It’s good we are starting to develop dignified death laws. With the world population as it is, more people will die in the next decade than any other in history (even the plagues). Just looking at population graphs, 1B might die between 2050 and 2060. Much suffering can be avoided.
Yet they got their flu shots and got treated for any infections they might get. This went on for the two years my SO worked there.
My dad had cancer that spread to his lungs, and then he got pneumonia. The day after being hospitalized, he asked the doctor if it was a chance he'd ever get home and they admitted that no, that was not very likely. Later that day he asked them to turn off the oxygen, which they did after confirming his wish. He passed peacefully a few hours later.
I was so glad he was given the opportunity to make his choice, and that the doctors respected it.
Sure, I lost some months with my dad, but he'd be in a hospital bed struggling to breathe. I hope I get to make a similar choice when that time comes.
We should probably try harder to make people healthier in general. Much of the frailty of the elderly can be avoided with rigorous exercise. Maybe heart disease and dementia doesn't have to be your fate. I don't know how much longer people will be able to live if they optimize the hell out of their biomarkers.
But I do know...I don't want to be in pain and frail when I die. The best way to do that is making health my priority.
A good friend of mine lived healthy, and still went hiking in their 90s. Yet, they had a stroke and are now bedridden.
If you just drop dead after having had a nice live or go through months or years of frailty and bad health, it's all in the cards.
optimizing diet and rigorous exercise comes at some cost in the form of time spent in your precious youth. so you sacrifice youthtime for a chance at a longer better old age. each hour of exercise does not make you live an hour longer, so you are net negative from the get-go. (if you love exercise, it's not a loss, but in that case you would do it anyway even if it shortened your life because you love it, no need to spend time extolling its virtues)
i optimize for doing what i love to do all the time.
Pretty much all science on exercise's impact on both physical and health can be loosely summarized by "doing anything, anything at all is likely to have significant short and long term benefits". Similarly, nutrition can be summarised as "try eat a balanced diet, but at the very least just avoid hyper UPF, and don't eat red meat every day". You might decide that's worth it, but "walk your kids/dog/partner/self twice a day and only eat red meat on the weekends" is probably enough to make a significant impact for a very significant number of people.
One example out of sea of examples - climbing. Indoor, outdoor, bouldering, long walls, doesn't matter. Its an amazing activity, every single person I know is doing it at least occasionally becomes much happier during&after a session. Massive health benefits could be just a side effect and it would most probably still be the best and most memorable thing you did on that day.
Plus people in community are generally very positive, welcoming, helpful and happy to talk to. Its sort of sport that changes you in many ways for the better (healthier, happier, better life perspective and so on). How much time it takes is sort of irrelevant, ie coming and commenting here costs you probably more time than continuous amateur climbing career would do.
Change climbing for many other sports and it would still be true.
For a great many of us climbing is utterly terrifying. Yeah, tried it. Yeah, aware that the belay rope is there. No, it still sucks and no extra happiness is anywhere to be found except happiness that it's over.
But more importantly the athletic people underestimate just how bad unathletic people are at exercise and just how much effort even something basic is for them.
Most people could not do the basic bouldering you are about to suggest to counter my point above: they don't have the arm strength. Building that strength would take at least 6 months of a dedicated workout program and a cure for whatever psychological issues are affecting their diet. Most will never get there and suggesting to them that they can sound like "just perform a magic ritual". Oh, and after 6 months of doing the impossible their achievement is "you can do the noob bouldering". Underwhelming to say the least.
But to you exercise is easy and fun and the opposite is inconceivable. And if we dare speak up - we'll be told we are our perspective, attitude, and indeed our very life experience are invalid and wrong. Go on, hit that downvote.
Believe or disbelieve whatever you like, go on about a God of the Gaps, but that's why they talk about people's religious "faith."
Sometimes, you don’t know everything, nor will you. You won’t be around for everything. This is the human condition.
It seems unwise to spend too many brain cycles worrying about this.
Hoping I get to see my grandkids. Hell, even see them start to marry off, come to that. But I'll spend what time I've got trying to enjoy the things that are here, now. You should do the same.
