Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/Suicide/Suffocation

Suicide/Suffocation
Can I request a delete for this "Suicide Manual"

This book is irresponsible and dangerous. Here are some examples of the dangerous information and positive encouragement to commit suicide it contains.


 * "The plastic bag (Suicide bag) has been suggested in Final Exit and has been suggested many times on the ASH and ASM newsgroups. The basic principles were supposed to be quite simple, and thus it made the method seem easy to apply and less complex than other methods, which contributed to its popularity."


 * "Death by inhalation of Inert gas is not detectable through any known toxicity test, beyond the signs of suffocation. Only a witness or materials left in the scene can confirm the inhalation as a cause of death."

So just from the two examples we see dangerous advice as "contributed to its popularity" and "only a witness... can confirm the inhalation as a cause of death". So this manual says certain suicide methods are popular but make sure no one is around to witness you committing suicide.

If those two examples are not enough to justify deletion then I humbly ask you to read the rest of this Suicide Manual.

Please may I make a delete request for this irresponsible book.

Here's the link to the bookː

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Suicide/Suffocation

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 23:43, 28 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Have you studied the two previous RFD discussions for that book, and why it survived both of them? --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 01:23, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

No. I don't really care how they justify the inclusion of this Suicide Manual. I have studied philosophy for decades and I really cannot be bothered anymore directing people to the philosophical question of responsible and ethical actions. None of us can ever be perfect and we can never create a perfect world that would please everyone. If it has to be kept then keep it. There is no ethical basis for its existence so whatever reasons were given must be outside the scope of ethics. All I can say is read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and then get back to me for a more informed discussion. As an Anarchist I find that the actions of the American branch of Anonymous are actually similar to the people they perceive as the enemy - one example is Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology - beliefs put into practice in ways that are sometimes destructive and sometimes constructive. Believe what you want. Whatever makes you happy. There are just groups of monkeys calling themselves humans who engage in primate conflict over identity, resources and boundary. Taliban monkeys, American Monkeys, Chinese Monkeys, I'm a Monkey, You are a Monkey. So keep the Suicide Manual written by a certain Monkey because some other Monkeys decided that their group dynamics over-rides the ethical consideration of the individual Monkey who may turn to this manual because they have formed a belief that to commit suicide is to escape the pain of being a Monkey. The day you delete this insidious book is the day you take the first step to being truly human.

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 03:34, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Your own statements negate the knowledge you claim to have in regards to the "philosophy of responsible and ethical actions". --Panic (discuss • contribs) 04:14, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * per Requests for deletion/Suicide & Requests for deletion/Suicide (2). JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 07:19, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

To Panic2k4. Oh no you don't get away with a statement without proof. How does my view of the evolved higher functions of a group of primates who have abstracted their needs and desires to beyond the instinctive negate my comment. Just because we have developed language and various other advanced forms of primate functions does not mean that the core primate need is removed. We live in primate families who then form primate societies for the purpose that exists in all primates - survival. So I ask you again "what is the positive purpose of this book" and "what educational value does it impart" - both are the mission statements of Wikibooks. So unless you have all decided that Wikibooks should not follow its own mission statement I can only suggest that we are all at the moment displaying a rather playful aspect of primate dominance over each other with this book and the debate around it being a prime example of our abstract higher functions. Primates in the wild do not commit suicide by placing a plastic bag over their head or write books about it. When you all decide to stop monkeying around and delete this negative book that is not in keeping with Wikibook's mission statement then I will say that you have all been admirably human in your abstraction with regards to the application of our evolved higher functions.

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 13:36, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Panic may have something else in mind, but it looks to me as if you're whining about people who don't bother to learn about what they're mouthing off about, at the same time you are explicitly not bothering to learn about what you're mouthing off about. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:17, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm not whining or mouthing off. I read the RFC on the two previous delete discussions and the issue on both was based around NPOV. The issue I'm trying to raise is that the Suicide Manual may be within the scope of the rules set out for these books being included but the rules are not the issue. The issue is ethical because the book is about Suicide. Now we are not dealing with a CDC report (by the way the CDC episode of the Walking Dead with Dr Jenner is also about this ethical dilemma of suicide - and you thought it was just a zombie series.) on suicides because most Wikibook editors are not experts employed in that field. So let me put it to you a different way. I have for years edited the Guitar book here but the worse thing that can happen to an individual who follows it is that they become a better musician. There is no ethical dilemma in the Guitar book but there is in the Suicide Manual. If you were to attempt, or encourage someone else to attempt, some of the methods given in the Suicide Manual even as joke with no intention of death there is still the danger that death may occur accidentally. The issue is ethical and in my opinion it is unethical to allow a ten year old child to read a book where he may then take a bag and try the method on a two year old child. Children do not rationalize upon the images they see. The debate we are having now would have no bearing on a ten year old looking at the picture of the boy with a bag around his head. Look if we delete this book then it must be made clear that this is not because an adult would be in danger it is because pre-puberty childhood has an incomplete filtering system for moral and ethical issues.

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 18:42, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * So let's just display a logo on this book (and Marijuana Cultivation by the way). JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


 * No. That is not the issue. Cast your mind back to being eight and ten. What sort of books did you read? It is difficult to see your current self in that light because as adults we have coalesced our knowledge and experience to form our adult persona. This adult persona may be different from another adult's persona but essentially our childhood has ended. When I read the "Earthsea" trilogy at the age of ten or eleven the evil mist really did roll into the village and the young Ged showed his magic power by turning the mist back. I wanted to be Ged - I wanted that power - I wanted to name things to have power over them. So I ask you one adult to another do we really want to create a generation of eight to ten old children who consider personal power to be expressed in the fashion shown in this book?

