I guess the options are:
Put them out and fix them.
Leave them alone.
Kill them more quickly.
Nobody is going to stand and watch (or even speed up) something like that without suffering massive trauma themselves.
Right or wrong, they were doing what they thought best and what I imagine most think is best.
Anything else is academical
underwire212@lemm.ee 8 months ago
In the moment, you’re not 100% certain the guy wanted to be on fire. The only thing you can do in this case at least is attempt to extinguish.
agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 8 months ago
I mean, if someone pours gasoline over his head and lights himself on fire, you can somewhat reasonably infer an intentionality.
Devi@kbin.social 8 months ago
But we can say that with any suicide, if a guy stands on a bridge holding a rock tied to his leg then we will still try to save them because we understand they're going through something.
daltotron@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I mean we make an attempt to stop most suicides on the basis that they’re pursued from a kind of irrational train of thought. This isn’t to say that that’s always actually the case, but we can’t be sure of that, so most people wouldn’t look at a guy jumping of a bridge and then say “hey do a flip on the way down”, you know? We can kind of assume it’s more of a last resort, than like a casual pastime or decision that you might just kinda make cause you kinda felt like it. That’s just talking about the psychology of people who try to kill themselves mostly, though, for the vast majority it’s as a last resort rather than due to a more “rational” reason, or, a more philosophically motivated reason.
It’s a much safer assumption to assume they’re irrational, anyways, for the same reason that capital punishment is not really a great idea. If you take the opposite as a blanket decision, it’s irreversible. If you put out someone who’s on fire, or otherwise save someone who’s suicidal. you could always just kill them later.
state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
They might have heavy regret once ignited, though.
state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
I read an article many years ago about people who attempted to kill themselves and how almost all were happy they survived. There was also someone who set himself on fire and survived, extremely badly burned, his urine was black for a while, really bad. But even he was glad he was still alive. So I guess you should always help. If someone really wants to die they can always try again.
emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I’m guessing there’s a bit of survivorship bias here. People who really want to die will probably choose surer methods, and/or try again and again.