why people want to die
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Answer:
At some stage in evolution, it must have dawned on human beings that the death of the body brings with it the death of the mind. The idea that death means mental oblivion is a sophisticated one that can be reached only by deduction, not observation; we assume no nonhuman animal could grasp it.
Let’s suppose that this idea of death originated alongside language and symbolism about 100,000 years ago, and that it spread rapidly across human culture. The consequences for people’s hold on life must have been momentous. For those who, like Roth, would fear oblivion, it could provide a new reason to stay alive. But for others so unfortunate that they would welcome oblivion, it could provide a reason to die. Thus, a major advance in human knowledge could have had a dangerous outcome for human fitness: It could have made suicide—self-serving, egoistic suicide—a potentially attractive option.
Suicide among humans is, in fact, dreadfully common. In the United States, someone kills him- or herself every 12 minutes. Across the world, more people die from suicide than in all wars and homicides combined. It’s true that some do it for altruistic reasons, so as to bring benefits to group members or kin. But the great majority are primarily concerned with obliterating their own minds. Far from hoping to benefit others, these self-killers are motivated by self-interest. They do not care about the effect on others, or sometimes even intend a kind of vengeance. And, whether they intend it or not, the effects on family and friends are often devastating. The anthropologist Charles MacDonald at the French National Center for Scientific Research, reviewing the motives for suicide, concludes: