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Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

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Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#631

Post by kranke155 »

troupo wrote: post #332
kranke155 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thirst and hunger. They’re meant to die a peaceful death so pretty sure no predators involved. Go to a dementia facility and hang out with your those people. You will see suffering.

My grandmother died of dementia. If you think that "cannot feed themselves" is when a person is already completely gone and it's okay to "leave them under a tree to die of hunger and thirst", I've got news for you.

My mother has dementia, so maybe dementia just has different expressions and you shouldn’t generalise ?

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#632

Post by sarchertech »

1dom wrote: post #222
sarchertech wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's ridiculous. People can be unproductive, but not a liability. That would depend on your definition of liability I suppose. Many people would consider a parent who was no longer capable of productive output (work, helping out around the house, watching the kids) a liability. I suppose you may be using the term to mean "you'd rather not have them around anymore because their company is no longer offsetting the c…

> That would depend on your definition of liability I suppose. I mean it in the sense of burdening others. Sure we all have to burden others to some extent, but I mean specifically the unique burdens that come with age, like requiring others to do basic things to keep you alive because you've lost the ability to do so. > Once his capacity to make his own decisions was gone, his family could opt out of that treatment…

>but I mean specifically the unique burdens that come with age, like requiring others to do basic things to keep you alive

That's not unique to old age. People get injuries, and diseases that require other to people to help them to stay alive. Even something as simple as breaking both your arms requires someone else to keep you alive.

>The only reason for the family to be dishonest is through fear of upsetting/offending my feeling of entitlement to life

Your family could be dishonest because they they are normal human beings who don't want to upset you. Despite what you've told them about not being a burden, there's no way that you can be sure when they say they want you to keep sticking around.

>Yet you're here, trying to pressure me into making them suffer by being a big ol' age burden.

I think the risk of other people being pressured into killing themselves is worse than the burden your family might suffer because they have to take care of an old person.

>that maybe you'll be the old person who isn't a burden

I don't care if you're not a burden. Not being a burden isn't a good enough reason in my opinion for society to allow a doctor to kill you.

If you want to kill yourself, that's your choice. If you want to convince society to create an additional affirmative defense for murder, you haven't convinced me that maybe avoiding being a burden on your family is a good enough justification.

>This is already a problem

It is a problem, but this creates a very quick, low-risk, straightforward, hard to detect path to getting the entire thing.

>practically, old age is a terminal illness and most of the same arguments apply.

Life is a terminal condition. The only difference between an otherwise healthy 40 year old killing themselves to avoid a potential slow decline and an 80 year old doing it is the number of years they are expected to live.

Either you set some limit. Less than 5 years remaining life expectancy? Or you just let anyone kill themselves for any reason they like. The first case will be arbitrary no matter what limit you set.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#633

Post by perching_aix »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #629
perching_aix wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is absurd because it places subjective opinions over objective goods. Care to name even a single objective good, and explain how exactly it is objectively good?

Instead of naming something concrete, it makes more sense to define what the only legitimate basis for morality and the human good is, which is human nature. If you deny that, then there is indeed no possible objective basis for the good. You could not differentiate between any two human action. Decisions would be entirely arbitrary. It would make no difference what you did, except factually in the sense that you did…

> Instead of naming something concrete, it makes more sense to define what the only legitimate basis for morality and the human good is, which is human nature. If you deny that, then there is indeed no possible objective basis for the good.

Quite the opposite - I agree with that, and that's why I think goodness is not an objectively evaluable property. At the risk of making you feel I'm twisting your words, you pretty much said it yourself: what the human good is, is at the very least subject to human nature. Therefore, your evaluation of goodness cannot be objective. You're at best speaking from the subjective perspective of a human being.

But if you now say this doesn't get to the heart of your overall reasoning, I agree.

Consider then if goodness is even more subjective than just being a human value - for example, imagine that individuals might have (if even just slightly but) differing natures and so differing values. This would mean that your evaluation of what's good and what the human nature is like is not going to be durable across people. Worse still, you may even consider scenarios where the nature of a person changes over time, or they may value different things given a specific context. This would mean that your evaluation of what's good and what's bad is no longer durable not just across people, but across contexts, situations, and even time itself.

