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A Design for Death

1843magazine.com

11–20 of 46 posts

Re: A Design for Death

#11
post #3

Nitschke's other (previous, drug perfusion) death machine was on display in MONA in Hobart. its an otherwise pedestrian installation of a suitcase sized box, and a bag on a stand, next to a chaise longue. I found it very confronting. Normalized but somehow not normal. He's a polarising figure. Saying something rational, but causing immense community disquiet when people come close to voting. (I believe he has the rig…

Dr. Nitschke is from my home town right here. He was so close to getting voluntary euthanasia laws enacted in the Northern Territory, but the government backed out in the end.

I remember watching him demonstrate V1 of his 'machine in a suitcase' that people could use to end their lives. It was controlled by a PC, and the interface that the patient would use to click the confirmation dialogs to begin the last things they would see in the world was written in..... ... Microsoft Access.

Re: A Design for Death

#14

The secular problem with this: How do we make sure that people aren't forced into this?

Given the profit motives in the healthcare system (in the United States at least), encouraging people to buy medical treatment seems like more ethically wrong than allowing planned death. The latter is hypothetically problematic, but the former is a textbook example of conflict of interest.

Re: A Design for Death

#15
> The front-runner in the one-way journey to Switzerland is a New Zealander whom Nitschke has known for years. She’s not terminally ill, but is becoming increasingly disabled by macular degeneration – something she finds intolerable after a lifetime of reading for pleasure.

I am not so sure society is ready to embrace commercial euthanasia for non-fatal, non-painful diseases. Should someone with age related deafness be offered euthanasia because they find not being able to listen to music intolerable. Or how about a former runner with hip and knee problems?

Re: A Design for Death

#16
I can't manage to read this. At one time, I likely would have taken the euthanasia option if it had been available to me.

My life remains a living hell in some ways, but mostly for financial/social reasons. My physical suffering is substantially less.

I can't begin to express both how very much I am for the right to die and how very much I know that, given an easy out, most people won't do the hard stuff. So something like this can easily go very bad places.

There was an American, I think also nicknamed Dr. Death, who was providing euthanasia (illegally). A lot of his patients/clients were chronically ill women who didn't want to be a burden on their family.

One woman in particular seemed like she wanted to die primarily because she had a shitty, unsupportive family, not because her medical issue was really so serious that suicide seemed like a reasonable choice.

Chronically ill or disabled men are much more likely to marry someone and let her physically take care of him, especially if they were able bodied at one time and have a decent income still. It doesn't even have to be a great income.

I read an article once about a study of children in some less developed country where boys were valued more than girls. Boys were fed slightly better. Boys were taken to the doctor slightly sooner -- like in the evening versus "Oh, let's give it a few hours and see how she feels come morning."

Although this was not a case of girls being horribly abused, it was just a case of boys being a little bit pampered, the difference in outcomes could be measured in mortality.

In a world where racism, classism, sexism, etc are still rampant, a death machine has all kinds of potential for horrifying unintended consequences. And those consequences are a sort that are hard to talk about without sounding like a loon or conspiracy theory nutter because the forces at play are fairly subtle and human psychology innately tends to handwave them off as not important.

Re: A Design for Death

#17
post #5

The secular problem with this: How do we make sure that people aren't forced into this?

I think it would be great if people were required to answer a questionnaire with even a psych evaluation in person for wanting to end life. I don’t think any person should ever be refused their request to die. I just think the information is valuable to obtain for going forward by designing society to be more favorable for people to want to live. Currently a lot of people with tremendous psychological pain are being…

>I don’t think any person should ever be refused their request to die.

The idea that abortion is some sort of settled issue because of "privacy," yet we are disallowed from controlling our own bodies in many, many other ways (hormone levels via steroids, as an example) is particularly absurd to me.

Re: A Design for Death

#18

The secular problem with this: How do we make sure that people aren't forced into this?

Wouldn’t it be same as making sure people are not forced to suicide ?

With suicide there would be at least police involvement and often an investigation.

It also seems logical that it would be easier to covertly force someone to take a socially acceptable option than a socially unacceptable option.

Re: A Design for Death

#19
post #9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be great if people were required to answer a questionnaire with even a psych evaluation in person for wanting to end life. I don’t think any person should ever be refused their request to die. I just think the information is valuable to obtain for going forward by designing society to be more favorable for people to want to live. Currently a lot of people with tremendous psychological pain are being…

> People with depression Depression can usually be treated and results in less will to kill oneself. There is a good case to make that when you suffer from depression you are not yourself anymore.

To play devil's advocate:

Isn't it problematic to measure success in treatment by will to kill oneself rather than by whether the patient ends up happy? It sort of reminds me of the sweatshops in China where instead of improving working conditions they just installed anti-suicide nets to keep people from jumping.

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