The question is not whether joy can be experienced, but whether the ratio of joy to suffering is enough to justify a desire to continue to put up with the suffering. Suppose a divorced 70-year-old is nearly blind and his heart is failing. He has no retirement fund. To survive, he does physical labour that his body can't keep up with for a couple of hours per day, and then sleeps for the rest of the day, worn down and exhausted. Given how little he is capable of working per day, he must work 7 days per week to make ends meet. He has no support network. He does not have the energy to spend on hobbies like reading, let alone physical activity like walking, and forget about travel.
I am describing someone I knew myself. He did not commit suicide, but he was certainly waiting for death to come to him. I don't think anything about his situation was rare. Undoubtedly, he was one of many millions who have experienced something similar.
The question they posited was "Is life really going to give him more joy than suffering?" not "Will he be able to find any joy at all"? They noted how things like declining health can plague the elderly, so I thought I'd relate a real-world case illustrating exactly how failing health and other difficulties can manifest in a way that the joy does not outweigh the suffering. The case in the parent comment didn't provide so much details, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can default to an assumption that the man could in fact find more joy than suffering.
>The case in the parent comment didn't provide so much details, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can default to an assumption that the man could in fact find more joy than suffering.
I should just assume things that aren't there, rather than expect a commenter to provide a substantive argument? OK.
