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I Hope My Father Dies Soon

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Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#131

Post by ChuckMcM »

forktheif wrote: post #17

Maybe he just didn't mention it, but nowhere in that post does it say that it was his father's wish to die if he was in such a situation. Helping someone die who made their wishes clear, I'm perfectly okay with. But assuming someone wants to die, I'm not. Whether his father made it clear or not, I don't know. It just isn't in the post.

My wife and I both have clear (and durable) health care directives that would allow our children (and our doctors) to not kill us so much as 'stop trying to save us.' In my case it has specific check points (like if I'm > 80 yrs of age, well past my "sell by" date, all artificial ventilation is strictly prohibited, and it says if I turn 80 while being kept alive by machines, turn them off on my Birthday)

A number of these have been litigated (well at least arbitrated to my personal knowledge) in Calfornia and been found to protect the doctors and hospitals from pissed of relatives who wanted them to 'do more' so I pretty confident that they will be useful for my kids should I end up in that state.

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#132

Post by Apocryphon »

cLeEOGPw wrote: post #121
melling wrote: post #13

The Singularity is about 30 years out, or so we're led to believe. It takes about 10 years and billions of dollars to create a new drug, and that time and cost is not decreasing. Stories like this are a grim reminder of how much work we really must do. "Fixing" the human body is a really hard problem.

There is no problem at all. Wanting to live forever is just your body's primitive instinct, and you should be intelligent enough to understand that people don't need you, or anyone, being around for longer than you will live already. Just look at the current old people - how they drag the whole progress, the whole society back. Now Imagine what would happen if everyone would be old - stagnation, that's what. Human br…

If clinical immortality was possible, who's to say that mental rejuvenation couldn't be possible, as well? And that people will develop new psychologies as they become immortal?

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#133

Post by jbooth »

tsotha wrote: post #128
jbooth wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it you don't remember the Terry Schiavo thing?

You're oversimplifying. There were a lot of people on both sides who had reasons other than religion.

I'm folding "crass political appeal to the religious rubes" under religion for that particular case.

EDIT: Her parents obviously had different motivations than religion. The 10,000,000 politicians and talking heads? Either religion or political exploitation related to religion.

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#134

Post by lake99 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #122
mortyseinfeld wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You talk a lot about the "christian right", and I would agree with you on this particular case, but the "socialist left" is far more intrusive in our lives than the "christian right" is. Get the government out our lives and stop pretending that we need the government to be our nanny.

Have you envisioned in detail what a government that "isn't our nanny" would look like? Have you visualized the consequences of a transition to such a government? Personally, while I agree governments screw a lot of things up, I have to recognize they have many advantages. Private property for instance often needs a strong government to be properly enforced.

While the idea of "strong government" has many vague interpretations, one doesn't need a nanny state to enforce property rights.

This is a good starting point for looking at what Benelux countries do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_euthanasia

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#135

Post by hrjet »

To avoid the slippery slope, couldn't there be a jury system that could decide the genuineness and applicability of a case of euthanasia? Leaving it only in the hands of a single person, be it the patient, or doctor or relative is bound to attract criticism. But if a jury can sentence one to a life-sentence in a crime case, they could arguably be trusted to deal a similar sentence for someone terminally ill.

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#136

Post by FBT »

olefoo wrote: post #129
loup-vaillant wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that this quote only apply to human tyrants. As a Christian apologist, I'm sure C.S. Lewis didn't object to the benevolent tyranny of God. (I would, but I too have my own exception: Friendly AI).

And where does your "friendly-AI" draw it's moral template from? I mean, I'm OK with an AI that works tirelessly in the background keeping the air clean and the habitat habitable. However I don't want a computer, no matter how smart; telling me what I and consenting partners choose to do. Or deciding whether or not we must or can use birth control. Or any of a thousand other forms of infringing on human agency.

You raise good points. In fact, that is the very problem of so-called "Friendly" AI. Note the capital F. It's a confusing term, I know, but the basic idea is an AI that "does what we want", in the most general sense. The idea behind FAi is the exact idea you present here.

The point is that it is a bad idea to just throw together an AI and hope that it is friendly (lower case f), but rather the big important problem of our time is to generate a mathematical model of Friendliness, so that we can explicitly define to the AI how we don't want all the bad things you mentioned or any other besides.

[Edit] Here are some relevant links:

http://intelligence.org/files/CEV.pdf

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=14047

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2009/08/a-nic...

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#137

Post by kabdib »

burntsushi wrote: post #127
rodgerd wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he wants to blames someone , he'd to better to blame usually religious-based lobby groups. But that wouldn't fit into his usual narratives, so I guess the government it is.

Religious based lobby groups don't force politicians to create and enforce particular laws. Politicians do it voluntarily.

They do it for votes and contributions. They do it for hire. I guess that it is also voluntary, but only in the sense that if they don't do it, they don't paid.

[I know, politicians are salaried, too. Let's make a distinction...]

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#139

Post by stickhandle »

alan_cx wrote: post #79
stickhandle wrote: post #42

Please HN don't disappoint me with "slippery slope" and "it's too complicated" arguments. I want to continue to believe the level of discourse here is better than that. Its not just do-able ... doctor-assisted suicide is right.

Ooooooh, this really makes me angry.............. How dare you? Those two arguments are very valid and absolutely need to be included in any serious discussion about this. Just because you so arrogantly dismiss them, does not mean that other people wont, worse still cant have those concerns. To suggest that mentioning these two issues means one is not "better than that", what ever you mean by that but clearly it is i…

>>Those two arguments are very valid and absolutely need to be included in any serious discussion

I do indeed arrogantly dismiss them. These are not arguments, they are statements that serve only to delay the conversation from moving to a discussion of solutions.

>>To suggest that mentioning these two issues means one is not "better than that", what ever you mean by that but clearly it is intended to put down and dismiss any one who is concerned about them, is frankly vile.

I do indeed dismiss any one who is concerned about them. If you think its vile, so be it. I agree whole-heartedly with the author that vacuous "arguments" designed to filibuster are truly vile.

>> you are saying that unless people agree with you, they are some how stupid

No, I'm saying that arguments counter to the urgent need for medically assisted suicide are stupid

>> the idea that some how doctors are so special that they can be wholly trusted alone with this is insane

Agreed. The solution shouldn't rest with the doctors. (there good -- now we are talking about the solution)

>>This is one debate no one gets to lay down the rules on

Disagree - true leadership should always try to frame the debate. I think this issue is so important and so fundamental that it shouldn't be mired in the search for consensus. The need for euthanasia policy is no longer a question. The discussion should centre on how.

Re: I Hope My Father Dies Soon

#140

Post by unethical_ban »

Houshalter wrote: post #100
jl6 wrote: post #90

I don't wish to minimise his situation but it seems like he considers his father's suffering not quite as bad as his own suffering were he just to do the killing himself and take the jail sentence.

That's a good point actually. Especially if you could do it with low risk of being caught/convicted. Which should be possible with someone who is dying anyways and you have full access to them in the hospital and could just slip some poison or something into them. I don't blame the author for not doing that though. Maybe it didn't even occur to him. But it's a good point that if you truly thought it was so terrible y…

Doctors can tell when someone has been suffocated or poisoned.
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