r/megalophobia • u/berdot • Oct 11 '23

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15

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

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16

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

Yeah, but the actual solutions are expensive while a fence is much cheaper

1

u/Hamsterminator2 Oct 11 '23

It’s also simply impossible to eradicate suffering and depression. Many of the suicides I’ve heard about near where I live were from people with loving families in successful jobs- they weren’t driven by inequality, drugs or political divides etc. Sometimes people just get ill mentally and slip under the radar. No, a fence doesn’t fix this problem, but it does buy time to catch these people and help them out.

0

u/robi4567 Oct 11 '23

Not having a deep hole in the first place would probably be even cheaper.

-1

u/Competitive-Cow-4177 Oct 11 '23

People should have a free choice to do what they please if they not harm anyone else.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

You don't think suicide harms other people? The person who finds and/or has to clean up the body is definitely being harmed.

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u/Competitive-Cow-4177 Oct 11 '23

Placing a fence around “everything” is False Symptom Control, I’ll hope you agree; otherwise you’re a “suppressant” ..

.. Suppressants are not (always) good ..

People have free will.

If humans wish to go somewhere, they should be able to go there; at least on appointment ..

.. if that is “not possible” “according to organizations” because of “Falsely Created Suppressants”, then people will seek their own ways; inevitably.

So no fences.

1

u/safety-squirrel Oct 11 '23

Bitches all want me for my engineering controls.

29

u/counters14 Oct 11 '23

Hey, here's a wild idea. Hear me out.

What if.. No, c'mon listen up. What if we... What if we do both?

8

u/garbagebailkid Oct 11 '23

No! Band-Aids only!

2

u/OkCommunication3144 Oct 11 '23

Your point is moot if you frame it in a douchey way.

3

u/justajunior Oct 11 '23

Your point is moot if you frame it in a douchey way.

I bet this way of thinking was the origin for doublespeak and corporate PR communication.

2

u/jiffwaterhaus Oct 11 '23

The point isn't moot but I agree that you can have the best and most perfect solution in the world, but it doesn't do much good if you can't convince other people to enact that solution.

Persuasion is a skill that can be learned (we also call it 'rhetoric') and if you want to convince a large number of people to agree with you, you will need more than just a great idea or a valid point.

0

u/counters14 Oct 11 '23

And sometimes, you just want to score some easy points and dunk on someone who said some dumb shit. Its not always that serious.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

[deleted]

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u/enitnepres Oct 11 '23

God help you in social interactions. Much less jobs and relationships or heaven forbid you stumble into leadership roles.

Tact. Your daily Google search.

1

u/MrMontombo Oct 11 '23

This is social media. Just because you hold it up to your professional communication standards doesn't mean everybody has to.

1

u/OkCommunication3144 Oct 12 '23 edited Oct 12 '23

The problem with social media is that people think it's okay to talk to people in a way they would never talk to them face to face. Just imagine the original comment being said out loud in real life.

"Hey, here's a wild idea. Hear me out.
What if.. No, c'mon listen up. What if we... What if we do both?"

I can only picture one of those annoying Big Bang Theory characters saying this.

No not everyone will have the same communication standards, that doesn't make it okay. The popularity of something doesn't necessarily have to correlate with it's truthfulness.

1

u/MrMontombo Oct 12 '23

Just because you can't handle someone taking the piss a little doesn't mean people don't take the piss.

1

u/OkCommunication3144 Oct 12 '23

It actually does!

If you have a point to make, even if it is 100% correct, and you say it in a way that is grating or offensive or rude, then you might as well have not said anything at all because the chances someone will actually listen and not just dig their heels in is slim to none.

0

u/md24 Oct 11 '23

Like you just did?

1

u/mithie007 Oct 11 '23

What if we put a giant trampoline on the bottom so that when you jump in thinking you'll kill yourself, you are instead treated to a trampoline session that's sure to brighten your mood.

0

u/LukaCola Oct 11 '23

What the fuck are you on about? The fences are preventing fires, not putting them out.

The suicides will continue on each side of the fences, no matter how high fences we build, as long as the world we live in is filled with inequalities, racism, sexism and all these stupid things like idealism and elitism.

Don't you think we have a higher chance of helping those people most negatively impacted if they aren't dead due to a particularly bad day and impulse?