And I’d say most people probably don’t fear death or non-existence itself, but rather the process of dying (suffering, stress, pain, shame, loss of agency, the grief inflicted on others, etc). In palliative care settings, where the process of dying is well-managed (physically, emotionally, spiritually), people don’t seem to be that afraid. Many make peace. Or at least that’s the image painted by popular science articles on the matter. And speaking for myself, N=1 and all, I really do fear the process only, and not the conclusion.
That’s why I think dignified death laws for these settings are important. And why I say I fear what society will put me through when it’s my time, if such laws aren’t passed.
I am concerned in general about me living past my health-span. It’s a new concern for many, as medicine traditionally focused on prolonging lifespan. But now people are talking about how full of suffering life is when one doesn’t have whatever minimum of health they deem required to live, but are kept alive anyways. Sometimes agains their wishes. It’s just a macabre prolongation of the process of dying — something that really is scary.
Or that’s what I’m afraid of, anyways. But I understand it’s a difficult and somewhat taboo topic in society, so apols if it offends.
This is more a social anxiety than reflection of reality. To the extent we’re prolonging suffering, it’s on the order of weeks, maybe months. Not years.
Most people fear death. That’s natural. Some of us, due to being stupid, depressed or possibly enlightened, don’t. But these fears evolved for obvious reasons.
While fear of death is widely considered universal, many people (for various reasons) fear death significantly less than others[1]. Fear of death levels appear to generally stabilize to low past 60 years of age. Many philosophies reject the fear of death, including some of our very popular religions. Only about half of terminally ill patients feel clinically significant death anxiety[2]. It is normal to not fear death without being depressed, enlightened, or stupid.
I think it’s not so black and white as evolutionary psychology might suggest.
[0] https://peterattiamd.com/outlive/
Sure. This doesn't reflect the popular discourse, which is more concerned with fantastical edge cases.
> fear death significantly less than others
Totally agree.
> Only about half of terminally ill patients feel clinically significant death anxiety
Massive difference between death anxiety, which crosses into dreadful anticipation of a future state, and fear, which is more of a present concern. I fear getting hit by a car. I'm not really concerned with it most of the time. (And when I am, it's fleeting and limmited.)
When you say fearing death, I think you mean obsessing over death. That, I agree, is unhealthy. Fear, more generally, is an unpleasantness that results from dangers or threats. Death is very clearly a danger and threat. Contemplating it doesn't need to be uncomfortable. But it's dedidedly unnatural, if alluring, to consider one's own death monotonoically. (For what it's worth, this is closer to my experience. But I also know I have a high risk tolerance, and have to consciously keep an eye on that.)
I know from seeing my grandparents, who lived into upper 90s. At home, they were still happy. Being poked and prodded in a hospital is a material step down in quality of life. On top of that, imagine having a breathing tube/catheter/etc.
To be fair, we have evolved stupid eras, e.g. male adolescence, when that fear seems to be purposely tamped down.
Similarly, I don’t really fear my death, I fear the death of others.
But If Tomorrow Never Comes starts playing …
Is anything better or worse if 2B people die instead of 1B with the same aggregate amount of suffering? Average suffering reduced by half! What about 100,000 people instead of 1B? Those people presumably die horrific, painful, suffering deaths but now there a lot more people alive. Is that better or worse?
There's also average utilitarianism which says: maximize the average happiness per person.
Assisted death--one with dignity--is rare recent development about which I'm genuinely and wholeheartedly happy.
What unsettles me--as rational as I think I'm--is the thought of being born again (duh!). I lead a very comfortable life, but far from "perfect". I can say I'm content. What are the odds that I'll be content in my next life? How likely is it that I'll be born in the right country, to good parents, follow the right religion, and have a brain wired in the right way to make a decent living? I'm not hopeful. So, I've "decided" that I want to be a rock in all my next lives. No emotions, no feelings, no struggle, no pain, no indignation. Just a fricking rock.
Separately, some years ago spent a good amount of time listening to what Atul Gawande thought about medicine and doctors and dying. He wrote Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End and there's a Frontline documentary (Being Mortal) about his experience and his book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQhI3Jb7vMg. I've not yet read the book.
Fear of death is not just natural, it is the most fundamental instinct of any creature besides reproduction. Those who don't have it, don't last long. Perhaps society's attitudes towards it could profitably be improved, but don't make out like it's an irrational personality flaw.
Idealism can cause so much suffering in this way.