For a teenager like him absolutely. His reasoning almost certainly had one small flaw.

For older people (or those with sever chronic conditions) there's a paradox that the practical difficulties of comitting suicide can increase the reasonableness of committing suicide. This is because we reach a point where we have trouble retaining the ability to do it later.

I take from the thread that is it not possible to come up some equation like this.

You can "come up [with] some equation." There are whole industries that take metrics and put numbers to them. For example:

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

The US has a "Life Satisfaction Score" of 7.5/10. But what does it really mean?

Life EV = number of times one has sex/week - X times the number of times one fills up the car/month

This is an equation. If you tell me the values I can spit out a positive or negative number should X be nonnegative. It is "objective" in this sense. But it isn't very good because there is little reason to think this mathematical calculation actually represents anything meaningful outside of picking out an enjoyable and a not enjoyable thing that people regularly do. Further, I added this parameter "X" to illustrate that for every such X I get a slightly different formula, one that is "weighted" differently. There is no clear answer to what X should be. I can assert some value or other, to get different weightings, but it is all very arbitrary.

So no, the criticism is not that it is not possible to come up with an equation for life EV. I can come up with any number. It is that there is no reason to believe they meaningfully measure something that answers a question like "should I kill myself?".

Only if your life has 0 value. You lose the value of your life with a probability of 1. It's not like the EV of folding where you gain 0 with probability 1.

Because I want to have some idea on the optimal strategy to life. That is to say I have spent 29 years living a sad pathetic miserable life and I don't have the first clue as to the what the best strategy is and I don't know if life is worth pursuing or not. Obviously I don't get it for you guys its easy to see why life has a value but for me its a complete mystery.

I was used to be a teenager once, I used to drink and get drunk, yeah and I hated every second of it, waking up in some random person flat hungover and being sick, having an empty wallet as I rush to work knowing I'm going to be late and get chewed out by the boss. Then I try and work through the hangover and I feel worse. Yes I have been there, and this is good to you guys? I mean........what the ****...I do not get it, and that's not even to describe what stupid terrible things I did when I was out.

What were you drinking?

I keep telling people it matters, perhaps you can help me on my mission.

Plus of course many of us are in a state of heightened anticipation, almost bubbling over with joy at the mere thought that 35 days of the ashes summer starts tomorrow (<<<<<<). But that's advanced happiness skills, lets start with your drinking problem.

At 29 you'd think I'd know better
Living like a kid
When my lies may seem less than clever
Is when I fall for it

Some rides don't have much of a finish
That's the ride I took
Through good and bad and straight through indifference
Without a second look

There's no intentions worthy of mention
If we never try
So hang your hopes on rusted-out hinges
Take 'em for a ride

Only time will tell if wishing wells
Would bring us anything
Or fade like scenes from childhood dreams
Forgotten memories

I have tried lots of different drinks over a period of time because like you chezlaw, people tell me to drink or do drugs. I cant get a hold of drugs I don't know anybody like that it my area.

I was drinking jack daniels that particular night. But I went through stages of experiment different drinks because I thought there has to be a drink out there that I like to drink. Cocktails, any number of different beers, gin, vodka, tequila....it didnt matter because I do not like to drink. After the first glass its all down hill, then it becomes sickening, I dont know how many times I have left my drink at the bar because I didnt want it anymore, or how many times I have poured it down the sink when no one was looking at a house party, the only I time I drink is to be social and thats like half a beer and its not often I go out to a bar or house party.

If your life has been sad and pathetic, then it seems to me that your optimal strategy (seeming as how you have intimated that you don't like it this way) would be to make your life happy and cheerful. Only you would know how to do this but I think cutting back on the booze and getting into a stable relationship might be a start.

That's the point. That's (one of the reasons) why suicide could never be the logical answer because whatever negative value your have in your equation could always be subbed out for a positive. You just have to be willing to make the change.

I do not drink that was a long time ago when I was young, I hate drinking then and I hate drinking now. and I already am in a stable relationship so thats not a start, that not anything, thats nothing, thats a complete waste of time.

I was just going by what you wrote in your post.

You said your life is sad and pathetic. Ok. Attempt to identify what is sad and pathetic about your life, why that is, and take steps to change those things.

I'm not telling you to. I'm telling you it makes a difference how you do it.

Its a massive help if the drink itself is extremely pleasurable, you're list suggests you never got that. I suspect its true for everything else you do and is the source of you're "sad miserable pathetic life".

To be a bit buddist for a moment - there's no path to happiness, you need to find a happy path.

what is a pleasurable drink then? and what do you mean it makes a difference how I do it?

