ABSTRACT
At some point in evolutionary history, human beings came to understand, as no animal does, that death brings to an end a person’s bodily and mental presence in the world. A potentially devastating consequence is that individuals, when experiencing physical or mental pain, might deliberately choose this outcome for themselves. Suicide is a leading cause of death in all human populations, responsible today for more deaths than war and homicide combined. While some suicides are arguably adaptive, the majority are clearly maladaptive. Nonetheless the trait has been able to take hold because the “suicide meme” – to which humans have no natural immunity – easily infects vulnerable minds and is highly contagious.
