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The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

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Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#61

Post by AstralStorm »

wayoutthere wrote: post #52
anvandare wrote: post #11

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high…

There are two minds of this as best exemplified by Camus and Sartre. A core tenet of existentialism is that we are always free to make choices, even if we cannot always control our circumstances. We’re still responsible for making choices — even choosing to not choose. Sartre was a believer in absolute freedom, and that suicide was a choice among many others that a person could make (and indeed, Sartre eventually did…

And what does Camus say you should do when your freedom is curtailed in unacceptable ways?

(Note: way beyond social contract.)

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#62

Post by AstralStorm »

lotu wrote: post #60
DoreenMichele wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing of all sorts is currently under enormous financial pressure. Many "journalists" are no longer on staff with adequate pay, but are underpaid freelancers with no benefits. Local papers are shutting down in droves. Etc. It's a huge crisis and there's no good way to talk about it. I do freelance writing and blogging and I've been dirt poor for years. There is a long history of me either commenting on how the worl…

You would think that techies who constantly complain about crap documentation would realize quality writing is not free. (Best of luck BTW)

Come on, they're paid to do that, among other things.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#63

Post by rincebrain »

Barrin92 wrote: post #54
anvandare wrote: post #11

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high…

In the particular case of depression and mental illness suicide is often itself a symptom of the disease . It's not so simple to just portray this as an act of individual choice or liberty. If a mentally ill person is effectively treated the desire to kill themselves will generally subside, and at that point we know that it wasn't a rational choice but a biological symptom. The case here is much more difficult than s…

How do you define when the suicidal ideation is irrational, though?

Let's say you're having a persistent depressive episode, and have had suicidal urges and possibly even attempted it in the past. Let's further say that you've been attempting treatment consistently from multiple approaches, for extended time intervals, and none of them have yielded improvement. Is there a point at which the suicidal urges should no longer be considered irrational?

There's a viable argument that their urge to end themselves is a direct result of their condition (e.g. if we removed the condition, the desire would evaporate), but there's also a viable argument that their urge is an increasingly rational response to extended suffering with little hope of improvement.

Unfortunately, while I'd like to say the answer to this is more objective ways to quantify prospects for improvement, I don't currently know of much research on the horizon that would enable this, as too much of how our psychiatric care works is currently guess-and-check, and we don't even know where we'd look if we had good near-realtime monitoring for neural interactions.

(The above hypothetical does not reflect my life experiences - I've never been at risk of self-harm for the lovely malaise of depression that pervades my mind, but a few years ago, I was given a treatment which, for a little while, made me much closer to neurotypical functioning - but it stopped working after a few months, not because I had stopped receiving the treatment, and having acute memories of how pervasive this problem was, and how much nicer life could be, is probably the closest I've been to that particular precipice.)

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#64

Post by DoreenMichele »

lotu wrote: post #60
DoreenMichele wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing of all sorts is currently under enormous financial pressure. Many "journalists" are no longer on staff with adequate pay, but are underpaid freelancers with no benefits. Local papers are shutting down in droves. Etc. It's a huge crisis and there's no good way to talk about it. I do freelance writing and blogging and I've been dirt poor for years. There is a long history of me either commenting on how the worl…

You would think that techies who constantly complain about crap documentation would realize quality writing is not free. (Best of luck BTW)

Thank you.

It's especially crazy making because my writing sometimes spends time on the front page of HN, but I'm still talked at like a leech who is trying to "panhandle the internet," a thing someone (on a different forum, not here) literally accused me of for trying to monetize my websites while homeless. Like if you are poor enough, working for a living is not allowable and your work can't have value and you are merely a beggar.

This piece took about two weeks to write, did fairly well on HN, got dramatically more traffic and discussion than anything else I've done and made zero money:

https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hand-li...

I used to have ads on everything. HN hates that and uses ad blockers more aggressively than most traffic sources.

I've removed ads from most of my sites and moved to tip jars and Patreon. I get told I'm begging.

HN actively looks for ways around pay walls. Etc ad nauseum ad infinitum.

That mental model of "get traffic and somehow magically make money from it without charging anything" is rooted in using ads to monetize it. Even before the ad blocker wars tanked earnings worldwide on that model, HN aggressively used ad blockers.

Everyone says "Well, not my problem. I'm not paying you. Figure it out your damn self." while actively sabotaging every possible pathway to making money off of producing good content. If you point out that this boils down to an expectation of slave labor to fill the front page with engaging content, you can count on downvotes and ugly replies.

This is actually one of the things that makes me suicidal. I feel like I can't breath. I'm poor because in part because of this shit, then told my poverty is evidence of incompetence, thus reason to justify not hiring me, etc.

It's a trap I can find no way out of, no matter what I do. Playing along with what people demand, such as removing all ads, makes no real difference. There is no point at which good writing independently created etc etc that HN/the world says it wants actually leads to a middle class income. Then classism kicks in and you might as well go kill yourself. The world won't allow you to make your life work. Fuck you.

If you complain, expect a beat down. 0_o

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#65

Post by lanevorockz »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #12

There are many things to talk about here, but this is part of why I posted this to Hacker News: The deeply shocking story on such a controversial issue was irresistible, and became a top news item all over the world overnight. Pothoven’s name was soon trending on Twitter in Italy. News reports repeating the false claims were published from Australia to India to the United States. Yes, the article touches on many thin…

Real story is even more horrific than just euthanasia. I think that to an extent the click bait value takes priority when it gets to the media. Whatever makes people click on it.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#66

Post by antisemiotic »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #55
antisemiotic wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that aggregate subscriptions like Inkl make sense, or are they too cheap to leave any money for the actual journalists?