Some of my connections have gotten word that the kid was depressed, figured that depression is the average state of being alive and decided to kill himself.

This sort of thing happens fairly regularly.

A pleasurable drink is one that you find pleasurable. The best anyone can tell you is what they have found to be pleasurable, and the best you can do is make a decision whether to trust that their taste is similar enough to yours for it to be worth trying.

Pretty much the same is true for everything in life.

What I have found is that people who whine about their lives have sad pathetic miserable lives. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy. It makes the nice people who would be enjoyable to hang around with wander away, leaving you in the company of either just yourself (at best) or in the company of unpleasant people (at worst). Up to you to decide though - No one in the entire world really cares either way.

I mean it makes a difference what you drink to get drunk.

That might vary. Having done much research I confidently claim that a good pint of bitter is optimal (plenty of other options though they all have in common that they're not the mass produced crap). The rise in happiness level of a group of bitter drinkers after their first gulp of a great beer is something to behold especially beering (sic) in micd that they're fairly happy pre-gulp having just arrived at the pub. Slightly contradicting something I said earlier, this requires some work, bitter is an aquired taste for most and many people seem scared at the idea of stuff they can taste.

Doesn't have to be bitter, money no object I might well go for a great white wine, some cheaper red wines, decent whisk(e)y etc.

Other foods/drink things that work are spicy food, strong smelly cheeses, milk chocolate etc. I suspect the common factor is the release of something fancy in the brain department - science is catching up but they haven't put in the hard graft I have.

Great thing is they can all be combined (a lot) though if you enjoy other things then you might have to achieve some balance - that's where hedonism comes in juggling all the different things we like.


Decent weed seems to work completely differently to food/drink but does the job. If I were miserable on a persistant basis and the above didn't work then weed would be a no brainer.

There's just no excuse to be a miserable bastard unless its clinical in which case the doc can give you some serious happy pills.

I'm willing to be that in as far as this is meaningful it isn't true. Their are measurable factors involved and we can make useful predictions.

I read that part of his 'calculation' stated he wasn't depressed.

But I think we would be pretty suprised if some psychiatrists didn't suspect/conclude he was depressed. What else are they going to say?

Not sure how much of either of those is related to whether he was depressed or not.

For someone at Robin's level of difference from us, it is true as true can be.

Perky tits are nice, but if you don't like that sort of thing, the measurements just don't matter. I prefer to not be the person who points and stares and browbeats the person who doesn't appreciate them.

Nah, it said he was "stoical." Of course, if he was, he clearly did it wrong.

There are tons of psychologists (and ex-psychologists) who think that suicide is a valid move. Granted, that includes me, so that doesn't mean that much as far as quantity of psychologists to get to the first ton.

Maybe, I doubt it though. We dont take that view with other things, if say endorphins or similar are caused more by bitter than lager then bitter is more likely to make him feel good.

That's just one factor, I strongly suspect there are others that are also predictible.

I cant now find anything more on the interweb than "That the good was outweighed by the bad and that it would just be a matter of time before he would start to experience that first-hand, which could inevitably lead to a depression which would lead him to kill himself anyway." which may have been what I was recalling somewhat incorrectly and it may well be balderdash anyway.

That's a bit different. Even if we just consider pyschologists who believe it wasn't a valid move (which is probably near enough all of them in this case) should we expect a psychologists to say other than he was depressed.

What are the other possibilities?

No different than "Chez, my dear, if you put on a tie, the girls will like you and suck your dick."

My life is better and better every day. In a few more years I will be up to my earlobes in bliss.

Some can't help it and just don't see the joke to it all. I suspect those are the same people that drink to get drunk. They are also the self-tortured youth of every generation, or those that vote with earnestness, or give money to food funds, or read Plato and think it all so serious.

Calculations are useful - they are most useful in electrical engineering, theoretical physics, heat transfer equations, etc - much less so, to not at all in "solving" life questions (except actuarially if you feel inclined).

Tomorrow I could be run over by a beer truck and killed. And I think that a good ending to a silly joke. Going for my nightcap of single-malt Scotch before opening a good book for a leisurely read before sweet sleep.

See you jokers on the flip-flop..........

Somewhat different. if you said 'tie wearing increases dick suckage by girls' then it would be the same sort of statement. Much tougher to research though.

Its wierd. I give you something well worth researching and easy to research and you seem to be reluctant.

I don't decide things that matter Brian, things happen and I deal with them. I don't expect you to understand this because I know you will harp on about taking responsibility of my own life (which I find ironic because I never asked for it).