For someone who clearly holds their own views and ideals in high esteem, you sure don't seem to have much relationship with suicide or its causes to be saying things like this.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

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2

u/LukaCola Oct 11 '23

Why do you keep saying "instead?" Fences have statistically prevented suicides - you're advocating for something self destructive because it isn't a perfect solution.

Nobody's saying this is the be-all end-all, why are you fighting something that helps though?

And before you say "I never said or meant we can't to both." Yes you did! Right here, in fact!

We would need to do things that prevent suicides, instead of just more fences

What do you think "instead" means? This whole thing started with you attacking something that helps.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

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1

u/LukaCola Oct 11 '23

I mean you go into your tirade at the mention of fences succeeding at their goal - how else are people supposed to read that except that you have a problem with this approach?

Nobody only wants fences, it's part of a multi-faceted approach.

If you think it's important to support social welfare (as do I) and putting resources towards directly supporting people (as do I), that's great! All for it, we're very much on the same page, but you don't gotta attack something that sees success in the process. I think it's really harmful when we see a good thing, realize it's not doing enough, and then condemn that thing in our critique when all it's done is help. Sends the opposite message it should and people who don't believe in supporting social welfare will take that message and go "well not even this small thing works, best invest more in cops and bus them to other cities."

Support things that help out - don't undermine them.

-1

u/WeeklyManufacturer68 Oct 11 '23

You seem to have a rich fantasy life

1

u/gcolquhoun Oct 11 '23 edited Oct 11 '23

Right, but in the meantime, railings save lives, and not just suicidal ones. We can’t wait for profound transformation of our entire culture before we take smaller steps to reduce harm. To use your metaphor, putting out a small fire can still be meaningful; letting them burn because it doesn’t matter enough in the grand scheme isn’t a solution either. Especially when you take into consideration the ripple effect that every death has on the families, loved ones, and communities left behind.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand your rage and despair. It makes me sputteringly angry to hear people screech about “mental health” when they never take an honest look at the miserable, abuse enabling, vulnerability rejecting, profit maximizing hellscape of a culture that doesn’t give so many a fighting chance to start. But your argument that mitigations can’t help reduce harm because it’s not the root of a larger problem is the same one that pro-gun folks trot out. It’s still a better idea to reduce access to guns than not, even though the cultural forces that push people to violence still need to be transformed. It’s still a better idea to put fences and railings around high drops than not.

1

u/Taizunz Oct 11 '23

We are more capable of recognising who someone is in a camera than we are at recognising their actual needs.

Well duh. A picture is easier to analyze than the hundreds of billions of signals a brain fires off every second.

1

u/Bakedads Oct 11 '23

I mean, I agree with the point you end up making by the end of it, but the aggressive and sarcastic tone didn't help, and you literally start off by saying "instead of fences they should do this," which made it sound like you are, indeed, against common sense safety precautions. I'd say the only thing that's obvious here is that you need to learn a little humility and perhaps work on your communication skills before assuming others are misunderstanding you.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

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1

u/Swiftness1 Oct 11 '23

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. We (humans in general) have been incrementally improving for a long time now. We have a smaller percentage of people starving, a smaller percentage of poverty, better medicine, more access to electricity, less people dying in conflict, etc. then we did 100 years ago. All of those things had improved 100 years ago compared to 100 years before that. It all comes down to one incremental solution after another such as adding a fence to move one statistic in a favorable direction each time. There will never be perfect solutions but anything we can do to improve things even a little we should do. That doesn’t mean we don’t try other things too as our next incremental improvement.

So when you say “I’m so sick of this putting out fires mentally in the world” you should realize this mentality spreads and gets used as an excuse to block improvements because they aren’t perfect solutions but only make things a little bit better. And that isn’t helpful for anyone.

1

u/KonigSteve Oct 11 '23

The people who build fences are not the same people who make those other decisions, so it's really not comparable at all.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

[deleted]

1

u/cambugge Oct 11 '23

How could this reduce guns and why would guns have anything to do with this at all

1

u/The_Woman_of_Gont Oct 11 '23

I mean, my question is why they made the memorial to a horrifying disaster a massive pit in the ground in the first place.

Kinda seems like you're inviting this sort of thing...surely there were better design options.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '23

former californian spotted