Okay, I should have worded myself better. I was thinking of that kind of chronic pain as along the same lines of terminal illness, but I didn't make that clear.

So you just go into the "assisted suicide before illness gets too bad" bucket, not the people who "just want to die".

> Your current position sounds like no matter how miserable or how fleeting the moments of happiness are a person should just grin and bear it. They don't want to, but you want them to.

It's more like: if you exclude mental illness and intense suffering caused by physical illness, how many people still have lives so miserable they'd rationally want suicide, and how many of those would remain miserable if given a better environment to live in?

And you're reading too far into me having a position here. When I ask what that looks like, it's a legitimate question.

Will you give them that better environment to live in? Do you even know what that would be? Of course most people would benefit from a better environment, this is practically tautological at this point when you've excluded physical, mental, and now environmental factors, which covers just about everything. But a better environment is not a likely outcome for a lot of these people.

That can look like a thief or petty criminal being repeatedly incarcerated for most of their life, with perhaps brief gaps where they are released into the world with a criminal record to discover they have practically no opportunity and skill beyond crime.

That can look like an incel who yearns for connection but repeatedly and painfully fails; they have no social skills, no close friends to help, and no family who cares.

That can look like a minimum wage debt-ridden worker who does backbreaking labor day after day yet is never able to get ahead enough to make a life that gives them any relief.

That can look like a person who faces a life of never-ending secrecy and fear, never able to be who they want to be or say what they want to say because of taboo.

All of these people would benefit from a better environment as others are all too eager to remind them. Will you give them a rational reason to believe they will get one? Empty suggestions that "it could be fixed in the future!" are hardly compelling. Your severe cancer could disappear like the wind or someone invents a fantastic treatment in the future, yet no one would dare suggest that's a rational thing to look forward to.

1. But can you put any numbers on that?

2. None of the situations you listed are that hard to solve.

3. "I lack skills" doesn't sound like a good reason to die.