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Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

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Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#131

Post by rkomorn »

nprateem wrote: post #122
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAID being inappropriately offered to people who haven't expressed interest in it, and also being extended widely to people without terminal illness, has certainly become a controversy in Canada. https://archive.is/bd0PV https://thewalrus.ca/assisted-dying/ https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/doesnt-line-up-mps-c...

Why should only terminally ill people get this choice? A 16 year old can decide who to kill in the army but apparently they (and we) aren't competent to choose whether to take one's own life.

I don't necessarily agree with this take but I'd say it's probably because we're only willing to let people who are close to death "make a mistake."

Eg maybe a 16 year old who wants to end their otherwise healthy life might, 20 years later, be glad they didn't.

That seems less likely with someone who is almost certainly going to die (and probably painfully to boot) "soon".

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#132

Post by femiagbabiaka »

lordnacho wrote: post #3

I had an old teacher who died almost a year ago. Great guy, very sociable, knew everyone in the little town he lived in. Kept in touch with a lot of students. Good neighbour, friendly guy who'd talk to everyone. He got Alzheimers. He started forgetting stuff, and it frustrated him. He got caught driving dangerously, and cursed the doctor who took away his license. He argued with me about the state of some chicken he…

A society that sours on you due to an illness that’s totally out of your control seems a little inconsiderate to put it mildly.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#133

Post by sillyfluke »

ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #104
lordnacho wrote: post #3

I had an old teacher who died almost a year ago. Great guy, very sociable, knew everyone in the little town he lived in. Kept in touch with a lot of students. Good neighbour, friendly guy who'd talk to everyone. He got Alzheimers. He started forgetting stuff, and it frustrated him. He got caught driving dangerously, and cursed the doctor who took away his license. He argued with me about the state of some chicken he…

>You really don't want to end up with dementia and related illnesses, it totally sours everyone's view of you. I completely agree that the disease is horrible, but your conclusion is bizarre. When you are in that condition, how anyone views you is the least of your worries.

Framing it as an obsession of rememberance or legacy distracts from the more crucial point: the fact that you will be causing chaotic emotional, psychological and physical distress in the real world to those you cared about. Again we should stop framing it as some weird obession with legacy and instead stick to the facts on the ground.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#134

Post by 1dom »

sarchertech wrote: post #95
1dom wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you’ve already made it to 90 with no major issues, you’re expected to make it to 95 and you could make easily live to 100. My wife’s grandad is 90 and he still lives alone, drives, plays golf nearly everyday, and regularly sees his 12 grandchildren and many great grandchildren. Counter-anecdote, my partners Granddad is 93. Age 90, we said the same as you. Now he's an old, rude, obnoxious liability - he's still g…

>I feel the desire to stay alive long enough to be a liability for yourself and those around you is a decision motivated by ego and fear, rather than compassion or logic. Everyone becomes a liability at some point. By that logic we should just go full Logan’s run and kill people as soon as they stop being productive. There nothing wrong with saying that you aren’t going to take extreme measures to preserve your life…

> Everyone becomes a liability at some point. By that logic we should just go full Logan’s run and kill people as soon as they stop being productive.

That's ridiculous. People can be unproductive, but not a liability.

> But I don’t want this attitude of “you should kill yourself so you don’t burden your family” to become the norm either.

I can see that, but you haven't explained why. Personally, I don't want to burden myself, my family and those I care about, that's important to me. There must be something more important to you that justifies burdening loved ones with a hard painful death of a loved one. Help me understand: what's that thing for you, if not ego/fear?

> What if your partner’s grandad heard you calling him a rude obnoxious liability and felt pressured into killing himself?

The alternative is he's unnaturally kept alive in a perpetual state of suffering for him and the people around him. If he hadn't suffered mental decline, I know he'd never consciously choose that, another reason why I'd like to make sure I'm gone before serious decline kicks in.

> But many people die suddenly with no serious mental decline at all. That can happen at 95 or 100 the same as it happens earlier.

