I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning and choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.
The downward slope quickens faster than any would like once it starts. The body or the mind slips away, leaving someone either trapped in a shell that doesn't work, or momentary fragments of the person who was among a sea of futile vapid existence.
Our medical technology is not there and shows little sign of being close to resolving either issue.
Rather than slowly wasting away I too would rather have the option to twist to the side off the cliff rather than the long slow painful stair tumble down the hill.
In these cases, I'm not sure these people had the agency and capacity to continue living in a way that makes sense as human beings.
I gauge much of my value and purpose in life based on how I can serve my family and community. I don't really exist for me in a sense, and I can't exist without other people. I'm part of something a lot bigger than I am. If at any point it comes to be that I'm not serving a purpose in this great network, well, I'm not sure I'd see a point in carrying on. I may still be breathing, blood still pumping, but I'd be functionally dead as a part of a community.
Choosing death is literally gambling that the purpose is over despite never knowing the future.
I guess we're on the same page to some degree. If the future might hold some meaningful potential, wait it out.
But we disagree about grandma, in this case. If grandma doesn't have the emotional and general psychological capacity to offer care, concern, stories, or heart, then she shouldn't be expected to anymore. There are limits to humans. It's why we die in the first place; we're not immortal, and we aren't supernatural.
In situations where I've seen this play out, I think it's actually quite unfair and cruel that we expect grandma to continue offering her humanity to those around her when she has clearly lost most of it, and is barely hanging on anymore. If her life hurts her, we should not expect her to extend herself so we can hopefully gain something for ourselves despite her suffering.
We have to ask ourselves: do we want these people to live for themselves, or for us? Is this a reciprocal, mutual desire we have for them, or does it fit a narrative or convention that's more suitable to us and our own wants and comforts? Is letting someone die too scary and uncomfortable for us? Are we attuned to how much they actually suffer and how little their future really holds?
I suppose at some point we have to admit it doesn't make sense to lament not knowing the future. For example, when my mom died it took her 7 years, 3 of which were absolutely awful for her, 2 of which were spent in relative confusion or outright senility. It was all downhill, no turning around, no improving, just a steady descent into pain and madness. Saying "I can't predict the future" at that point is kind of insane. She'd lost her mind. She was enduring kinds of pain I came to understand as being indescribable and unbearable.
Hoping for a turn around so I could hear her voice, her care, more stories, etc... No, that's for me, and she's already gone. Why make her suffer more?
For what it's worth, I don't eat animals because I despise the idea of needless suffering. I won't intentionally cause suffering of a sentient creature because it's one of the most needless, unnecessary, overtly harmful things I know of in the universe. I can't bring myself to have an animal suffer because I want to enjoy eating its meat, and likewise, I can't expect a human to suffer because I want to (hopefully) enjoy their presence or some function they serve for me. No, that's a bizarre pressure or expectation to put on someone. Especially if it's for my own fleeting gratification. That doesn't enrich our relationship or deepen our connection. It's just me and what I want. Who cares what I want, when someone is in the throes of dying?
It's arrogant and selfish to force people to live on for as long as doctors can keep their body alive. No euthanasia just means more messy suicides.
When an old man claims this, that is arrogant.
> to force people to live
I don't think anyone can force another to live beyond their ill-fated death.
How is the desire to avoid burdening others selfish?
"You can't choose to kill yourself because that would be suicide" is a tautology, not an argument. What's the basis for these beliefs?
immature: "I know what life means and this is not the meaning of life" OR "we should not burden others with our remorse and pain and so share nothing with anyone lest it cause them pain too." (I hope I don't have to elaborate how this is immature.)
arrogant: "who knows better what I need than me? I know it well enough that no one else matters"
selfish: "If I am the one who wants something, why can't I have it? who are you to say I can't have what I want?"
suicide is a mental disease and a psychological imbalance. The suicidal need a redefinition of what life means.
immature: "I know what life means and that is not the meaning of life." or "Suffering cannot be unbearable, can always be improved by sharing it, and everyone has a robust support network ready and willing to share their pain."
arrogant: "15 thousand suffering people, their families, and their doctors and support staff all need to redefine life as I see it."
selfish: "I know what's best for everyone. Differing opinions are mental disorders and psychological conditions and should be discarded out of hand."
What makes your opinion the only privileged one here? Honest question, I just feel like we're operating under different frameworks and there must be something else I'm missing. Can I ask your opinion on the soul and afterlife?
I don’t operate under libertarian principles.
So, what principles do you operate under? That's been my question the whole time. If this is your personal beliefs vs that of the states above, I think that seems rather arrogant, hence my thought that maybe religion is involved? I'd love to know how you came to feel so strongly.
What I read from your comment, is that you think peoples fear of loss impacts the discussion to much and shouldn't be given much weight in the question?
My own view is that a happy life has value. Death is neutral (for the person who dies - it's affect on others may be either positive or negative). And that (all else being equal), causing someone to live an unhappy life has negative moral value.
That latter bit seems to be something that many people not only disagree with, but don't even give proper consideration. Perhaps due to stigma around devaluing of life, so evolutionary bias towards life, or perhaps because their own life is good enough that they find it hard to empathise with those for whom life is an overall negatige experience.
The choice behind death is that it's preferable to the alternative. Before we had medically assisted options, people would do it in more painful ways, but they'd still do it. Many cultures had the idea of "walking off into the wilderness" when your time was there.
When that time is is a personal choice. By all means, let's put some non-gatekeeping hurdles in the way (e.g. mandate a conversation or three with a therapist), but ultimately, we should all be in charge of our own life.
However, I don't think the solution to that tragedy to to make people suffer through. I think the solution is more and better institutions that reduce that suffering so fewer people are pushed to make the choice to end it.
I'm not trying to have a go btw - it genuinely seems an intractable problem to me.
Someone with advanced dementia may be too far from that threshold to change the decision for them, but that doesn't mean that better institutions wouldn't move the needle.
There are lots of ways we can change systems and institutions to change the choices people make and I see good people working to make that happen.
I guess it is a kind of a platitude. I'm not trying to claim that such changes are easy, simple, fast, or even obvious (though some may be.)
> This! People feel like they cannot live alone or they cannot want that someone else be caused hardship (time or money) because of their difficulty.
> I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning and choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.