Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

doximity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–337 of 337 posts

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#331

Post by fapjacks »

saiya-jin wrote: post #280
fapjacks wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facing one's own mortality carries a tacit knowledge of death that can't be got by other means. It's one thing to think about it intellectually, to sort of turn it around in your mind. But it doesn't give you a sense of death. I can tell from your treatment of it that you haven't. And that you hold up this sort of deeply personal interaction as a demonstration of some problems you believe you've identified with an en…

Hold your horses a bit, you can't make such blank statements about somebody who you don't know at all. People are so vastly different and unique inside that what works for you and defines you might have little to no meaning to next guy. What you consider an important marker of some aspect of personality might be lacking elsewhere, yet the aspect itself might be very well there. Psychedelic drugs can give you perspect…

I agree with what you've said about extremities of life experience, and I agree that people fundamentally experience life differently from one another. As an exception among most of my peers, I support the notion that someone hardly exposed to danger could become affected by e.g. PTSD. But that being said, I can assure you that there is nothing that comes close to the experience of combat, and nothing-er still that comes close to experiencing it continuously across years. It's not like being in the same room when grandpa passes away. It's being consumed by human terminality, every conceivable permutation of mortal extreme. Surely you've read about the continual shelling of the trenches, and at least intellectually understood there's a difference. But even then, I'm sure there have been folks who, through their own relative existence and differential experience, have stumbled high on mushrooms on the same tacit wisdoms as those realized by ascetic monks who spend their entire lives on the edge of existential crises. I'm totally sure it happens, but it doesn't happen often. I'm surprised all the time, but just based on his reply, I made an educated guess, which turned out to be right. I don't have children, but I know enough people with kids to understand that having kids flips a bit in the human brain. It's an experience with a tacit component that can't be got by other means, though I'm sure someone's been there somehow that didn't involve creating a child. There are exceptions to every rule, but they are exceptions.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#332

Post by fnbr »

coldacid wrote: post #117
fnbr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assisted suicide has been legal in Canada for a few years now, and there haven’t been many major issues (other than Catholic hospitals refusing to comply with the law). Doctors aren't fools, and won't do it in cases that aren't blatantly acceptable. Most of the scenarios where it is desirable are cut and dry, and we have ethics boards/courts to handle the other circumstances.

"Refusing to comply with the law" sounds like assisted suicide is mandated, when it's really a voluntary thing. As it is, where are there even still private, religious hospitals in the country? At least here in Ontario hospitals are all public institutions.

Ah, welcome to Alberta :)

A lot of small towns in Alberta only have Catholic hospitals (which are publicly funded, but run by Covenant Health [0], a Catholic institution). They refuse to provide, among other things, assisted suicide or abortion services despite being publicly funded. 4/9 of Edmonton's hospitals are run by Covenant Health.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_Health_(Alberta)

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#333

Post by TheKarateKid »

jrnichols wrote: post #21
et2o wrote: post #2

Wonderful article. This is a not-uncommon situation in end of life care. It's difficult for a family to accept a tragedy like this, a loved young woman dying in the prime of her life from something untreatable. The families often are in almost some sort of denial (understandably, I'm saying that without judgment) and demand that everything be tried, even when it's futile and ends up making the situation worse like in…

> seems to me like it's a cultural thing as well. This is true. I think that it's also a religious thing as well, and almost Christians. Other religions are more accepting of death, but Christianity has taught many to sincerely believe that Jesus himself would step into the room and heal their loved one, therefore every attempt must be made to save them. This is something I've seen first hand in my years as a Paramed…

> Christianity has taught many to sincerely believe that Jesus himself would step into the room and heal their loved one, therefore every attempt must be made to save them.

This is a completely unsensitive and arrogant comment. Replace 'Christianity' with 'Muslim' or 'Jewish' and see if you still would've pressed the submit button.

Further, as a Catholic who has many friends and family of different forms of Christianity, your opinion-stated-as-fact is not accurate in the slightest.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#334

Post by GordonS »

colechristensen wrote: post #64

Two sides show up here, fear and avoidance of pain and suffering :: fear and avoidance of death. Most of the comments here advocate accepting death to minimize pain, but it doesn't have to be one or the other. With the right mindset you can accept both gracefully. A life in pain can be worth living without running towards or away from death.

So, I have been living with constant neuropathic pain for almost 4 years now. Unless you've experienced it, you can't understand what being in pain 24/7 for years is like. It takes a terrible toll on your mental health, and affects those around you too.