Notably of course, this is logically indistinguishable from other people simply making a measurement error of the same supposedly objective property. So this all hinges on whether you (can) believe that instead of there being an ontic, fundamental property of goodness, one that you're properly accessing and others disagreeing aren't, your access is the same as anyone else's. And that regardless of whether such a property objectively exists, it may either not hold an observer invariant value, or you may never be able to tell to have learned that value.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#634

Post by troad »

dotnet00 wrote: post #169
lordnacho wrote: post #3

I 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…

Thank you for saying this. It's not a popular view, but it is the correct one.

> You really don't want to end up with dementia and related illnesses, it totally sours everyone's view of you.

I don't think I've read a wilder defense of euthanasia in my entire life.

This is a "great guy" who committed his life to teaching kids, being a good neighbour, and his reward is one of his former pupils arguing he ought to be killed because he's grown unwell, he's unable to maintain his optics, and the community he gave his life to has therefore 'soured' on him. How very inconvenient for you, that this man is unwell.

What message is this supposed to send to anyone? "Don't get invested in trying to be nice to the neighbours, they're all ghouls who'll have you shipped to the glue factory as soon as you stop seeming useful." And once everyone internalises this level of social atomism, where do you expect these 'great guys' to keep coming from?

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#635

Post by sarchertech »

ta1243 wrote: post #627
sarchertech wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I was a year off for US data. The expected life span is 4 years not 5 at 90. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

So at 90 most people will have died by 95, and those that don't a significant proportion have severely life limiting health events, both mental and physical (strokes, heart attacks, falls etc) What happens to 90 year olds in America that need a few weeks in ITU and a couple of months on a warn from a stroke when they can't pay?

Sure most will have died but the majority will make it to 94.

Most 95 year olds also don’t have dementia.

My point isn’t that getting old doesn’t suck. It’s that you have a good chance of having several years of good quality of life at 90.

>What happens to 90 year olds in America that need a few weeks in ITU and a couple of months on a warn from a stroke when they can't pay?

America has socialized healthcare for people over 65, so the government pays for it.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#636

Post by InsideOutSanta »

antegamisou wrote: post #455
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why does one have to pay an extraordinary amount for it then? Does all money go to the facilities and the staff? (which mind you by law isn't mandated to consist of physicians) Again: Yes, it's "illegal" but it's effectively nulled if the means to it are made legal.

> Why does one have to pay an extraordinary amount for it then?

I don't know what you mean by "an extraordinary amount." It's about $10,000, which covers multiple consultations, medical assessments, interactions with the government, the nonprofit's operational costs, and so on.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#637

Post by hhthrowaway1230 »

lordnacho wrote: post #310
hhthrowaway1230 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like LinkedIn story to me. Written by claude trying to drive a point home.

Not sure how to react. This is the second time in a month that someone thinks I used AI to write an HN post. All I can say is that I didn't, and thank you for implying that it was so well written that it could only have been authored by a machine that has all of humanity's cultural output to hand.

Sorry about that, will be more considerate in the future

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#638

Post by [deleted] »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #399
firesteelrain wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not really a shift. The slippery slope is the heart of the debate. Once assisted suicide is allowed, the line between respecting autonomy and others making that decision blurs. Safeguards may help, but asking where to draw the line is the central problem.

Where do we have an example of the medical community engaging in any sort of slippery slope in this regard? The politicians, yes. Auschwitz may return but it won't be voluntary.

[deleted]

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#639

Post by 1718627440 »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #399
firesteelrain wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not really a shift. The slippery slope is the heart of the debate. Once assisted suicide is allowed, the line between respecting autonomy and others making that decision blurs. Safeguards may help, but asking where to draw the line is the central problem.

Where do we have an example of the medical community engaging in any sort of slippery slope in this regard? The politicians, yes. Auschwitz may return but it won't be voluntary.

KZs were supported by the medical community and were very fruitful for research since the experiments couldn't and still can't be replicated elsewhere.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#640

Post by 1718627440 »

imtringued wrote: post #396
hannofcart wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I urge you to consider whether it is your statement that is overly dismissive. Is there perhaps some existing conditioning, maybe in the form of religious upbringing that is driving your reaction to this? Many of us in fact find OP's a very thoughtful comment than a "silly statement". > By your logic we should kill everyone at their peak. No, they suggested that the old and ailing whose quality of li…

The problem is on your end. Consider the following scenarios: There is a red button that orders your euthanasia. Pressing it instantly teleports you to a euthanasia facility and leads to your death unless you say no within 30 seconds. The button reads your fingerprint and can only be pressed by you. (Assume science fiction level technology to make this true) 1. The button is located 5000 km away from you in an unknow…

That is a very good analogue.
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