A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage • Hacker News Board

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#231

Post by FireBeyond » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 12:54 AM UTC

Iv wrote: post #229

FireBeyond wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, as a paramedic, who has lived in Australia and the UK as well as the US. End of life quality of life is its own issue, regardless of who is or isn't paying. Let me paint you a couple of examples and have you tell me about your desire to face any one of them rather than finding peace: 1) the lady with metastasized bone cancer who (thankfully) we were taking home so she could die there, as her family had set up a…

> You call it "living", it's not Well she did not kill herself despite being able to, now did she? > A man who had Alzheimers with some lucidity. Maybe 10 minutes an hour. Who again did not take those 10 minutes to take his life. Nietzsche wrote many of his pieces of literature in similar conditions. > But it's certainly not a coincidence that _many_ people who have spent a good amount of time around end of life even…

> Well she did not kill herself despite being able to, now did she?

She asked not to be resuscitated. She wasn't. On a couple of occasions, now, you have conflated DNR (or POLST, more accurately, these days, Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatments) with the act of suicide.

> Who again did not take those 10 minutes to take his life.

Again.

> Or that could be a bias towards spending most time with the most extreme examples. A bit like how policemen tend to become more racist during the course of their career. A professional's opinion on a moral issue can be more informed but also often more biased.

Oof. Comparing a medical professionals experience with the negative side of end of life palliative care with an increasing racism is a pretty ugly and unjustified comparison, one that says that you believe that those physicians, paramedics, nurses have intensified flaws or failings by virtue of recognizing/ believing that not everyone needs to or should stay alive to the very last by means of medical care, regardless of their wishes or quality of life, that that is somehow akin to "racism" in terms of character traits. Wow.

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#232

Post by justforyou » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 1:04 AM UTC

theboywho wrote: post #221

justforyou wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having an ice cream with your kids and enjoying it is only meaningful due to the cultural symhols and context present in the scenario. Otherwise, you're just hijacking short term reward systems and facilitating the consumption of empty calories to the (health) detriment of all parties involved. There's no inherent meaning in the scenario. Sounds like you are conflating meaning with the felt quality of immediate exper…

I don't agree. It's not necessary meaningful _only_ for symbolic reasons, in fact, you chose to give it meaning that way. You can also simply enjoy the fact your kid is happy and you are having a solitude moment with somebody who you love and who loves you back. In the same way you would enjoy a good tasting Apple, or hot water touching your skin, etc. Unless you are saying that humans are incapable of enjoying life…

If what you say is true, eating apples would be a universal joy. That's not the case.

Food preferences / aversions are a product of culture.

The ability to ask both "am I enjoying this moment?" and "does what I'm doing matter?" is a byproduct of symbolic thinking. Culture is both the vector for those symbols and the product of them.

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#233

Post by justforyou » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 1:04 AM UTC

theboywho wrote: post #222

justforyou wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having an ice cream with your kids and enjoying it is only meaningful due to the cultural symhols and context present in the scenario. Otherwise, you're just hijacking short term reward systems and facilitating the consumption of empty calories to the (health) detriment of all parties involved. There's no inherent meaning in the scenario. Sounds like you are conflating meaning with the felt quality of immediate exper…

I did not mention what kind of ice cream we were having. Ours was a keto-compatible sugar-free ice cream

Well played sir, well played.

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#234

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

justforyou wrote: post #232

theboywho wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. It's not necessary meaningful _only_ for symbolic reasons, in fact, you chose to give it meaning that way. You can also simply enjoy the fact your kid is happy and you are having a solitude moment with somebody who you love and who loves you back. In the same way you would enjoy a good tasting Apple, or hot water touching your skin, etc. Unless you are saying that humans are incapable of enjoying life…

If what you say is true, eating apples would be a universal joy. That's not the case. Food preferences / aversions are a product of culture. The ability to ask both "am I enjoying this moment?" and "does what I'm doing matter?" is a byproduct of symbolic thinking. Culture is both the vector for those symbols and the product of them.

> If what you say is true, eating apples would be a universal joy

That doesn't follow from anything the grandparent said.

> Food preferences / aversions are a product of culture.

They are certainly subjective, and culture has some influence on them, but “product of culture” is far overstating the case. Food preferences exist without culture for purely (though still varying across individuals, because biology does) biological reasons.

> The ability to ask both "am I enjoying this moment?" and "does what I'm doing matter?" is a byproduct of symbolic thinking.

Insofar as all use of language is, and this the ability to ask any question framed in words is, certainly. It's less clear whether the ability to distinguish momentary enjoyment from significance is, because we don't really have address to the cognitive processes of those without access to language.

