock our numbers back down by a couple billion.

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"The death of creativity is a pram in the hallway"
- Cyril Connolly

I agree that breeders are worse.

As others have said, suicide affects only the dead person's friends and family. If the dead person had little or no friends or family, then the effect is lessened again. I don't think any of us is saying suicide is a good thing, it isn't - but the effects of the two are quite different.

I had a friend in high school whose cousin was a drug addict and attempted suicide eight times (don't ask me how a person can fail suicide eight different times, I mean if you think about it it's really not too difficult to do). He finally succeeded on his ninth attempt, and my friend, far from being heartbroken, was actually happy for him. She figured if he'd attempted it so many times then it was obviously what he wanted, now he'd got what he wanted so she was happy for him. While others would be horrified, I thought she made perfect sense.

I think the only type of situation in which suicide is truly selfish is when a parent of young, dependent children kills him/herself (because the suicidal person is essentially abandoning someone whom they had made a commitment to care for--or ditching their spouse to have sole responsibility for rearing the couple's offspring). I should note that, while it's a similar situation if the suicide has pets, I suppose the person could find good homes for them before departing... It's a bit of a stickier situation to do that with non-infant children.

Otherwise, if a person does not have such dependents, I don't consider suicide to be much of a selfish act. Yes, the suicide could still cause a great deal of pain to the people left behind, but what's more selfish, causing a handful of people grief as a collateral consequence of taking charge of one's own destiny, or the converse, which is expecting a loved one to live despite the fact that he/she wants to die? I think the latter is worse. Schopenhauer got it right when he said (paraphrasing here) that man his little if not his own life and person, and the right to do with it as he sees fit. If nothing else, every human should have the ability to end his/her own life, because if you don't have that basic right, what do you really have in this world? I don't even think you should "need" a good excuse. If you know you don't want to be here, you should be able to exit with comfort and dignity and not be demonized or reviled for it.

Oh, and I think breeding is hugely selfish, from ever so many standpoints. I think one of the worst things about breeding is that you're forcing another being to exist without his/her consent. There are at least 30,000 suicides a year in the USA alone, and that's only the number that the authorities can confirm (there are probably many more than that), and for everyone who succeeds at killing himself, there have got to be gobs more who would like to, but don't have the courage or appropriate means, or who have bought into society's mantra that life is a gift and it's WRONG to kill yourself. So.... people who breed are forcing people to come into a world where almost everything is screaming at them that, no matter how bad it gets, they have to keep struggling through life until nature decides it's time to go. I think that's a mighty grave thing to do: force someone to exist, and tell them it's not ok to depart on their own terms. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of people in this world who are truly happy to have been born, but HOW DO YOU KNOW that YOUR child will be one of them? Hmm????

A little tangent if I may?

Suicide and breeding have a lot of elements in common, as contrary as that sounds. Ending life or starting life -- doesn't matter which one it is -- can be the biggest and grandest expression of 'screw you all'.

When people end their own lives, they do so because of all sorts of problems with their relationships with others. They are damaged and can't cope with being in the front-line -- with having to deal with society's expectations (and their own) that they're going to Be Somebody. They don't feel listened-to and don't feel as if they receive enough of the right kind of attention. They don't feel they can contribute any more, or they feel that they've done everything there is to do with this shell of a person and so they do away with themselves. They often do it out of a weird sense of revenge ("I'll kill myself and THAT'll show 'em!") and spend a lot of time fantasizing what their family/friends will say when they hear the news of their death.

Likewise, when people have children, they do so because they're influenced by their relationships with other people -- good, bad, indifferent. Many of them cannot cope with poor relationships and so they turn to pregnancy to try to patch things up or strengthen ties. Or cut ties, if they know the pregnancy is going to drive certain other people away. They crave what they believe is the right kind of attention. They can't cope with being in the front-line -- with having to deal with society's expectations that THEY should be the one to cure cancer, or become a famous actress, or earn a quadrillion dollars before they're 25. They realise they're not going to Be Somebody and that they've done everything there is to do with this shell of a person, and so they pass the baton by having kids ("here, I've had it, YOU try!"). They might do it out of a weird sense of revenge ("I'll get pregnant and THEN you'll be sorry!") and spend a lot of time fantasizing what their family/friends will say when they hear the news of their pregnancy.

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"The death of creativity is a pram in the hallway"
- Cyril Connolly

If you're only interested in which one is more "selfish", I'd have to say they're probably about equal when average the full spectrum of possible scenarios. However, if you're wondering which one does more damage to those other than the selfish person in question, it really depends on the circumstance. If a person with no family, no friends, no possessions and no responsibilities chooses to throw himself into the ocean and get eaten by a shark, or throw himself into a 1000 degree (celsius OR fahrenheit is irrelevant at those temperatures) incinerator, then it's probably less damaging than two people creating another human being to suck up the planet's already scarce resources and create more mess than we already have. But killing yourself, even if just one creature loves or depends on you....that's pretty damaging right there.