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A Protocol for Dying

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Re: A Protocol for Dying

#91

Post by TeMPOraL »

adaml_623 wrote: post #87
anonymous777 wrote: post #84

This whole thread reeks of death acceptance culture. HN readers show off how cool they are for accepting death instead of discussing how we as a tech community could help cure these diseases or at least give more people an option of being cryopreserved. The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't hav…

Well I'm sure you'll be down-voted but in case you come back to check the replies I'll just say I'm sorry that you can't accept the world at the moment. Unless the singularity happens really soon and someone bootstraps a benign godlike AI to take us under it's wing I think we're stuck with a very high (five 9s ?) probability of dying. It's fine to rail against it but sometimes you have to accept that you were born in…

It's not either/or. We could accept that and fight it, so that our children, or our children's children won't have to die anymore.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#92

Post by jsingleton »

I can highly recommend "Culture & Empire - Digital Revolution", a very interesting read.

I think this is a great request: "Find a moment in your own jurisdiction, if it bans euthanasia, to lobby for the right to die in dignity."

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#93

Post by maxwelljoslyn »

anonymous777 wrote: post #84

This whole thread reeks of death acceptance culture. HN readers show off how cool they are for accepting death instead of discussing how we as a tech community could help cure these diseases or at least give more people an option of being cryopreserved. The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't hav…

Wouldn't that be lovely?

I wish that the immediate reaction by most people to such a thing wasn't something preposterous like "death is natural." Yeah? So? We are not beaten in the heads with rubber mallets every day at noon. If aliens showed up and proposed that we adopt the rubber-mallet system for no benefit, we'd call them crazy.[1] Yet death, which is completely real, is treated as something not even worth attempting to cure (although we sure love trying to prevent it when it's basically too late!)

[1] I'm paraphrasing Eliezer Yudkowsky here; he has cool writings on this subject if you're interested, which can be found in "Rationality from AI to Zombies," a large, cleaned-up collection of his years of blog posts at Less Wrong.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#94

Post by adaml_623 »

Brendinooo wrote: post #74
tim333 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's no such thing as a half-Christian There's a massive variation in belief and practices amongst people who call themselves Christian. And I don't recall Jesus saying that you shouldn't do euthanasia for terminal cancer. He was generally a caring guy. Most of the anti stuff comes from right wing nutters born long after Jesus's death who I'd be happy to disregard.

>I don't recall Jesus saying that you shouldn't do euthanasia for terminal cancer Jesus didn't speak about how to reply to comments on Hacker News either, but that doesn't mean that Christians are given no insight on how he or she should conduct himself or herself here. >Most of the anti stuff comes from right wing nutters I do hope you will evaluate this opinion more critically. I mean, I'm pretty sure Aquinas was a…

"Throughout history" is such a funny phase. Imagine if Christians are around in another 2000 years and look back and say, "Well in the early years, for a few thousand years, Christians thought this but gradually it changed to this". Their opinion of X might be a bit difficult.

Actually I suspect that there were a few changes in the the first first centuries AD that make the 'averaging' of history quite an interesting topic.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#95

Post by TeMPOraL »

anonymous777 wrote: post #84

This whole thread reeks of death acceptance culture. HN readers show off how cool they are for accepting death instead of discussing how we as a tech community could help cure these diseases or at least give more people an option of being cryopreserved. The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't hav…

I appreciate your point, though I didn't read it this way.

> The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't have to die.

I absolutely agree with that and the fact that fighting death is so low on social priorities is something that boggles my mind. However even if we dropped everything and started working on it, many of us will still die. I am regularly afraid, in the back of my head, that I'll go down young because of some cancer. Or that my loved ones will. I need to be able to handle this, both dying and dealing with the dying. That's why I'm grateful for this article. It has solid points about communication.

