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Comment by MeteorMarc | Hacker News Reader

Let,s call this procedure euthanasia instead of suïcide.

This is literally suicide, as the person within the capsule triggers the thing that kills them. In that way, it's no different than pills or a gun.

I suspect MeteorMarc meant 'euthanasia' in the philosophy sense of a death that is (a1) rationally planned over a period of time and (b1) in the dying persons overall interest. Which can be contrasted with 'suicide' in a sense commonly used in suicide prevention care and research, where the act (a2) often results from temporary cognitive or emotional instability and (b2) is seldom in the dying persons overall interest. You on the other hand perhaps meant to distinguish between the dying person (a) getting assistance vs in dying (b) acting alone. A third termological option is 'assisted dying'. A big complication is that 'euthanasia' comes with quite different historical baggage in different countries.

I like the term suicide, because they allow the person whose life it is about do it themselves with a button.

Reminds me of the Suicide Booths from Futurama. https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Suicide_Booth

No. Euthanasia is well defined in Swiss law, and it is not the same as assisted suicide. Let's not complicate things even further.

"Euthanasie", the german word for euthanasia, is *heavily* stained by its meaning during the Nazi era, and the pod is made in (german speaking) switzerland.

That's probably one of the main reasons why they called it "suicide capsule", even in english :)

Edit: I don't really get why this is downvoted ^^ The link goes to an article that was originaly written in German and only translated by the swiss television station SRF.

"Euthanasia" is not a neutral term in German, take a look at the wikipedia entry and how much of the page contains "NS", "Nationalsozialismus" or dates between 1939 and 1945: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasie

It was used as a euphemism by the Nazis, and this still taints it. It has lost much of its original meaning because of this. If you say "Euthanasie" in German, even to someone from switzerland, there is a very high chance people think of it as "the killing of people that disabled, against their will". :/

There is a reason most people use "aktive Sterbehilfe" ("active help to die") instead of "Euthanasie", even though both things mean the same.

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