Comment by 1dom
3 days ago
> Everyone becomes a liability at some point. By that logic we should just go full Logan’s run and kill people as soon as they stop being productive.
That's ridiculous. People can be unproductive, but not a liability.
> But I don’t want this attitude of “you should kill yourself so you don’t burden your family” to become the norm either.
I can see that, but you haven't explained why. Personally, I don't want to burden myself, my family and those I care about, that's important to me. There must be something more important to you that justifies burdening loved ones with a hard painful death of a loved one. Help me understand: what's that thing for you, if not ego/fear?
> What if your partner’s grandad heard you calling him a rude obnoxious liability and felt pressured into killing himself?
The alternative is he's unnaturally kept alive in a perpetual state of suffering for him and the people around him. If he hadn't suffered mental decline, I know he'd never consciously choose that, another reason why I'd like to make sure I'm gone before serious decline kicks in.
> But many people die suddenly with no serious mental decline at all. That can happen at 95 or 100 the same as it happens earlier.
That doesn't change anything. I agree with Kahnemans point that becoming a burden is too late. If I accept that, without being able to predict the future, it then becomes a game of risk. Kahnamen decided the risk of him becoming a burden was greater than the risk of him continuing to live what he would consider a productive (edit: "valuable" is probably a better word here) life.
>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 cost to you".
>There must be something more important to you that justifies burdening loved ones with a hard painful death of a loved one. Help me understand: what's that thing for you, if not ego/fear?
This isn't about me. As of right now I don't plan on taking any heroic measures to preserve my life past a certain point. The issue is I don't care why someone wants to stick around. I want them to feel free to do continue to do so.
>The alternative is he's unnaturally kept alive in a perpetual state of suffering for him and the people around him.
Depends on what you mean by being unnaturally kept alive. He could have opted out of medical treatment at any time. Once his capacity to make his own decisions was gone, his family could opt out of that treatment for him.
>That doesn't change anything. I agree with Kahnemans point that becoming a burden is too late. If I accept that, without being able to predict the future, it then becomes a game of risk. Kahnamen decided the risk of him becoming a burden was greater than the risk of him continuing to live what he would consider a productive (edit: "valuable" is probably a better word here) life.
Personally I think trying to predict the future and what the people around me would or wouldn't want is futile. And choosing when to die to prevent this is impossible. Some people will go downhill at 55, some at 110. If you really consider the burden of a few years of decline to be so awful on your family that you place a very high value on avoiding it, you'd need probably need to kill yourself much earlier than 90, probably 75 to really reduce the chance to a small enough level that you don't really need to worry about it very much.
The problems I see are that several.
1. People will feel pressured into suicide because they feel they are might be a burden to their family that their family doesn't want. Even if they aren't. You can't know what your family actually thinks. If they say "no dad I don't want you to kill yourself", are they being honest or not?
2. People will feel pressured into suicide because their family has made it clear that they are a burden on them. These people might want to keep living for whatever reason. Fear/ego whatever. I don't care why they want to. I don't want them to feel obligated to commit suicide.
3. The financial incentives for families to pressure otherwise healthy people into suicide.
FWIW, I think the problems you list are 100% valid.
I still generally think people should be allowed to choose how their life ends.
I also think that, as a society, we should be trying to fix the problems you list so they become of least concern to the person dying (though I'm not optimistic we will).
> 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 for him.
There is also no medical treatment for old age: there's no medications you can opt out of to end it all if you're just naturally aging and suffering, but we have to see this suffering more now because medicine has stopped other illness killing people before old age. Also, one problem we didn't anticipate is in the UK, legal and medical power of attorney can only be used when a person has lost the ability to make decisions: if they're able to make terrible decisions that are obviously not in their interest, and leading them to be repeatedly hospitalised, those terrible decisions are still respected over the family/power of attorney.
> The issue is I don't care why someone wants to stick around. I want them to feel free to do continue to do so.
I think we agree here. I want people to be free to end their life how they want, including staying around if they want to.
For the 3 problems you mentioned, you see them as problems because you have the perfectly natural underlying fear/ego/entitlement to stay alive, regardless of who else has to suffer for you.
I don't feel I have that, for better or for worse, so none of those 3 points really are problems for me:
1. This is literally what I'm advocating for! If my family think I'm a liability, and I'm causing more harm than good, then I've told them they need to tell me so we can put things in motion. The only reason for the family to be dishonest is through fear of upsetting/offending my feeling of entitlement to life. The way I see it is Kahneman's approach enabled his family to be honest with him!
2. What about the contrary? I want me and my family to have the best life with minimal unnecessary suffering. Yet you're here, trying to pressure me into making them suffer by being a big ol' age burden. I don't want to feel obligated and forced to stay alive and make my family suffer because some people are scared of their inevitable mortality. My approach maximises the choice to allow for minimising inevitable suffering, whereas yours reduces choices for the _chance_ that maybe you'll be the old person who isn't a burden (but you will be a burden, because nature).
3. This is already a problem: the legality or acceptableness of suicide/death isn't going to stop horrible family members finding creative ways to extract inheritance early.
I'm not advocating for people to be able to top themselves on a whim, there needs to be controls and processes in place, like any big/potentially harmful decision, and these controls are in place. FWIW, a bunch of the points you've raised were discussed and concluded as part of the parliamentary discussion into changing these laws in the UK ("Assisted dying bill"). The bill in the UK was specifically for terminally ill adults, but practically, old age is a terminal illness and most of the same arguments apply.
>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.