As I said - it's not either/or. Many - maybe all - of us will die, but this is not an excuse for not working on curing death.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#96

Post by TeMPOraL »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #75
asimuvPR wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you accurately explain death to a toddler? It is a good analogy that takes the toddler's feelings into account. Daddy ran out of Legos but he loves you. Quite beautiful actually.

downvotes? I'm not sure how this rates those. Accuracy isn't really helpful to a five year old who doesn't yet have all the concepts needed. The tooth fairy isn't accurate either. Accuracy will get you an endless cycle of "but why dad?"

That's called being a responsible parent.

It's either that, or your child's future partner will have to deal with them losing faith in their parents, after so many things they were told turned out to be bullshit said to shut them up.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#98

Post by anonymous777 »

adaml_623 wrote: post #87
anonymous777 wrote: post #84

This whole thread reeks of death acceptance culture. HN readers show off how cool they are for accepting death instead of discussing how we as a tech community could help cure these diseases or at least give more people an option of being cryopreserved. The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't hav…

Well I'm sure you'll be down-voted but in case you come back to check the replies I'll just say I'm sorry that you can't accept the world at the moment. Unless the singularity happens really soon and someone bootstraps a benign godlike AI to take us under it's wing I think we're stuck with a very high (five 9s ?) probability of dying. It's fine to rail against it but sometimes you have to accept that you were born in…

I can accept the world. I have 2 relatives already dead, though I'm not very emotional about it.

I just want to emphasize that this is the world we have built with our own hands. It's not the worst world possible, but we can do better than that.

>Unless the singularity happens I think S-word in mostly a meme. You can apply ML to biological problems right now. You don't need strong AI for it (though ofc even subhuman general ai would be of great help to science, if you look at deepmind's interview that's exactly their goal)

>I think we're stuck with a very high (five 9s ?) probability of dying. It depends on our own actions as well. At least one could opt for cryo, ofc it isn't a guarantee of anything but still it's a chance.

You may think I'm talking like a futurist or a transhumanist, but in fact I'm just an ordinary technical person trying to be realistic (and disliking involuntary death). If our western culture really values human life as much as declared, then we as a society should focus more on increasing quality of life and longevity, instead of exploiting each other for profit.

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#99

Post by [deleted] »

adaml_623 wrote: post #87
anonymous777 wrote: post #84

This whole thread reeks of death acceptance culture. HN readers show off how cool they are for accepting death instead of discussing how we as a tech community could help cure these diseases or at least give more people an option of being cryopreserved. The really unpleasant truth is that if we as a society began doing serious focused R&D on these life-threatening diseases earlier, the OP and many others wouldn't hav…

Well I'm sure you'll be down-voted but in case you come back to check the replies I'll just say I'm sorry that you can't accept the world at the moment. Unless the singularity happens really soon and someone bootstraps a benign godlike AI to take us under it's wing I think we're stuck with a very high (five 9s ?) probability of dying. It's fine to rail against it but sometimes you have to accept that you were born in…

[deleted]

Re: A Protocol for Dying

#100

Post by jnardiello »

danburgo wrote: post #86

These words hit close to home. My dad just passed away from cancer/diabetes in Florida and had to endure the "barbaric torture of decay and failure". Basically 4 months suffering in bed until he eventually denied eating anything and his liver failed. I asked the nurses repeatedly if there was anything to help him go or pass and there was nothing. Something's got to change in the US, we treat animals better than human…

Same situation in Italy. Unfortunately. Anyone wanting a be euthanised has to travel Switzerland, which is not always feasible at end-of-life (also considering that the whole procedure costs ~20k$).

I spent my civil service as an EMT and only once I saw a doctor giving the daughter of a terminally ill woman a piece of advice I will never forget (this woman was in such bad conditions, she simply wasn't there anymore and spent 100% of her time with morphin-induced allucinations): after giving her the morphin prescription he told her that "nobody is going to go behind you if you give her an overdose" - implying that she could end her suffering but she had to be the one killing her.

It was by far one of the hardest moment of my life, and I was just a passive witness. It was just brutal.

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