Hacker News Reader

Comment by whiddershins | Hacker News Reader

They are prioritizing the wishes of the dead over those of the living.

If the wife wants to friend the dead husband, I don't think it's so important "what he would have wanted."

They should prioritize the wishes of the next of kin, or executrix of his will, or whomever our traditions and legal system has figured out can make this decision.

We as a society came to these practices over many generations. They exist for a reason, and the way this is phrased, it seems Facebook is putting themselves in the position of reinventing the wheel for whatever reasons they have. Which may or may not be in the interests of the survivors of the deceased.

View on HN

Paradoxically, respecting the wishes of the dead is more about empowering the living. If there are no such guarantees then people alive will take actions to enforce their wishes past their death.

In the context of Wills, that would mean more people would transfer their estate before their death. In the context of Facebook, it would mean some people may delete certain data (or in some cases delete their entire account) if they don't want the data discovered after they die.

The whole concept of a will is about respecting the wishes of the dead.

No it's not.

The initial property division is done by a will because it is the only neutral way to decide who is to divide up an estate and how they are supposed to do it. If Bob leaves his boat to his daughter Charlotte instead of his son David, that is much cleaner than having David and Charlotte fighting over it.

After the estate is settled, the heirs are free to do whatever they want with their inherited property. If Charlotte didn't really care for the boat but David really wanted it, she is free to sell it to him or gift it outright. Or she can sell it to a third party. Charlotte shouldn't feel guilty or pressured by a dead man to enjoy the boat.

You are just choosing a precise meaning for "wishes" and hammering on that.

Look at the context and consider a scenario where a will has a statement that Facebook should be deleted (or frozen or whatever). The comment I replied to implies the statement shouldn't matter if someone living wants something else.

My meaning was something like the whole concept of a will is about respecting and recognizing the priorities expressed by the dead.

I don't disagree with what you say about what people do with things they inherit, but you are imputing an awful lot of meaning to make that a contradiction of my sentence that I posted above.

What if a will states that the deceased wants to be cremated with no funeral, wake nor any other ceremony? The wishes of the executor/executrix or next of kin to have a memorial service would likely trump that. I think someone's Facebook account is closer to this scenario than to a bank account, house, vehicle, or other property.

I'm sorry if I misconstrued your use of the word wishes. I feel that the whole concept of a will is the best solution that we as a society have found for determining what to do with a person's possessions when they die. The dead can't expect their priorities to be acted upon without question since it is the living who have to deal with the consequences of those priorities.

> They are prioritizing the wishes of the dead over those of the living.

I'd rather think of it as prioritizing the plans of a living person that they want to "schedule" for their last moments on earth.

If we had a magical moment-of-death predictor, or brain-monitors connected to an instantaneous legal system, we could totally do that.

So in a way, the fact that most of the implementation of their "last task" occurs after death is an just a weakness in our implementation :P

You seem to be basically saying the concept of a will should not exist, since it's the wish of the dead rather than that of the living.

Throwaway, the poster literally acknowledged will in their post - they suggested the will's executor should be the legal executor of their online legacy just as they are responsible for the physical estate.

His statements contradict though. "If the wife wants to friend the dead husband, I don't think it's so important 'what he would have wanted.'" That goes completely against the idea of a will, which is exactly to do what he would have wanted.

Perhaps they meant to make a distinction between the inherently debatable "what he would have wanted" and "what we actually have a written statement of him wanting"?

Yes the OP mentioned a Will, but misunderstands the purpose of the Will supported by:

>If the wife wants to friend the dead husband, I don't think it's so important "what he would have wanted."

A Will doesn't mean ignore the husbands wishes in favor of the wife/heirs, it means who ever is executor, wife or not, must comply with what the husband dictates.

Actually, they suggested that the executor's "wishes" should be followed, suggesting a fundamental misunderstanding of what a will is.

> We as a society came to these practices over many generations

We as a society haven't had the internet for generations yet to know how to handle this. Hence the article.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com