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

Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

bluewin.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 655 posts

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#641

Post by xpe »

dang wrote: post #590
xpe wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Would you please stop perpetuating flamewars and taking HN threads on generic tangents? You've been doing this a ton lately, it's not what this site is for, and the effects your posts have been having on the threads is regrettable. Also, please stop crossing into name-calling and personal attack, as you did here. jeffwass shouldn't have referred to you as "a troll" but there's no question that your posts have been ha…

Hello. I've taken some time to think about this. I appreciate your explanation, I care about HN, and I'm open to feedback.

> Also, please stop crossing into name-calling and personal attack, as you did here.

I see many of my comments were unkind and unnecessary. I'm sorry, and I will stop. Here are three examples in this thread of where I went wrong, in my own words:

- I was accusatory, mean, and condescending when I wrote "I wonder if you will be intellectually honest if/when I reveal errors, mistakes, oversimplifications, and so on?"

- I did some psychoanalysis (which is unwarranted), such as when I wrote "You are clearly upset and bothered and resorting to rationalization and attacks."

- I accused someone of bad faith when I wrote: "You exaggerated and trivialized. You deflected and moved the goalposts. These are signs you want to win more than discuss in good faith."

I will keep these course corrections in mind.

P.S. I know this isn't a full reply to your comment; I am still processing some parts.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#642

Post by xpe »

croes wrote: post #492
xpe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll answer in various frames: - product development: why make someone "do one extra click" when you can make the extra click unnecessary? - writing: respect your audience's time. - humility: take one minute of your time to save other's time. - databases: optimize for reading not writing

Would the extra click really be unnecessary? The ones who don’t care about the book don‘t click anyway. The ones who are interested click no matter if it’s an upcoming or already existing book.

Two things, in the spirit of answering your question and explaining myself.

1. The argument above is sound, but it overstretches my metaphor and sidesteps my point which is: "if there is negligible cost in helping a customer, do it." Stated another way: "if reducing ambiguity helps a customer and has negligible cost, do it." (If a one word change reduces some ambiguity for some people, that's an easy win. Copy-editors do this frequently.)

2. Another angle: broadly speaking, I'm asking the question "What is better?" not just "What is necessary?". The first motivates improvement, no matter where you are. While the latter can sometimes be pragmatic, too often aiming only for 'necessity' justifies the status quo.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#643

Post by xpe »

krapp wrote: post #485
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #473

Lots of discussion of the morality of assisted suicide in this thread, and the circumstances under which it should be legal. In the cryonics community, it's a common complaint that they have to wait until the patient is legally dead in order to cryopreserve, which can make it difficult to cryopreserve under ideal circumstances. I like the idea of allowing individuals to opt for cryopreservation over end-of-life care.…

You're talking about cryonics as if it were an established, scientifically proven and effective technology, but it doesn't work and is widely considered to be pseudoscience. And mentioning the cost of end-of-life care is risible when your alternative is paying paying indefinite rent to a company for freezer space to keep a corpse frozen.

Cryonics doesn't work currently on the scale of human brains. It works at much smaller scales, though. There was a natural experiment where roundworms were revived after 46,000 years [1] [2].

Assessing how well cryonics might in the future at different scales is a prediction. So, yes, cryonics is speculative; it is making a bet that future technologies will somehow bring a brain back to life, in some form. Digital: a brain scan followed by whole-brain emulation. Biological: physical repair at the molecular level. If/when some kind of revival works, the question of consciousness remains.

The current edition of Wikipedia's entry on cryonics writes: "It is generally viewed as a pseudoscience" which is attributed to Jens Karlsson saying "Cryonics ... is generally viewed as a fringe pseudoscience." [3]

I don't care for this characterization. When I think of pseudoscience (such as a homeopathy and astrology) makes claims that are unfalsifiable, often by design. On the other hand, cryonics is falsifiable. Scientists are trying to figure out scales where it can work: it has far to go, and it may not get there.

I personally can't speak to the degree of lies, hucksterism, or fraud swirling around cryonics. I won't defend any such practices.

Will future history show cryonics to be impossible, not dependent on the currently-available technology, but as a provable claim based on the laws of the universe? Maybe. Maybe cryonics is a long-shot worth trying. I'm not an expert, but I lean towards the latter: allocating a small fraction of resources towards exploring it seems wise.

[1]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-revive-...

[2]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/46-000-year-old-w...

[3]: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2002/09/29/mainstream-science...

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#644

Post by willmadden »

djaboss wrote: post #347
willmadden wrote: post #197

For every Daniel Kahneman case, there's a case where the victim doesn't give consent, is coerced, or pressured from caregivers. It always rapidly expands from terminal illness to mental illness or non-terminal conditions. There's also weak oversight and misaligned profit motives. The examples in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, and Oregon are shocking.

Please provide shocking examples, especially for Switzerland. I'm eager to learn about real arguments from the other side.

Netherlands: Aurelia Brouwers, 29, with depression and autism (non-terminal), euthanized in 2018; critics cite expansion to mental illness and potential coercion risks.

