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The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

theguardian.com

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Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#71

Post by giantg2 »

caseyy wrote: post #2

I don’t fear death, it is natural. I fear the suffering society will put me through when I’m old and ill, because they can’t cope with death. It’s good we are starting to develop dignified death laws. With the world population as it is, more people will die in the next decade than any other in history (even the plagues). Just looking at population graphs, 1B might die between 2050 and 2060. Much suffering can be avoi…

I would welcome death, but I don't seek it out. Life is generally miserable. It wouldn't be that bad if I got hit by a bus on the way into work.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#73

Post by ndriscoll »

fsckboy wrote: post #41
kiba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are different. For example, my fear of death is in the from existential dread. It's an occasional thing. We should probably try harder to make people healthier in general. Much of the frailty of the elderly can be avoided with rigorous exercise. Maybe heart disease and dementia doesn't have to be your fate. I don't know how much longer people will be able to live if they optimize the hell out of their biomarke…

without disputing that there exists an optimal diet/exercise regiment for longevity and health, i very much doubt that we at present have a clue what it is. every day new science and medical evidence overturns old, and reproducibility fails. optimizing diet and rigorous exercise comes at some cost in the form of time spent in your precious youth. so you sacrifice youthtime for a chance at a longer better old age. eac…

Even if they don't enjoy working out, most people would probably enjoy living in a strong, healthy, good looking body. The hour of exercise makes every future hour of life slightly better, even in the short term (within a couple months of effort). Following pretty much any strength training program will also do a pretty good job even if it's not an optimal routine.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#74

Post by maccard »

fsckboy wrote: post #41
kiba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are different. For example, my fear of death is in the from existential dread. It's an occasional thing. We should probably try harder to make people healthier in general. Much of the frailty of the elderly can be avoided with rigorous exercise. Maybe heart disease and dementia doesn't have to be your fate. I don't know how much longer people will be able to live if they optimize the hell out of their biomarke…

without disputing that there exists an optimal diet/exercise regiment for longevity and health, i very much doubt that we at present have a clue what it is. every day new science and medical evidence overturns old, and reproducibility fails. optimizing diet and rigorous exercise comes at some cost in the form of time spent in your precious youth. so you sacrifice youthtime for a chance at a longer better old age. eac…

> optimizing diet and rigorous exercise comes at some cost in the form of time spent in your precious youth. so you sacrifice youthtime for a chance at a longer better old age. each hour of exercise does not make you live an hour longer, so you are net negative from the get-go.

Pretty much all science on exercise's impact on both physical and health can be loosely summarized by "doing anything, anything at all is likely to have significant short and long term benefits". Similarly, nutrition can be summarised as "try eat a balanced diet, but at the very least just avoid hyper UPF, and don't eat red meat every day". You might decide that's worth it, but "walk your kids/dog/partner/self twice a day and only eat red meat on the weekends" is probably enough to make a significant impact for a very significant number of people.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#75

Post by VonTum »

xvector wrote: post #10

I genuinely think death will be conquered, for all practical purposes, within this century. In our vast 300 thousand year history, we are likely in the last century of mortal humans, and in the last millennium of biological ones. Future generations will wonder at our coping mechanisms for something so tragic and horrifying as death, and wonder why we didn't try harder, earlier. Why isn't the longevity problem our #1…

I agree, likely the first immortal person has already been born. Perhaps even large swaths of the population are already effectively immortal, but they just don't know it yet.

Sadly, my main fear is that immortality will only be available to the extremely rich and powerful. Generally historical progress is made when the old guard die, be it in science with the leaders clamoring to old theories, dictatorships falling when their leader does, companies setting a new course when their founder/CEO retires.

I shudder at the thought of living in a world where everyone still dies like before, except an entrenched immortal powerful elite.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#76

Post by bluecheese452 »

caseyy wrote: post #9
sandworm101 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being "natural" doesnt mean anything on relation to fear. Being eaten alive by lions is 100% natural too. Death is inevitable . So there is little to gain from being too afraid of it, but i would never suggest that anyone not fear the unknown. That fear is what has kept us alive and evolving. The fear is natural.