I'm not familiar with that service.

Thanks for raising the issue anyway, it's too often framed on HN as "these evil news companies are out to get me", disregarding people who just want to get paid for their work.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#67

Post by DoreenMichele »

lanevorockz wrote: post #65
DoreenMichele wrote: post #12

There are many things to talk about here, but this is part of why I posted this to Hacker News: The deeply shocking story on such a controversial issue was irresistible, and became a top news item all over the world overnight. Pothoven’s name was soon trending on Twitter in Italy. News reports repeating the false claims were published from Australia to India to the United States. Yes, the article touches on many thin…

Real story is even more horrific than just euthanasia. I think that to an extent the click bait value takes priority when it gets to the media. Whatever makes people click on it.

I don't agree. I would be vastly more horrified to learn that a minor was euthanized -- that an institution, in compliance with the law, put a young girl to death as a consequence of her being sexually abused.

That smacks of "Let's not bother to go after pedophiles. Their fine. Let's just start putting their victims to death to conveniently sweep this under the rug."

That's far worse than the horrifying stuff going on in the Catholic Church where a grown man can rape and impregnate his 9 year old step daughter and the church says he's all good, but the girl was excommunicated for getting an abortion to protect her life in the face of carrying twins while just a tiny child herself.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Brazilian_girl_abortion...

Sex crimes are particularly hard to deal with. People sometimes say they would like the death sentence for rape, but if you do that, you can count on rape victims being routinely murdered to silence them and protect the life of the rapist.

This is a hard, hard problem to solve. I would be terrified to learn that the Dutch government, which has a positive reputation globally for it's track record on women's rights, was fine with putting a child to death because grown men raped her.

I cannot possibly overstate how deeply dystopian and terrible that news would be.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#68

Post by Barrin92 »

rincebrain wrote: post #63
Barrin92 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the particular case of depression and mental illness suicide is often itself a symptom of the disease . It's not so simple to just portray this as an act of individual choice or liberty. If a mentally ill person is effectively treated the desire to kill themselves will generally subside, and at that point we know that it wasn't a rational choice but a biological symptom. The case here is much more difficult than s…

How do you define when the suicidal ideation is irrational, though? Let's say you're having a persistent depressive episode, and have had suicidal urges and possibly even attempted it in the past. Let's further say that you've been attempting treatment consistently from multiple approaches, for extended time intervals, and none of them have yielded improvement. Is there a point at which the suicidal urges should no l…

I would agree that there is potentially a point where a mental illness could be so severe and life-draining and incurable that it would be an option to end that life, but I think even in that case it's hard to argue that the person in question is even in a position to make that call, because we cannot distinguish why they're feeling the way they do.

And in particular when it comes to young adults there is a significant possibility that treatment resistant mental illness improves or sometimes vanishes, often in the late twenties or early 30s. In the case of a 17 year old girl I think precaution dictates that we stay on the side of treatment. I think to end the life of a minor without terminal illness is very hard to justify.

And I thankfully never suffered from depression, but have a family member who did. She came very close to ending her own life, and explained to us repeatedly that she did not want to live. When it took a turn for the worse we had her hospitalized against her will, and now several years later she is thankful for the fact that we did. And I think I'd feel the same way. Mental illness can change the perception of people so much, it really seems to hard to me to take these wishes just at face value or see them as personal choice.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#69

Post by hackerbabz »

markdown wrote: post #16

This story kinda reminded me about Mark Rife: > “Last Thursday, a guy I went to college with, Mark Rife, committed suicide. As I understand the story, three years ago his wife Sarah died due to complications from a fall off a 75 foot waterfall. She fell; he dove in after her. Against all odds, they thought she had recovered. Life had returned to some degree of normal; but then six months later, she died in her sleep.…

Travel is not therapeutic or enjoyable to all or even most people. It can be very depressing and lonely.

I wonder if his decision would have been the same had he stayed in his home community with others who loved him.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#70

Post by DanBC »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #53
mooseburger wrote: post #37

This is the most aggressively anti-human thing I have ever seen, possibly even more than ISIS or cartel executions, because at least the perpetrators of those atrocities know that they are doing evil, even if they're unrepentant, which is more than can be said of the doctors in this situation. I have been suicidally depressed, institutionalized. I'm better now. I suppose if I actually attempted to kill myself, but fa…

> Life is not about hedonism, not about maximizing pleasure experienced Who are you to tell anyone what life is about? I don't necessarily agree with the actions of her family and doctors, especially as she was so young, but is it really just to want to condemn someone to lifetime of reliving their trauma? Some people can never get over their past trauma, and they carry it their entire life. It it just to say that th…

There are ways of providing mental health services that are trauma-informed, that don't require vulnerable people to be imprisoned in stark rooms, stripped of their clothing and wearing anti-ligature clothing.

A robust package of intensive trauma-informed community mental health treatment could probably have helped her.

Here's a blog about it.

Rotten Apples, on Poisoned Branches, in Toxic Orchards: https://thediagnosisofexclusion.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/rot...

Out of Sight and Out of Mind: https://thediagnosisofexclusion.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/pro...

When the Help Hurts more than the hurting does: https://thediagnosisofexclusion.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/whe...

(and a bunch more on that site).

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