Switzerland: 8% of assisted deaths involve mental disorders like severe depression; cases show weak oversight, allowing non-terminal approvals despite coercion concerns.

Canada: 2022 Veterans Affairs cases: Caseworkers offered MAiD to 4+ veterans in poverty seeking benefits, indicating systemic coercion and cost-saving motives.

Oregon: Kate Cheney, 85, with early dementia (mental/non-terminal elements), approved 1999 amid daughter pressure suspicions; evaluations noted influence but oversight permitted despite weak safeguards.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#645

Post by willmadden »

gield wrote: post #490
willmadden wrote: post #197

For every Daniel Kahneman case, there's a case where the victim doesn't give consent, is coerced, or pressured from caregivers. It always rapidly expands from terminal illness to mental illness or non-terminal conditions. There's also weak oversight and misaligned profit motives. The examples in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, and Oregon are shocking.

Can you please list some of those examples? You didn't mention Belgium so I'm pleased to hear that Belgium is doing well according to you (4000 cases of euthanasia per year of which 80 are for psychological suffering, 1 child per year).

Don't put words in my mouth. Disingenuous.

Belgium: Tine Nys, 38, autism/depression (non-terminal), euthanized 2010; rushed procedure amid family presence, weak oversight, sisters allege undue pressure and unmet incurable criteria.

Belgium: Frank Van Den Bleeken, prisoner with untreated psychiatric disorder, requested 2014; non-terminal suffering from inadequate care, systemic pressure via prison failures, oversight gaps.

Belgium: Nathalie Huygens, 50s, trauma-induced mental illness, approved 2022; financial barriers to treatment raise coercion concerns, questions on incurability oversight.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#646

Post by dang »

xpe wrote: post #641
dang wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop perpetuating flamewars and taking HN threads on generic tangents? You've been doing this a ton lately, it's not what this site is for, and the effects your posts have been having on the threads is regrettable. Also, please stop crossing into name-calling and personal attack, as you did here. jeffwass shouldn't have referred to you as "a troll" but there's no question that your posts have been ha…

Hello. I've taken some time to think about this. I appreciate your explanation, I care about HN, and I'm open to feedback. > Also, please stop crossing into name-calling and personal attack, as you did here. I see many of my comments were unkind and unnecessary. I'm sorry, and I will stop. Here are three examples in this thread of where I went wrong, in my own words: - I was accusatory, mean, and condescending when I…

Thanks for the thoughtful response! I appreciate it.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#648

Post by lukas099 »

AlexeyBrin wrote: post #238
lukas099 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was starving to death, the acute sensation of hunger would override everything else in my mind.

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.

Why would they need to know whether they have eaten, or even what eating is? They would feel the sensation of gnawing hunger in their stomach, the same way a baby or animal does.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#649

Post by circlefavshape »

Noaidi wrote: post #511
skibbityboop wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, when dementia has you terrified of, or raging at, your closest loved ones (who you don't remember at all so you think they're demons or strangers) all day every day to the point where they all can't stand you and feel terrible for wishing death would come to end your massive suffering. Beautiful moments, just beautiful. Hanging in there with cancer? Sure, fight it and deal with the pain. Dementia? No, please end…

It’s interesting to read here how many people believe their thoughts are themselves. They are more worried about losing their minds than losing their limbs. Your thoughts and memories are as much you as your hand or your foot. As a society, I think we’ve become so attached to our “self“ that we think is “me“. These people who lose their minds, do they have a sense of self? And if they have a sense of self, do they su…

I agree with some of what you say about the "self", but

> you really can’t suffer if you have no sense of self

... there's no way to know if this is true.

Re: Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland

#650

Post by notanastronaut »

firesteelrain wrote: post #138
Freak_NL wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem pleasant for the person themself either. Constant frustration, gaps in your memory growing ever larger, disorientation, loss — periodically augmented by brief flickers of recollection of what you used to be — and yet no one can legally end your misery, because you can likely no longer unequivocally consent to euthanasia or assisted suicide, even if you explicitly signed a declaration that you did not…

It’s still absurd despite what you say that we are implying that we should euthanize another human because they have become difficult to manage due to illness. Where do we draw the line?

Apparently where the line currently is leads to a whole lot of pain and suffering for everybody involved, for the sufferer and their family, because bad actors exist.

I tell you this now in good faith, any human being can choose when to end it. That is without question. I can go get in my car and drive into the nearest body of water, if desired, and no law could stop me. Even under supervision 24/7, it is still possible to do it. We are a determined species.

The only thing in debate is if they can be ethically assisted in the task, with compassion. You say no, someone might pressure Nana into dying to pass her inheritance. Well, the same people might very well put a pillow over her face when no one is looking. A bad actor is a bad actor and murder is illegal but people do it anyways and moral hand-wringing doesn't exactly stop it from happening.

From where I stand you're just unknowingly advocating for extra pain and suffering. Perhaps you'd change your mind if you were in the shoes of someone losing their marbles or worse, someone who has to care for them.

Post reply on HN