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Would it be ethical to ask death-seeking people to go work in dangerous situations?
(sh.itjust.works)
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
23 points (70.9% liked)
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We keep suicidal people out of those situations because they increase death tolls.
This is such a great answer.
Sometimes I do dangerous things at work. I once, light-heartedly, mentioned I am afraid of heights to the person who would be operating then gantry to lower us 20 m underground. I meant it as a friendly "hey I'm human too" to the worker who seemed awkward about having to take the engineer down into the hole. That very nearly ended the work.
I had to explain that yes, I am not a fan of heights, but that just meant I wouldn't be looking over the edge of the gantry going down. I learned that this type of thing is taken extremely seriously. It is critical that everyone can trust that the others on the crew can keep their cool if something goes wrong. The only thing that made what I said forgivable in terms of letting the work proceed is that I was down there to do a condition assessment, and was not part of the rescue team or operating any equipment. I was tied off and could be retrieved with the lifeline. No one would have to put themselves at risk if I fainted, for example.
In addition to this, I think the concept is cruel. If one supports the ability of those who want to die to do so, they should be able to do it with dignity and not risking a painful death or surviving with debilitating injury.
I didn't read the whole thread so maybe you already answered this, but Ive always though of this question in a
"Well we definitely can't get you BACK from Mars..." type of way.
Almost like allow suicidal people a Viking like funeral, in a more scientific way.
But of course letting someone with suicidal impulses making dangerous choices for themselves and others is bad and dangerous all around.
No, I didn't address this scenario. It's not really relevant to why I think some of the situations presented are unethical, but I'm happy to chime in.
I don't think letting people volunteer for a task that will certainly result in their death is inherently unethical. I also don't think people who volunteer for long or one way space missions are volunteering to die. They are volunteering to die in space. They are accepting that their life may be shorter than on earth, and accepting that it's a one way trip.
Sure, if they volunteer to go up in a vessel that isn't coming back, and the vessel relies on a finite supply of life sustaining things with no plan to accept deliveries or seek out sources, then I can accept that is volunteering for a task that will be the cause of your death. That's a bit more concerning for me because of the time periods involved. A person could change their mind but have to live years and years knowing they cannot survive their choice.
TL;DR to be honest, that last paragraph was all I was asking about. Thanks for sharing your view.
I don't think the people who are focusing on why it's a bad idea are ignoring the focus on ethics, tbh. It's unethical to do this because it puts others at risk too.
I know they aren’t, I’m just curious about the ethics/morals of such an idea is all. Obviously if it was put into practice, the effectiveness would undoubtedly need to be considered. However, as I said before, this isn’t being put into practice — it’s a discussion on Lemmy.
Maybe I'm missing your point but I don't think you quite understand mine: the replies that are saying it would be ineffective are also saying it's unethical.
Whereas I focused on it being unethical because it's cruel to the suicidal person, it is also an unethical practice because it means knowingly using people who are less effective at these tasks, which harms the people depending on the successful completion of the dangerous work.
Not at all. Hey, if you can link effectiveness to the ethics, fantastic. All I was saying was I was more focused on the ethics rather than the effectiveness, which I do think is a debate on its own. However, if you can make the case to justify the ethics in relation to the effectiveness, I’ll definitely read it.
That's my entire case though: It is unethical to choose methods of rescue or other emergency responses that are less effective than the other available methods.
I know. It’s a fair point and I do agree: if you knew it would be less effective than something else, it would be unethical because you’re not doing the best you can, which would put more lives at danger when you could have a higher chance to save more
Exactly, its unnecessarily risks the people requiring rescue.
That’s what I thought. If they knew they were going into a life threatening situation, I guess it could be counterproductive as they might just seek to end themselves rather than do the task at hand (which might be to rescue people).