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3 years living vs dying is a 3 year net improvement on life. Such silly statement. By your logic we should kill everyone at their peak.
3 years of living in constant pain - not saying it’s the case here - is not better than being dead to some people.
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>He was Catholic, and wouldn't do assisted suicide. I thought Jain the perspective shared in this comment is valuable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45548178 Well, not just the comment, but also the wikipedia article linked to in the comment. Obviously, Jainism isn't Catholicism, but this part of the wikipedia article got me thinking: >It is not considered a suicide by Jain scholars because it is not an act of…
No, it will always be wrong to kill an innocent person whether that is yourself or another doesn't matter. Our lives are lent to us by God
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How did they medicate for pain for millennia before the advent of painkillers?
Are we pretending opioids do not exist in nature? What's next, how did people hallucinate before LSD?
Not going to express an opinion, I'll just leave this except from the Hippocratic Oath [1], which reflects society's primary beliefs on this topic approximately up until the 19th century: > οὐ δώσω δὲ οὐδὲ φάρμακον οὐδενὶ αἰτηθεὶς θανάσιμον, οὐδὲ ὑφηγήσομαι συμβουλίην τοιήνδε In English: > Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.or…
Daniel wrote one of my favorite books, Thinking: Fast and Slow ( https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp... ). If you haven't read it, and you're into economics, behavioral psychology, and thinking about thinking then I'd highly recommend it. The first half of the book is especially compelling. You will be missed! Sad to hear he passed, but glad he was able to go out on his own terms.
A later analysis[55] made a bolder claim that, despite Kahneman's previous contributions to the field of decision making, most of the book's ideas are based on 'scientific literature with shaky foundations'. A general lack of replication in the empirical studies cited in the book was given as a justification.
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He’d be dead either way, the question is if having those three years were a net improvement to his life
3 years living vs dying is a 3 year net improvement on life. Such silly statement. By your logic we should kill everyone at their peak.
They would have likely used assisted suicide if it had been an option back then.
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I read that in some societies, if you ended up not being able to feed yourself, they would bring you to your favorite tree and leave you there. If you ended back in camp you’d be welcomed. If you didn’t, that was your end. I found that remarkably comforting and peaceful.
If you don’t make it back you would die of starvation and lack of water. These are some of the worst ways of dying. What do you find comforting and peaceful about it? The person has been abandoned by their community and could suffer terribly for days.
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Fascinating that you think someone with dementia would be suffering more from hunger then from their condition sapping away at them.
Neither you nor I know what the person with dementia is suffering from. What you call "comforting" is leaving a helpless prison in the wilderness to succumb to thirst, hunger or predators
Go to a dementia facility and hang out with your those people. You will see suffering.
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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.
That wasn't the case with my father, who had a pretty good appetite up until his last few weeks.