RIP, his work made a huge impression on me. And I admire the dignity to go when one chooses.
I guess we are all Dying, Fast and Slow.
Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
231–240 of 655 posts
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or they'll treat you with a daily oil bath and feed you tender coconut water ... until few days later your kidney's blow out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalaikoothal
I think people tend to underestimate the risks in allowing suicide —- here’s a blurb from the linked article: However, social acceptance may lead to more egregious abuses: the issue gained a higher profile in early 2010, when an 80-year-old man escaped after discovering his intended fate and heard his family members discussing how they were going to "share" his lands, and took refuge in a relative's home.
People also underestimate the risks in allowing sexual intercourse, driving a car, playing football and doing ice baths ...
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#233I 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…
>Instead he was that 83 year old guy who pissed off everyone, nearly blew up the neighbourhood, and drove like a maniac.
I find the people who remember him as this guy somewhat contemptible though, so I guess my theory would be he wasn't remembered badly by anyone whose opinion mattered.
But on the other hand I guess that's the way the world works.
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#234I'm surprised and fascinated that this is apparently legal in Switzerland. The Netherlands, famous for allowing assisted suicide, has pretty strict criteria for this[1]. In particular, the physician must "be satisfied that the patient’s suffering is unbearable, with no prospect of improvement", which from this article sounds far from the case here. [1] https://www.government.nl/topics/euthanasia/is-euthanasia-al...
Euthanasia in Switzerland ^ has been a notorious profitable practice for years, compared to the Netherlands where it's almost exclusively practiced on those with terminal debilitating disease. ^ Yes, it's "illegal" but it's effectively nulled if the means to it are made legal.
It is illegal to profit from assisted suicide in Switzerland. All organizations that are involved in assisted suicide are nonprofits.
Every assisted suicide is then investigated by the police to ensure no profit motives exist.
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I mentioned in a another comment, framing it as "how one is remembered" is leading to pointless tangents in this thread. The important point is this: are you causing emotional, psychological, physical distress in the real world to those you care about when you have this disease? Yes or no. That's what I care about. Whether they are able to remember me well despite that, or poorly because of that should be complete…
That’s irrelevant here. What is relevant is that we have a contempt for human life and a lack of charity. The teacher was not at fault for his condition. We should learn magnanimity. Sure, we can think about how the burdens of caring for our family can be lessened as they age, or how we may help reduce that burden for our family, but family does have the duty to care for its members, and to place such considerations…
> The teacher was not at fault for his condition. We should learn magnanimity.
This is equally true of conditions like paranoid schizophrenia or psychopathy. Sometimes a person is just born with wiring that makes you dangerous to others. Does this mean that everyone around them must have the magnanimity and charity to them attacking people at random?
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 60% of the patients who died with Kevorkian's help were not terminally ill, and at least 13 had not complained of pain....The report also stated that Kevorkian failed to refer at least 17 patients to a pain specialist after they complained of chronic pain and sometimes failed to obtain a complete medical record for his patients, with at least three autopsies of suicides Kevorkian had assisted with showing the perso…
This doesn't seem to be an example of assisted suicide being recommended to disabled people who didn't want to die. Mainstream medical practice at the time condemned Kevorkian, and anyone seeking out his services was certainly aware that what he offered was death.
Society puts a lot of pressure on the people at the bottom. The chronically ill and the unemployed. That pressure in combination with an option to permanently relive yourself of that pressure is to many functionally equivalent to a recommendation.
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#237I 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…
This is such a cruel perspective, implying that he'd be better off dead, for what, 3 years of inconvenience to his community, despite the previous 80 years being spent contributing positively to it? You even literally show that he isn't solely remembered for those last 3 years of his life. We owe people like that care and understanding, not murder framed as mercy. It's always so painful to see old people around who a…
But this guy wanted to die right? Bit different. Agreed that 'how others view you' is such nonsense. People are cruel that way and also: those children who couldn't be bothered visiting or helping out, will be standing at the funeral sniffling and telling 'such great dad stories'. Makes my blood boil.
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fascinating that you think someone with dementia would be suffering more from hunger then from their condition sapping away at them.
If I was starving to death, the acute sensation of hunger would override everything else in my mind.
Unfortunately someone with advanced dementia does not know if she has eaten or not. Most of the time there will be no eating, unless someone else puts food in your mouth.
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#239The sad demise of Robin Williams made me a believer of assisted suicide. The option to go out with dignity should be available to everyone. That said, there is a problem in at least some places where assisted suicide is available where it keeps getting recommended to disabled people who don't want to die. That needs to be solved. Seems like an easy solve. Just don't do it. There is a cost reduction incentive, though,…
> That said, there is a problem in at least some places where assisted suicide is available where it keeps getting recommended to disabled people who don't want to die. Where? This is a thing which always pops up in these debates because it is a deep-rooted fear, but are there countries where this is a thing?
Canada.
Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could express your wishes about how you would like to be treated in advance, while you are still clear in the head. That’s already possible for other situations, like when you are braindead and entirely dependent on machines to keep you alive, with no chance of recovery.
> You could express your wishes about how you would like to be treated in advance, while you are still clear in the head. You can't express in advance that you want to have assisted suicide. Your former self might express wishes, but what if your later self doesn't feel like this anymore? In a way, we can all get the same feeling when doing another round of "lose weight this year" new year's resolutions just to reali…
Uh, new years resolutions are not exactly what I would call the ideal metaphor for assisted suicide.
Plenty of people here who reacted negatively to OP's suggestion seem to not have had to deal with a loved one who dealt with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia. It's not hard like taking care of a toddler is hard. It's hard like, "this is not the same person I know for my whole life, they don't recognize me, they say and do mean things to me and their grand-kids and neighbors all the time, and require 24x7 supervision to not hurt themselves or break everything in the room."
Oh, and remember that in the US, all nursing homes for this kind of thing are for-profit companies backed by venture capital, meaning they are expensive as hell. Take your current middle-class apartment, shrink the size to just a bedroom (that you now have to share with someone else), and then quadruple the rent. Just a few years of that can decimate the life savings of the average retiree and/or their children's.
I speak with some authority here because all of this happened to my father. He was "alive" in the last few years of his life, but not what anyone would call "living." I absolutely do not want that to happen to me. If it were legal in the US, I would absolutely opt for an assisted suicide plan for myself.
There are ways to handle it that avoid all the "whatabouts" that you and others have already brought up. One rough draft of an example: 1) Have a lawyer write up a kind of will expressing my wishes. 2) Get three unbiased negative diagnoses to show I am of sound mind prior to signing the will. 3) Go in for regular testing (every year, maybe two). After each negative diagnosis, add another (witnessed and/or notarized) signature to the will. The will is not valid if testing or a signature is missed. 3) If there is ever a positive diagnosis, it must be confirmed by two other clinics. 4) If three years pass with doctors and clinical tests confirming increasing dementia symptoms along the way, the assisted suicide clause is invoked and I get to pass peacefully surrounded by loved ones instead of being a stressful burden on them for years or decades to come.
Yes, there are details and unintended consequences that neither me nor anyone else can see ahead of time. Like everything else, they are dealt with as they come up. No, you won't convince me that your favorite corner case means the entire idea is invalid.