Suicide was the stop loss option of the atheistic totalitarianisms of the 20th century. The chain of causality only went to as far as zero on the left.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_suic…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_suic…
Power is one of the oldest human responses to the fear of death. To safely exercise unlimited power it was necessary to philosophically eliminate the possibility of any fate worse than death. To Hamlet's problem the Nazi and Bolshevik answer was: of course not.
To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
It was not the "consolation of religion" the Nazis despised but its fears, which are easy to forget but not to dismiss. Hitler's last fear as he put the pistol to his head might have been, "what if you can't destroy information? What if the number line goes in both directions?"
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
