Suicide Should Be Painless
Here is your humble author again trying to think outside the box for new climate change mitigations. I haven’t heard from Amy Klobuchar’s people yet about my fascism suggestion, but I’ve come up with another idea. This one isn’t comprehensive, but we need an all-of-the-above approach to the problem, and this could be one piece.
Since climate change, and resource usage overshoot in general, is driven by overpopulation, I believe now is a time that we should encourage suicide. Certainly killing myself will lower my carbon footprint more than reusable soda straws and my Electric Vehicle. Not only will my resource consumption cease, but I can even give back to the earth if I select a natural burial.
Let me be clear: I am not suggesting any kind of eugenics or anything of that ilk. I’m just saying that people who would prefer to shuffle off this mortal coil should be encouraged to do so. It turns out there are lots of people who see life as futile and would just as soon be done with it. (Check out this Harry Seitz Medium story, “I’m Done”, and be sure to scan the comments.) Why must we as a society insist that these people are wrong, and that they must not commit suicide? Suicide or attempted suicide is even a crime in some places. Isn’t that pretty counter-productive, in view of the world’s overpopulation problem? Can we turn the prevailing attitude around, such that suicide is considered a noble act helping to save the planet? Those who suicide are heroes! After all, if a soldier dying in foreign country while killing people who never did them any wrong is a hero, why not also the earth-saving act of suicide?
I hear you objecting that if suicide is encouraged rather than taboo, it will cause many people who are marginally or temporarily suicidal to go, when they in fact have a productive and maybe even happy life ahead of them. (Though a happy life is going to be increasingly difficult in the coming decades.) In fact, some people who are not suicidal at all will go just so they can be heroes. Many elderly or sickly people may go not because they have given up on life, but because they feel they are burdens on their loved ones. If we begin seriously encouraging suicide, you say, many people will go who would be better off staying. Well, I’m going to turn my heart to stone and answer, “So what?” No matter how inappropriate the suicide, it still helps the earth. It still mitigates climate change. Many millions—nay, billions—of innocents are going to die anyway due to climate change. We might as well take what we can get with suicides.
If you, like me, are of a certain age, you are probably thinking of the 1972 Charleton Heston movie Soylent Green. (And oh yes, there appears to be a remake in production now. Of course.) The movie is based on the Harry Harrison sci-fi novel “Make Room! Make Room!” and also features the final movie role of the wonderful Edward G. Robinson. In homage, I ask you to read the rest of this article in E.G.R.’s famous gangster voice. The story is set in a near future, see, where overpopulation has made everywhere just plain overcrowded, yeah, see? Well, they got that wrong. The actual problem with overpopulation is resource consumption, not crowding. Nevertheless, part of the response to the problem is that suicide is encouraged. In fact, the government runs suicide booths easily accessible in any city. You lay back in a comfy lounge, sign some release forms, and then relax with some calming music and beautiful nature scenery displayed on the booth’s giant video screen. After a bit you fall asleep and never wake up. (Here’s the Radiohead version if you want a good cry.) The government disposes of your body … well, let’s not get into that part. So why not? If we need to reduce the population, why not? In fact, the movie’s shocking conclusion (which I won’t spoil) has even begun to seem reasonable to me.
Soylent Green is not the only imagined future with suicide booths, either.
Why don’t Harry Seitz and I and all the other futility-believers just off ourselves? I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but at least a good part of the reason is because I’ve been taught my whole life that suicide is taboo. What if it wasn’t? What if I could go down to my local suicide booth and gracefully take my leave? And society would thank me for it? Would I do it? Maybe.
They say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. They say that in order to get us to focus on the temporary nature of human problems, and that things are bound to get better if we only hold on. But guess what? Climate change is not a temporary problem. It will continue to be a badass and worsening problem as long as I live, if I live to be 100. (33 more years, if you are counting.) So maybe we should focus instead on the “permanent solution” part of the aphorism. It would certainly end climate change (and climate change anxiety) for me.
Suicide is painless! Do it for your country! Do it for Mother Earth! Do it for your own permanent peace of mind.
—Lannie Rose 7/30/2022