> Culture is both the vector for those symbols and the product of them.

This may also overstste the influence of culture, but it does so less than the prior example.

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#235

Post by Iv » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 1:19 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #231

Iv wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You call it "living", it's not Well she did not kill herself despite being able to, now did she? > A man who had Alzheimers with some lucidity. Maybe 10 minutes an hour. Who again did not take those 10 minutes to take his life. Nietzsche wrote many of his pieces of literature in similar conditions. > But it's certainly not a coincidence that _many_ people who have spent a good amount of time around end of life even…

> Well she did not kill herself despite being able to, now did she? She asked not to be resuscitated. She wasn't. On a couple of occasions, now, you have conflated DNR (or POLST, more accurately, these days, Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatments) with the act of suicide. > Who again did not take those 10 minutes to take his life. Again. > Or that could be a bias towards spending most time with the most extr…

> On a couple of occasions, now, you have conflated DNR (or POLST, more accurately, these days, Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatments) with the act of suicide.

I certainly did not and having a few idiots who cannot make the difference does not mean we can't still be opposed to other people choosing for you what it means to "die with dignity", which was the starter of this discussion.

And I am happy that you find racism abhorrent but I doubt you misunderstood me to the point of missing that I am just criticizing the idea that professionals the most exposed to a situation necessarily have unbiased and superior moral opinion on this situation.

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#236

Post by Iv » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 1:20 AM UTC

ta999999171 wrote: post #216

Iv wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See? People would assume tons of things about other people. And one common assumption is that "what I want for me is what others want for them." My opinion on the issue was already strong, but seeing people die after long diseases and people around them talking about "unplugging" them is what made me certain I do not want euthanasia. My grandfather wanted to live even with half a lung functional and painful breathing…

Lungs don't control whether you have any understanding of the people around you...

Trust me, when your brain does not receive the amount of oxygen it needs, even though mostly breathing pure oxygen at that point, your understanding becomes blurry at best.

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#237

Post by D-Coder » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #33

xvector wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot wait until we cure aging so we can die on our own terms. The right to death should be as inalienable as the right to life, and nothing short of the heat death should be allowed to make this decision for a sentient being.

A couple of thoughts: 1. If everyone lives until the end of the universe, what does that mean for the prospect of having children? I would think it would mean that we would need to stop having children at some point, or else we would overcrowd whatever portion of space that we are occupying at some point. Not being allowed to have children would be sad. I don’t have any children yet, but I want to have children in th…

Well if it takes a few centuries to work these out, I'm willing to do the work!

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#238

Post by automathematics » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 6:14 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #80

chrissnell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t speak for others but I had appendicitis about 10 years ago and ended up spending almost 8 hours in the ER waiting room suffering immensely. I distinctly remember towards the latter half of my wait that I began to feel a strange sensation of impending doom. I can’t describe it exactly but I feared that I might actually die if I wasn’t called back soon. I later heard that this sensation is supposedly one of the…

Feelings of impending doom are also a symptom of adenosine injection. [1] Interestingly, caffeine is an adenosine receptor antagonist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine#Side_effects

I've never really considered it a feeling of doom. It only lasts a partial second or two and you don't really have time to feel anything.

I mean, it literally can take your heart going 400 beats a minute, stop it, and instantly start going 72. It feels fucking crazy but I never have time to feel "doom" specifically.

I do know that the paramedics love administering it though haha.

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#239

Post by wayoutthere » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #203

wayoutthere wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've heard, it's relatively common in hospice care for people to ask to be "helped along" on their way out. All it takes is a little Xanax on top of a lot of morphine; and honestly it sounds like a pretty peaceful way to speed up the inevitable.

Death is evil. It must be eradicated, like other nasty diseases. https://www.kurzweilai.net/death-is-an-outrage

I thought this was satire on first read, but given the context of Alcor (which makes its money cryogenically preserving heads), I'm not so sure.

Without death, progress becomes impossible as power is concentrated in the people who were there first. Without death, consumption is infinite but resources are zero-sum. Without death, life for a young person becomes increasingly bleak. Bleak prospects for young people are how big, destructive, and deadly wars happen. So I don't think eliminating death through biological means would significantly reduce the number of deaths in the long run, it would just change the means.

Re: A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage

#240

Post by FeepingCreature » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

ta999999171 wrote: post #218

FeepingCreature wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gonna be honest - once we have backups, I'm totally intending to go into seriously risky behaviors. So this is 100% the opposite of how I intend to live my life.

So you'll kill yourself doing risky things... and then a clone of your mind will continue your life? Seems...shortsighted.

Patternism is the only theory of self consistent with materialist reductionism.