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 21:29, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I disagree that suicide can be unethical (that is the suicide that results from a clear mind, the book does explicitly call attention that most suicides are from people with mental illness, even covers some of the triggers). All ethical considerations involving someone's death effect on others is trumped by the right to self-determination (as a fellow anarchist you should value that) and the book also covers altruistic suicide (self sacrifice). Now assisted suicide/euthanasia can indeed be problematic ethically as it results from the actions of a third party (not that the ethical issues can't be mitigated but that is another discussion).
 * What I now get from your further comments is that you think the book subject itself has ethical problem and that would be simply solved by its deletion. To that I say the benefits outweigh the negatives, and it has been proven historical that the deletion of knowledge is never positive, but even from a simple educational view point, the prevention of accidents or even to help someone think about its actions and its consequences would be better that conform to the social silence/shame around the issue. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 22:51, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In re: "All ethical considerations involving someone's death effect on others is trumped by the right to self-determination":   I doubt that you've thought through this, or perhaps it was just a careless overstatement.  This statement is completely untrue.  Your right to self-determination does not trump the right of a train crew to not have nightmares about the selfish suicidal idiot who deliberately jumped in front of the train.  Suicide by vehicle isn't acceptable if anyone else gets hurt (or even scared).  Or risk the lives of the Search and Rescue people who have to fish your body out of the water.  Or make someone else clean up the mess you left behind when you shoot yourself.  Or cause trauma when someone unexpectedly finds your dead body.  Your right to kill yourself does not "trump" these considerations.  The right to "self" determination does not encompass determining nightmares, injuries, extra work, expenses and risks for "others".  Once you affect "other" people in any non-trivial way, it's no longer merely "self" determination.  You might consider striking or qualifying your previous statement.  WhatamIdoing (discuss • contribs) 18:37, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree, but if you want to debate it more move this to the book's talk (its better that in our own talk pages). But for sake of other reading, I state that personal liberty and right of self-determination is not the same thing, one has limits the other doesn't but they collide on choosing ways of expression. In any case the examples you chose above place the blame of the impact and action on society in general not specifically on the suicidal. Consider the simple fact that it may have been by lack of knowledge on how to do it in a safer way (if the person was rational, if not then even less blame can be attributed to the actor)... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

No. That is not the issue. I state again what is your ethical duty as an adult towards young people (think Little Pony stage) who will view the image of that stupid teenager who considered it fun to post a simulated suicide using a plastic bag over his head. Are you children or adults? There is no argument about knowledge being available - it will always be available for adults and since every one normally becomes an adult it is then not a subject about adult reactions to this book. It is always a question of what is your ethical duty as an adult in relation to children. We have customs or laws that determine the age of an adult but I don't think that any of us are really qualified in that area. So unless you can guarantee that this sick image, posted by an individual who needed the protection I am suggesting now at an earlier time in his life, will not have the same impact then I suggest we delete the book. Unless I am speaking to that idiot then I suggest we remove the image as a compromise - a small step to avoid any morbid fascination with the subject developing in very young minds.

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 01:21, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I oppose censorship. The presentation of the case for this RFD isn't just censorship, it's censorship promoted using troll tactics.  The nomination does not, of course, necessarily lack merit just because it's being promoted via trolling, but that manner of promotion does both cripple the proponent's ability to present a reasonable argument, and render it substantially a waste of time for others to assemble carefully reasoned arguments on the other side (since a skilled BSer can always inexpensively respond with more BS).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 02:01, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * lol. So when no one wants to accept their own responsibility towards others the argument is turned into the accusation of "you are making me think and therefore you are wasting my time using duplicitous methods because I would have to waste time arguing back which would only make you argue back even more". I think my method of engaging strangers is a lot safer and more ethical than presenting an image of myself with a plastic bag around my head in a simulated suicide. So the issue for you is meǃ Evidently my arguments cripple me - in reality I think there is more chance of that happening if I put a plastic bag around my head. Censorship is not the issue because I've already offered a compromise based on the removal of just the image and the leaving of the text. Remember this is not about you or the other editors here. It is not about me. It is about us - all of us.

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 14:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You seem to reduce this book impact to a bad influence, but there isn't any picture to encourage anyone to suicide in real life, telling that it's cool and that you really have to test this method because it doesn't hurt. This book looks more like the French Wikiversity psychology thesis to understand the children suicide (and maybe prevent it). JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 14:56, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The image has been removed by Pi zero. Top man. Choice is the freedom to act in the interests of everyone. When people tell you that you do not have the choice to act then we reach an impasse. I am so glad that Pi zero exercised his freedom to act in the interests of others. It is only because individuals are allowed to act upon their own volition and conscience that freedom is preserved. Do not wait for permission to create a better world. Just do it.

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 18:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

When I say in the interests of everyone I mean Pi zero has taken a universal ethical position. Sorry did not want anyone to think this was about the editors here. Wikibooks is a world-wide site that on the whole can be accessed most places. We are so used to limiting our view of this site as an English first-language phenomena that we can forget that a ten year Japanese child with no English can visit the English section of this site just as we can visit the Japanese section. I doubt any of us speak Japanese so images would be about the only thing we could apply our attention to. Pi zero has acted in a way that has an impact across the world. The internet is still growing. Eighty percent take-up in the USA and Europe but in many places around fifty percent. Some countries about forty percent or even lower. Long way to go yet.

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 18:37, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I fail to see the basis on which the request is founded. I have read quite some time ago, the educational value of a book relies on the knowledge it provides (i.e. a book is educational in the sense that it provides knowledge). Each individual may find the book's positive purpose within his own convictions, or at least acknowledge a fellow reader might. The effort invested by the authors should not be neglected. I do suggest a NPOV revision. Vito Francisco 03:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)