What if you're an oil driller named Harry Stamper and are on an asteroid the size of Texas hurtling towards Earth and you gotta manually detonate the nuke? You're killing yourself. You just put AJ back on the shuttle to take care of Liv Tyler. It's time to dad-up bro. Michael Bay is directing your reality and are you gonna hold on to some basement dweller's high ideals that all suicide is selfish or are you gonna light that candle?

Time to man up and push that button.

Do people ever say that it's always selfish?

Are these the type of scenarios people generally think about when they talk about suicide?

Do people ever say that it's always selfish?

Are these the type of scenarios people generally think about when they talk about suicide?

 Of course not. Being at the end of your rope is enough. If you've exhausted all alternatives and all you could look forward to is suffering, there's no shame in the act.

I'd like to think that bold sacrifices are generally different from suicide.

Sacrificing your life =/= suicide.

Also, if the day comes where I have to sacrifice my life....

I'm ready.

"People pontificate, 'Suicide is selfishness.' Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.”

I take it you haven't heard of Emile Durkheim