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The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

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Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#91

Post by kentrado »

AstralStorm wrote: post #61
wayoutthere wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two minds of this as best exemplified by Camus and Sartre. A core tenet of existentialism is that we are always free to make choices, even if we cannot always control our circumstances. We’re still responsible for making choices — even choosing to not choose. Sartre was a believer in absolute freedom, and that suicide was a choice among many others that a person could make (and indeed, Sartre eventually did…

And what does Camus say you should do when your freedom is curtailed in unacceptable ways? (Note: way beyond social contract.)

Camus argued against suicide but made the exception for cases of chronic pain due to illness and such.

I think this is a better summary than what you can get from a random comment in hacker news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVdF0k4DN1U&t=197s

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#92

Post by Grue3 »

That's splitting hairs. Not preventing a person from killing themselves is morally equivalent to being complicit in their death. I hate seeing when people who commit suicide get blamed for their death: they're mentally ill, they can't help themselves. People who could've helped them should be blamed instead.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#93

Post by Veen »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #85
Veen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a way to make money from writing beyond publishing and hoping that readers will pay for your work after the fact. Most sustainable writing has never worked on that model. Traditionally, writers were paid by publishers and it was the publishers job to extract payment from readers. Today, writers try to be both writers and publishers, and they find it extremely difficult. That's no surprise; professional publi…

I also do freelance writing for pay. That is currently the majority of my earned income. And the internet would like me know I'm immoral and ruining the internet for doing that kind of work. See this recent comment by me in reply to those accusations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20035958 Twenty years ago when I was homeschooling, I could find all kinds of high quality free goodies online to support that. It…

If you regularly write comments like this, I can understand why you don't find Hacker News a useful networking opportunity. It's not Tumblr.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#94

Post by pas »

candiodari wrote: post #24
DoreenMichele wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many people for whom life is a living hell with no hope of escape other than to end it. Insisting they live amounts to serving as their warden and torturer. If it isn't someone you are personally willing to take some responsibility for, as you did with your wife, then I think it is wrong to insist they live. I'm quite open about my long history of being suicidal and the various underlying reasons why. Peopl…

> If it isn't someone you are personally willing to take some responsibility for, as you did with your wife, then I think it is wrong to insist they live. Exactly. People, even kids, kill themselves because of "lack of perspective". Lack of a (reasonable) future. Lack of any reasonable hope for change. People aren't stupid and mental illnesses (the non-medical ones) don't actually prevent thinking. That means the fir…

Damn. At first I wanted to skip this probably unnecessary long comment. But damn.

It's so scary to see that our systems are full of misaligned incentives, a classic economics problem. The fucking textbook agent-principal dilemma. And nothing changes. (Or just so very slowly.)

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#95

Post by pas »

Barrin92 wrote: post #68
rincebrain wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define when the suicidal ideation is irrational, though? Let's say you're having a persistent depressive episode, and have had suicidal urges and possibly even attempted it in the past. Let's further say that you've been attempting treatment consistently from multiple approaches, for extended time intervals, and none of them have yielded improvement. Is there a point at which the suicidal urges should no l…

I would agree that there is potentially a point where a mental illness could be so severe and life-draining and incurable that it would be an option to end that life, but I think even in that case it's hard to argue that the person in question is even in a position to make that call, because we cannot distinguish why they're feeling the way they do. And in particular when it comes to young adults there is a significa…

Why are we condemning people to live so many brutally bleak and desperate years just in the hope of maybe it'll be better?

Are we running out of people? Can we make life bearable for them? No, and alas not really. Sure, we offer drugs, and counseling, and whatever, but sometimes those amount to nothing, because you can't give them what they need/want - kinship, family, love, a loving mother/father, a better childhood, etc.

I'm not saying life is not precious. I'm saying, that exactly because life is precious because it allows you to experience the journeys, pursue happiness, find joy, retrospect, and go out knowing it was precious. But if none of these happen, if none of these are available, if you can't give any of these to these people, then their life is not a life.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#96

Post by pas »

Barrin92 wrote: post #54
anvandare wrote: post #11

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high…

In the particular case of depression and mental illness suicide is often itself a symptom of the disease . It's not so simple to just portray this as an act of individual choice or liberty. If a mentally ill person is effectively treated the desire to kill themselves will generally subside, and at that point we know that it wasn't a rational choice but a biological symptom. The case here is much more difficult than s…

How many years of pain is acceptable until her condition markedly improves? How big confidence interval we can put on this?

And ... separating brain chemistry from rationality is an error. If her current state is 90+% determined by her brain chemistry, and our medicine and other treatments can't reverse it, then it's a rational option to solve it by giving up on that brain with its chemistry and all.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#97

Post by balzss »

Grue3 wrote: post #92

That's splitting hairs. Not preventing a person from killing themselves is morally equivalent to being complicit in their death. I hate seeing when people who commit suicide get blamed for their death: they're mentally ill, they can't help themselves. People who could've helped them should be blamed instead.

But there are times when no one could have helped. Finding someone to blame doesn't seem to be a thing that we should aim for. It can be even harmful in certain situations e.g. a mother/father who lost their child even though they have done everything they could to prevent that. That's tragic in and of itself. Finding someone to blame would only worsen the situation.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#98

Post by mlang23 »

Everyone should have the right to terminate their life. We kill animals that lived with us as pets because we dont want to see them suffer, but we refuse to do anything and have someone starve themselves to death just because... well, I will never get it.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#99

Post by shearskill »

Veen wrote: post #93
DoreenMichele wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also do freelance writing for pay. That is currently the majority of my earned income. And the internet would like me know I'm immoral and ruining the internet for doing that kind of work. See this recent comment by me in reply to those accusations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20035958 Twenty years ago when I was homeschooling, I could find all kinds of high quality free goodies online to support that. It…

If you regularly write comments like this, I can understand why you don't find Hacker News a useful networking opportunity. It's not Tumblr.

And HN is not Reddit. Would you make a similarly dismissive reply to a vet who suffers from PTSD on a thread about suicide? Might want to step away from the cynicism cycle you’re in... there’s always the option to just not reply at all.

Re: The Euthanasia That Wasn’t

#100

Post by bingoman »

Youth in Asia is progressive and modern, what it isn't is highly political. It is a subservient youth in Asia among both autocratic regimes like china as well as Democracies like India, Japan or Thailand. Youth isn't very politically vocal, on the contrary it is quite subservient in my view.
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