That doesn't change anything. I agree with Kahnemans point that becoming a burden is too late. If I accept that, without being able to predict the future, it then becomes a game of risk. Kahnamen decided the risk of him becoming a burden was greater than the risk of him continuing to live what he would consider a productive (edit: "valuable" is probably a better word here) life.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#135

Post by xpe »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #116
xpe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm reasonably sure this is not what happened, judging by my own recollection of when I have been tempted to write similar things, and my discussions with people who have written similar things. However, your story is both simple and coherent. It's much easier to point out others' alleged irrational thinking, but the main purpose of books like this is to help you better understand your own thinking.

> It's much easier to point out others' alleged irrational thinking, but the main purpose of books like this is to help you better understand your own thinking.

That sounds right. I only can make probabilistic guesses as to what is happening in someone else's brain. By posing a question to someone else, there is some chance that person may ask it of themselves. If not today, then perhaps in future.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#136

Post by jfengel »

RickJWagner wrote: post #117
ignoramous wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jason Zweig, Kahneman's friend, wrote about this and many other thoughts Kahneman would have gone through in making the decision. As Barbara Tversky, who is an emerita professor of psychology at Stanford University, wrote in an online essay shortly after [Kahneman's] death, their last days in Paris had been magical... One afternoon, according to her online essay, she asked what [Kahneman] would like to do. "I want to…

I have to wonder if they could have had one more magical day. Or maybe two. Maybe in a different city, or with different friends. If he did “learn something new”, could he have incrementally improved upon it, using his brilliant mind? Could he have made one more wise observation? It seems he likely left something on the table.

You're always going to leave something on the table. One of life's trickier lessons is learning when too much optimization becomes less optimal.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#137

Post by netsharc »

sillyfluke wrote: post #119
rolandog wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read your comment and it strikes me as a cautionary tale that can be used by bad people to justify or push for eugenics: "they took him; they said he developed Alzheimer's" . As we're currently seeing happen: whatever is left unsaid in the body of the law can and will be abused by evil people to concentrate more power (even if the spirit of the law advocates for something kind). So, we have to normalize some sort o…

Yes, there is a danger of that in general. I think someone made a movie in Japan about the subject, specifically because there is a culture of the elderly not wanting "to be a burden on the younger generation." Some said it hit closer to reality than science fiction because of that specific cultural characteristic in Japan. It also supports Kahnemen's position of pulling the plug when "the going is good" from a ethic…

This was also mentioned in the debate about euthanasia in the UK; that it could lead to pressuring elderly relatives to off themselves. I can imagine the pressure might not even be explicit, it could be implied, and maybe not even consciously, but through behavior.

Like a more subtle form of Shakespeare's "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?".

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#138

Post by firesteelrain »

Freak_NL wrote: post #11
lordnacho wrote: post #3

I had an old teacher who died almost a year ago. Great guy, very sociable, knew everyone in the little town he lived in. Kept in touch with a lot of students. Good neighbour, friendly guy who'd talk to everyone. He got Alzheimers. He started forgetting stuff, and it frustrated him. He got caught driving dangerously, and cursed the doctor who took away his license. He argued with me about the state of some chicken he…

It doesn't seem pleasant for the person themself either. Constant frustration, gaps in your memory growing ever larger, disorientation, loss — periodically augmented by brief flickers of recollection of what you used to be — and yet no one can legally end your misery, because you can likely no longer unequivocally consent to euthanasia or assisted suicide, even if you explicitly signed a declaration that you did not…

It’s still absurd despite what you say that we are implying that we should euthanize another human because they have become difficult to manage due to illness. Where do we draw the line?

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#140

Post by nicoburns »

rkomorn wrote: post #131
nprateem wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should only terminally ill people get this choice? A 16 year old can decide who to kill in the army but apparently they (and we) aren't competent to choose whether to take one's own life.

I don't necessarily agree with this take but I'd say it's probably because we're only willing to let people who are close to death "make a mistake." Eg maybe a 16 year old who wants to end their otherwise healthy life might, 20 years later, be glad they didn't. That seems less likely with someone who is almost certainly going to die (and probably painfully to boot) "soon".

> maybe a 16 year old who wants to end their otherwise healthy life might, 20 years later, be glad they didn't.

Equally, they might spend decades of their life in misery wishing that they had been able to.

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