Zierro

For some, it is a simple matter of sucking it up. I speak from experience. As for it being cowardly, you're running away from your problems instead of facing them. I think cowardly might be too harsh of a word though. How are you to ever talk someone out of it if you don't point out how foolish of an idea it is? Well of course it's more likely. Something I forgot to bring up earlier though - there is no such thing as a perfect model brain. If two systems that are hardwired into your brain conflict with each other, and one overpowers the other, I just can't possibly see how that implies a fault in your brain. In fact, doesn't that commonly happen amongst human beings? (Especially with the mixing of genetics?)

Reported. :shame: OT: Not something that really annoyed me as much as it made me lol, but the people in RS who would announce that they reported someone.

I know it's not something you can really "prove", but I doubt you have proof that nobody has ever been talked out of suicide either. All we can really do is make inferences here. Some people feel a lot better about life after talking about their contemplation (or even attempts) of suicide to counselors, family members, or friends. Sometimes it makes them feel good enough to stop having suicidal tendencies after that. Suicide hotlines probably wouldn't exist if they were never successful. Some people even straight up announce that they've been helped, and it's a far stretch to call each and every one of them a liar. As for ending up doing it later, you still would have talked them out of committing suicide at that one point in time. You at least prevented that suicide. But let me get this straight... Are you saying that if someone talks about wanting to commit suicide, no one should bother helping them at all because they've already made up their mind? I've heard that in a lot of cases it's a cry for help. That really just comes down to opinion. Just because someone thinks that someone else has utilized bad logic, that doesn't necessarily mean there is an objective fault with their brain. My point was that you use more brainpower contemplating suicide than you do "physically struggling for life".

I see that happen often in MMT and VGC but that's not happening here. We just exchanged our personal opinions on different games. Video game preference is far too subjective to have a serious debate over... I just want to share my perceptions on certain games and hear about his because it's interesting to know what others like/dislike about games. Ha, I actually liked the [cabbage]-gray/brown atmosphere of Gears. It seemed fitting. The layouts for some of the levels were terrible though. This is something I give Halo more credit for - a better environment. I just have more fun taking down Gears enemies because it's more of a challenge to me than Halo's were. I like them both, just for different reasons.

I meant me owning a cellphone. I don't care if others have them. Although, I do agree with halo2proman.

I think he was referring to the biological urge to fight off or avoid things that endanger your life rather than rationale and logic: Here's an example of the biological urge to defend your life versus rationality: A deer gets caught in a trap and continuously tries squirming around to get free, even though his legs are broken from the trap and he is going to die within days regardless of if he gets free. The animal's brain is working correctly according to Dan's argument. However, if a human were in that situation, tried pulling the trap apart, noticed he was getting nowhere, and then thought "Why waste the energy? I'm going to rot here no matter what," this is supposedly the brain not working correctly. There's more brainpower being used there than with the deer's case. Note: This isn't an analogy about suicide. It's about the human's will to survive. Yeah, in death, which isn't where you'll be making the decision. Not even if they signed for Orlando Magic? Woot, what a joke!! \:D/ (Wow, I'm very angry that the Dance Smilie turns into that. [On second thought, I kind of like it...])

Owning a cellphone. It's not that I don't enjoy socializing - one of my favorite activities is talking to people. I'd just much rather converse face to face for some reason.

But it has been done before. Brains react to certain stimuli in certain ways. Of course some people won't be swayed, and some might even get worse, but there are certain cases where that very thing you just said has been successful about changing people's minds about suicide. It's a whole different ballpark though. Having a concept go over your head isn't really a "choice" or "action" that you "do" anymore than having a bird fly over you is. We, as humans, are also hardwired to think logically and philosophically and this seems to be the most prevalent way of getting to that "solution" of suicide. Coming to that solution might be bad logic, but it is still logic nonetheless. "I am suffering. I want to end my suffering. I know that suicide ends suffering. I want to commit suicide." In this case, the brain part of the equation seems to be working on a more advanced level than the biological reflex to avoid danger.

We do. By saying, "their brain made them do it," you are separating the 'brain' entity from the 'self' entity. By doing that, you're pretty much saying nothing is ever our fault, nobody should ever be to blame, nobody should ever feel proud, etc. Basically, society breaks down if everybody believed that they were a puppet with no control over their actions. "It was not them - it was their brain!" I know somebody who had a suicide in the family, and it still haunts them frequently. Also, there's been people who've committed suicide because someone they cared about has committed suicide first. What's your take on "moving on" for them? I understand that the composition of our brains can cause us to have certain predispositions. However, our bodies do not go on autopilot, grab the closest knife, and start stabbing at your heart. (It might have happened once or twice, but it's definitely not the cause of the vast majority of suicides.) It's the difference between uncontrollable thoughts racing through our minds and uncontrollable actions emitting from our bodies. Suicides are usually contemplated by the individual, not caused by body spasms. By the way, I don't see how this line magically appears when dealing with suicide, but not homicides.

A conscious person contemplating suicide will be faced with the dilemma, "Should I make my family suffer or not?" It is relevant to you at the time of making that choice. By pointing a gun at yourself and pulling the trigger, you just consciously made the choice to cause anyone who cared about you to suffer. Also, how do you know what happens when you die? Yeah, yeah, everything we do is based off of self-interest. Which one do you think is more selfish though? Not wanting to see a loved one's dead body and deal with the loss of someone you cared for, or not wanting to deal with your depression? (Don't forget that people have been depressed for some of the most ridiculous reasons, such as losing their Runescape accounts.) Unless their life scenario they have to face is really that dark, the vast majority of suicides are unwarranted, sometimes even ridiculous. So basically humans aren't accountable for anything they do because it's their brain's fault? Way to pick and choose who can and cannot "move on", especially after bringing up the point that you can't really know the way someone thinks or perceives things.

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Are you really defending the enemies in Halo? :-? My friend and I just had a discussion yesterday about how much they suck. In Halo 3 and ODST Legendary, I just zoomed through the enemies. (Halo 2 was different, but they just amped up their shields and made it almost impossible to get through because you just simply didn't have enough ammo to progress through, even if you never missed. In other words, they took the lazy approach to creating a "challenge".) The only enemies I actually enjoyed taking down would be Hunters and vehicles. Killing everything else was a completely tedious grind. I agree about Mass Effect though. The only enemies that were an actual threat were the ones that pushed you out of cover. Even in the Insanity mode, over half of the game was just duck, shoot, duck, shoot. As for Gears, there's a lot more to that game than just taking cover. PS: Gears 3 looks ten times better than Halo Reach. :-w

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Too true. <_< I'd also have to say the entire Locust army from Gears of War.

So unbelievably true. Age =/= maturity. It makes a difference in it, but they aren't the same thing. (If that's the point you were getting at.) Yeah, age typically shows how a person should/will act, but there's definitely exceptions to that rule. I'm surprised that Lenticular is as young as he is.

Yep, I can notice a handsome man, just as I can notice a cute puppy or cat, but that doesn't mean I have any sexual desire for them.

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Your experiences aren't hardwired to age. A 15-year-old could have had more life changing experiences and lessons learned than a 60-year-old. Honestly, the whole age correlation is one of the poorest things I've heard of.

I'm like the exact opposite. I think it's nice, but it's just on one of the lower tiers compared to most other things.