Italy carries out its first assisted suicide | Hacker News Reader

Italy carries out its first assisted suicide

politico.eu

40 pointsNoRagrets12 comments

I wonder, why don't we call this self euthanasia or something like that? Suicide has such a negative connotation, i.e: something that could and should have been prevented. Whereas this is a well considered action.

This general kind of idea makes me feel like I'm missing a pretty important part of the experience of language, à la

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/17/what-universal-human-e...

To me, assisted suicide is the term of art. It's been used throughout my entire lifetime to refer to a responsible form of self administered euthanasia. To me there is zero ambiguity with the term, and it is never used to refer to cases of suicide where a mentally ill person (but physically healthy) person is helped to kill themselves. When I read this bigram, there is no ugly connotation for me.

But it seems like many people have a more emotional experience of language where individual words and even subwords can elicit unpleasant emotional experiences, even in unrelated contexts. And I think this can be hard to emphasize with for the highly analytical-minded typical HN reader.

Does anyone know of any brain imaging research done in this area? Can anyone explain the apparent rise in this sort of thing (without mentioning critical theory)?

I get anxiety when I read something like this, because I'll try to empathize with their condition and it's hard to figure out what I'd do in those situations. I'm glad they finally found a resolution, but too have to wait twelve years is overwhelming.

> to have to wait twelve years is overwhelming

He could have someone help him board a train to Geneva (a few hours away), hopped the Alps to Geneva and be done with it.

Or maybe they thought that a good use of the remainder of their life was to fight for other people to be able to make that choice regardless of whether they could get to Geneva or not.

> He could have someone help him board a train to Geneva (a few hours away), hopped the Alps to Geneva and be done with it.

And pay some 8000 CHF. Not everyone has access to such a sum.

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