Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcus0x62 | Hacker News Reader

So you would rather be stuck in a state where you are aware of your surroundings but have no way to communicate with the outside world for potentially years or decades than suffer for minutes to a few days at the most?

You and I have very, very, different definitions of “nightmare fuel.”

View on HN

Yea, this is assuming OP it isn’t in a constant state of pain.

What if - being in a conscious coma is worse than dying? What if it isn’t a dream-like wonder of your own world? What if you lay there and you can’t dream? You can’t sleep, you can’t move, you feel everything, you can’t focus or meditate, you just lie there is permanent torture that you can’t stop.

I don’t know why people imagine the cleanest possible scenario for their fantasy play throughs.

At least imagine the dirty murky ones if you refuse to imagine the worst case.

Something I teach with self-defense is ”Ok, you have made peace with yourself that if a 6’4 meth addled line backer breaks in to your house in a rage, you are morally checked out to end them - now what about a pregnant 14yo girl and you can’t see her hands? Maybe, consider your best first move to be asking them to leave?” … don’t be absolute with anything that you plan for.

You might be able to simulate that with psychedelics, meditation, or perhaps if they ever figure out how to reliably induce specific states with trans-cranial magnetic stimulation. Then someone can make a choice.

I’ve had experiences where I was aware of people and what was going on, but from the outside, it looks like I am passed out. It wasn’t really that bad.

I know of others who experience what is typically called “sleep paralysis”. It often comes with hallucinations and night terrors.

Honestly these both are variations of nightmares. Neither is anything less than a full blown nightmare.

Agreed. It's like being asked what torture methods you would prefer. None of them are likely to be pleasant.

One is definitely more determined and shorter.

My tone deaf sibling singing Nickelback, Avril Lavigne and Celine Dione might be able to top some of these.

I get occasional sleep paralysis and it has taken years of practice to not panic and just calmly try and wiggle my toes until my body comes back online. The idea that you could be trapped in that state for days or years is a complete nightmare, if I knew that was the only future I had I would want to be dead ASAP.

It really boils down to medical professionals developing one or more protocols to a peaceful death, this has been hindered by too much religious crap being forced down to everyone. Just give me a bag of nox and leave me high and happily pass out and die ffs.

On the contrary, the "religoius crap" is the guiding reason why we have modern hospice and palliative care at all. From the creator of modern hospice's biography posted at the hospice she founded:

https://www.stchristophers.org.uk/about/damecicelysaunders

"Cicely's strong Christian faith was a fundamental factor in her commitment to the dying"

That sounds orthogonal to what the parent is saying, which is that religious leaders fight vehemently against the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.

It sounds orthogonal because it is orthogonal. But it's true and I provided the original source to back up my claim. Hospice and palliative medicine is an accepted by all major faiths.

Physician assisted suicide is another seperate issue - and "pulling the plug" on a comatose patient is NOT euthanasia. That is hospice and palliative care.

You're beating the straw man my friend...

Or, it could be one hell of a meditation

You can communicate with your brain with a one-bit protocol.

Yeah I wonder if this has been done? Maybe 3 or 4 bits / second is possible.

So playing chess seems feasible

Something similar to it happened in 2019. A man became completely paralyzed, but retained his senses. With the help of medical experts, he learned to control his level of brain activity. A computer monitoring his brain activity produced an audio tone which would rise or fall corresponding to his activity level. Soon he was indicating “yes” or “no” to letters. One of his first sentences: “I love my cool son.”

Source:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/03/22/1047664/locked-i...

I feel like one of my first sentences in these situations would be "Morse code". Granted, it's not strictly binary, but there's gotta be a way to make it work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com