Getting through each day is hard, and it's really not so easy to just 'gracefully accept' that I'll be in constant pain for the rest of my life, which will likely continue to worsen over time and possibly spread to large (motor) nerves.

Your final point is valid, but at the end of the day it should be up to the affected person to decide.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#335

Post by GalacticDomin8r »

learc83 wrote: post #324
GalacticDomin8r wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The national debate was mostly pro-life groups trying to spin the situation for political gain. That is what I would call a distinction without a difference. The underlying motivation for those actors is still the same no matter you call it religion or politics. They appealed to the identity of the religious and largely got the response they wanted. Same thing Russia did with BLM except Russia was inciting both sid…

>Christian's believe in miracles/supernatural by definition. This includes faith healing. The first assertion is true. The 2nd doesn't follow from the first--many Christians don't believe that miraculous events still happen. Faith healing in particular has a very specific meaning, and many denominations outright condemn it. As to what extent belief in the possibility of miraculous healing affects the vast majority of…

> The 2nd doesn't follow from the first

We'll have to disagree on that. I did not assert there is a 100% correlation. I did mean to imply there is a high one.

> many Christians don't believe that miraculous events still happen.

I reject that assertion. I believe nearly all Christians engage in intercessory prayer at least once in a great while. Doing so shows they believe in the possibility their prayer coming true.

> It doesn’t follow from that premise that these people were against removing her feeding tube because of that belief--

You are overlooking the fact the main court challenges were by her parents on the basis she was not brain dead when in fact as a point of knowledge she was. They held the belief she might recover even after numerous experts and medical scans showed the damage was irreconcilability permanent. They then went further to cloak the case in religious themes. There were several organizations with strong ties to faith healing working with her parents. There was a large volume of innuendo and direct appeal to faith healing for the duration of the event. Some of it's even still around if you look.

This was similar to the Dover intelligent design case in that the side holding supernatural belief doesn't come straight out and say what their true beliefs are, and for good reason. Instead they attempt to sow uncertainty in court, in hopes of what they belief will come true.

> there was no national debate about miraculous healing.

You're right on that mostly, but only because it's very rare to find the open questioning of another Christian's supernatural beliefs in America. Even Mormons are generally afforded that. I won't speculate as to why that is.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#336

Post by IgorPartola »

svieira wrote: post #274
IgorPartola wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could even create a rock he himself could not lift. Oh wait...

> If he literally created the universe and all the laws of nature, couldn’t he create such a concept? What is not, is not. Omnipotence means "being able to do anything that is possible to do", not "being able to do anything that is possible to be spoken of". Re-stating your argument: * "He could even make a square circle" * "He could even tell a true falsehood" * "He could even do that which contradicts itself" Makin…

> Omnipotence means "being able to do anything that is possible to do"

Would you say that omnipotence includes the ability to define what omnipotence means?

My limited understanding of theology is that polytheistic religions resolved a lot of this by not having omnipotence, and by having hierarchies of gods. You had a sort of overarching force of nature thing that gave creation to everything else, and to which gods answered. And then you had gods like Zeus that were almost all powerful, but still bound by laws of the higher tier being/force/whatever. And below gods like Zeus you had another tier that obeyed even more rules, but was still more powerful than a mortal.

Dualistic religions postulated that there is god and an evil counterpart with which god is in eternal struggle. God in this sense is not omnipotent since an omnipotent god could defeat any foe just by changing the rules of the struggle.

Monotheistic religions hold that there is only god, an omnipotent being and the source of all creation. Christianity is an inconsistent mix of this and dualism where god is omnipotent, yet cannot just do away with the devil.

Re: I Lied When I Said We Did Everything We Could

#337

Post by barking »

JshWright wrote: post #282
barking wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter story I once attended a talk given by an A&E consultant who was a bit dismissive of the trend for putting in defibrillators everywhere, such as at sports stadiums. He said that by the time someone had rushed to wherever the device was kept, retrieved and used it, it was likely that, at best, you'd be looking at the casualty surviving in a persistent vegetative state. Incidentally, someone asked about hav…

The opinion of that A&E "consultant" is unsupported by the available evidence. Public access defibrillation is clearly linked to better survival to discharge rates (i.e. people actually leaving the hospital). EDIT: As an anecdotal example, I know of at least one person who is walking around today because of a defibrillator at a stadium. 17 year old male took a lacrosse ball to the chest, instantly triggering ventricu…

No he was a consultant, without the "", which means that he had a medical degree plus postgraduate qualifications and about 10 years in hospital training positions usually including experience in different countries. At least that's the norm here.
Post reply on HN