I think death being natural lends a lot of credence to the idea that it’s normal — as normal as life. And I’d say most people probably don’t fear death or non-existence itself, but rather the process of dying (suffering, stress, pain, shame, loss of agency, the grief inflicted on others, etc). In palliative care settings, where the process of dying is well-managed (physically, emotionally, spiritually), people don’t…

Plenty of people fear non existence. Pretty bizarre to claim otherwise.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#77

Post by xvector »

VonTum wrote: post #75
xvector wrote: post #10

I genuinely think death will be conquered, for all practical purposes, within this century. In our vast 300 thousand year history, we are likely in the last century of mortal humans, and in the last millennium of biological ones. Future generations will wonder at our coping mechanisms for something so tragic and horrifying as death, and wonder why we didn't try harder, earlier. Why isn't the longevity problem our #1…

I agree, likely the first immortal person has already been born. Perhaps even large swaths of the population are already effectively immortal, but they just don't know it yet. Sadly, my main fear is that immortality will only be available to the extremely rich and powerful. Generally historical progress is made when the old guard die, be it in science with the leaders clamoring to old theories, dictatorships falling…

All medical technology developed 50 years ago is now available to the general public, so I think it'd be available to everyone.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#78

Post by xvector »

ddq wrote: post #66
xvector wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big assumption in this counterargument is that we stay biological forever. I see biological "immortality" (anti-aging) as a temporary stopgap while we develop gradual replacement and migrate to a synthetic/digital consciousness, hosted on nodes distributed throughout Earth orbit or beyond for fault tolerance and availability. I'd be shocked if this didn't happen in the next thousand years. Needing air/water every…

You won't "migrate", it will just be a copy of you. Your conscious perspective will not transfer to the copy of you. You will still be bound to the original, even if a simulacrum of your mind is created.

You can "migrate" with a technique such as gradual replacement, which in a simplified form replaces one physical neuron at a time with an uplink to a virtual neuron, and waits for your thoughts to equalize. Realistically you'd do clusters of neurons.

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#79

Post by maccard »

dachris wrote: post #38
kiba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are different. For example, my fear of death is in the from existential dread. It's an occasional thing. We should probably try harder to make people healthier in general. Much of the frailty of the elderly can be avoided with rigorous exercise. Maybe heart disease and dementia doesn't have to be your fate. I don't know how much longer people will be able to live if they optimize the hell out of their biomarke…

Unfortunately, in the end, bad health is likely to come get you anyways, you just have a higher likelihood of more and more healthy years. A good friend of mine lived healthy, and still went hiking in their 90s. Yet, they had a stroke and are now bedridden. If you just drop dead after having had a nice live or go through months or years of frailty and bad health, it's all in the cards.

There's also the possibility that you can suffer from a long series of health conditions causing you a very reduced quality of life over a long period of time, have a stroke, and become bedridden. Perosnally I'd rather be healthy up until that particular time comes (if it indeed comes for me)

Re: The hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain

#80

Post by alabastervlog »

kiba wrote: post #12
caseyy wrote: post #2

I don’t fear death, it is natural. I fear the suffering society will put me through when I’m old and ill, because they can’t cope with death. It’s good we are starting to develop dignified death laws. With the world population as it is, more people will die in the next decade than any other in history (even the plagues). Just looking at population graphs, 1B might die between 2050 and 2060. Much suffering can be avoi…

People are different. For example, my fear of death is in the from existential dread. It's an occasional thing. We should probably try harder to make people healthier in general. Much of the frailty of the elderly can be avoided with rigorous exercise. Maybe heart disease and dementia doesn't have to be your fate. I don't know how much longer people will be able to live if they optimize the hell out of their biomarke…

I don't get how people can't be kinda freaked out by the universe subjectively fast-forwarding to its end, to occur at any time between this second and a few decades from now.
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