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Comment by shkkmo | Hacker News Reader

I'm partially with you, in that I do see tragedy in these choices. I see tragedy that we lack the cultural and economic institutions to support peope towards the end of life in ways (especially ones that don't make them feel like a burden.)

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.

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Forgive me, but your last sentence seems like a platitude. What would such institutions look like, and how might they reduce the suffering of someone with, say, advanced dementia?

I'm not trying to have a go btw - it genuinely seems an intractable problem to me.

I think the idea is that there are many factors that might motivate somebody's decision that their life is not worth living any longer. Each individual will have a different threshold for that, but if there are institutions that can alleviate the reasons for the people on the fringe, then there will be net fewer people that choose death when they otherwise may have.

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.

I think dementia and euthanasia is already legally and morally very complicated so not sure that is the best example. I do think that dementia often causes problems due to strain on caregivers and cost of outside help. If you have systems of support and resources for these caregivers, then fewer people would be inclined to end their lives to avoid becoming such a huge burden. If you legalize euthanasia and have good frameworks for people to use to determine where their limit is, then people who don't want to become a burden aren't pushed to kill themselves while they still have time.

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.)

Thanks for replying! I agree with you.

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