Finally, can't wait to the time they will legalize suicide centers with these pods where everyone, without any reason at all other than wanting it, can easily, quickly, reliably and euphorically end this non-sense called life.
You linked to a page explaining the logical fallacy, did you even read the wiki article?
Regardless, if this somehow led to a significant percentage of the population committing suicide, wouldn't that mean we're not doing something right in society?
More realistically chronically ill, mentally ill, and disabled people will be increasingly pressured into this "alternative" by the medical and welfare systems, as is already happening in canada. Exactly as predicted years ago by disabled people, exactly as dismissed then as a slippery slope. It's not a fallacy when there's prior art!
I'm not going to link to specific articles or examples because people will meticulously comb the ones I choose to dismiss them individually, when the real issue is about systems and incentives on a broader scale.
The program is called "medical assistance in dying" commonly referred to as MAID. A lot has been written about it the last few years. As you look, I highly recommend prioritizing the words of disabled and chronically ill writers, over those of their families and other supporters of it. It's a complex issue but IMO the only correct way to approach it is focused on the people most likely to make use of it.
FWIW, I wasn't taunting you to get a reply I could poke holes into. What you describe seems like a plausible outcome to me; I was just curious about a write-up (even if anecdotal).
I know, I wasn't trying to accuse you of that but am cautious from experience on this specific issue on here. A lot of other people are reading and this is flamewar magnet for the "rationalist" crowd that is overrepresented both on HN and in supporting euthanasia. It's also something I've been following and involved in for years, but I don't have a concise primer or easy introduction to it. It's hard to know what is relevant or where to start.
Here is an example of the sort of thing we were worried about, and that was dismissed as a slippery slope. This person doesn't want to die per se, the support she needs is understood and achievable, but it will not be provided. Suicide is offered instead.
Here's a blog post written around the time when the "forseeable death" restriction was removed a couple years ago. It touches on and predicts specific cases that have since happened as described.
> Roger Foley, who has a degenerative brain disorder and is hospitalized in London, Ontario, was so alarmed by staffers mentioning euthanasia that he began secretly recording some of their conversations.
> In one recording obtained by the AP, the hospital's director of ethics told Foley that for him to remain in the hospital, it would cost "north of $1,500 a day." Foley replied that mentioning fees felt like coercion and asked what plan there was for his long-term care.
> "Roger, this is not my show," the ethicist responded. "My piece of this was to talk to you, (to see) if you had an interest in assisted dying."
> Foley said he had never previously mentioned euthanasia. The hospital says there is no prohibition on staff raising the issue.
Canada, where the healthcare is “free”, but if you cost too much they’ll encourage you to kill yourself.
People with dependents are one case that comes to mind when considering why this might not be a great idea. Elderly people with no dependents are one example I can think of why this might not be the worst thing in the world.
But in general I tend to agree that there should be some means to humanely end ones own life that doesn't automatically presume insanity. I think there's probably a reasonable middle ground to be had between the extremes of whenever and never.
I believe, if one feels they've done everything they wanted to do and are happy to leave this world, there should be an easy way out. These individuals shouldn't be obligated to justify their decision to society or anyone else, as it is a deeply personal matter.
I'm happy to go: I've experienced everything I wanted to. The longer I exist, the more living is becoming a burden to me.
Re: dependents, should you not be allowed to kill yourself if someone (let's say a selfish spouse rather than your infant child) depends on you? That might even be the reason you don't want to live anymore...
At least in the case of children I don't think one should be able to since the cost of caring for them is transferred to society. It's also pretty shitty for the children to lose their parent. Is the death of a parent worse for the children than witnessing that parent be in a perpetual state of misery? Harder to say.
I can't wait for everyone to be able to find the help they need, without any reason other than needing it, can easily, quickly, reliably and euphorically get help with their problems so they can have a fair chance and enjoying this awesome thing called life.
the pod could also incorporate hydrolysis, person goes in and
"The result is a quantity of green-brown tinted liquid (containing amino acids, peptides, sugars and salts) and soft, porous white bone remains (calcium phosphate) easily crushed in the hand (although a cremulator is more commonly used) to form a white-colored dust."
You also need to stabilize your head and the while body so that you do not leave the bucket for a longer time (to ensure death).
I assume that helium would not have the alert effect CO2 has - similarly to nitrogen which is probably too Henry to just it with a bucket as you describe.
Presumably because the underlying cause of suicidal desires can be temporary, and people who end up not following through may later be glad they didn't.
That view exists, but that's not at all what I'm expressing. The idea in this thread is that people experiencing /temporary/ suicidal ideation and go through with it won't care afterwards and therefore it's not an actual problem.
I'm pointing out the most obvious flaw with this conclusion.
Read some Camus and meditate on relativity’s reach; can’t ever know the abstract signals others feel. We’re not made of philosophy but mush and go propagating electricity.
Is it temporary if they stick around or are they role-playing?
You can’t ever actually know. Just argue rhetorical positions in symbolic logic. Not the same as being anyone else.
There’s no “flaw” as there’s no “one true symbolic rhetorical argument” to rule them all. Suggesting there’s a flaw implies there is.
> Read some Camus and meditate on relativity’s reach
Grow up. People dying has impacts on the world. Ignore them, decry the immorality of it all, or bury your head in Camus if you like.. it doesn't magically dispell any of it.
I am all for requiring, say, 3 professional counseling sessions to discuss the reasons a person wants to end their life. But if after that, the person is still committed to ending their life, I don't believe anyone should be able to stop them. They can always do it with a knife or gun, without anyone's permission - it's just a question of messiness - so I don't think someone else's approval should be required.
The law doesn't allow the operation of a motor vehicle if you're drunk or intoxicated. Why would the law allow the use of this device in those circumstances. Without too much thinking, there are plenty of reasons there many be legal restriction on this. Keep in mind that alcohol is involved in 40% or more of suicides.
People usually think that they are acting with a sound mind, and in their own interests. Except that they often are not. This is ok when the consequences are less grim than death or permanent disability.
People get confused, depressed, angry, drunk, high, or even have a psychotic break.
Most methods of legal suicide today involve a doctor prescribing a cocktail known to kill a person and in many cases, they’re also administering it. It’s uncomfortable for them to effectively murder someone, even knowing that the recipient wishes for this to happen.
The pod here doesn’t need to mean that any psychiatric assessments are foregone, it just takes the doctors finger off the trigger (which is a good thing)
I think it’s funny that this page has a “If you or someone you know is struggling or in mental health crisis …” blurb at the bottom. This is like Bud Light saying “please drink responsibly”. The entire point of this invention seems to be to lower the barrier to entry to suicide, so a statement discouraging suicide seems to me a strange thing to follow with.
The article that loads under it for me is about a Golden Gate Bridge jump survivor who immediately regretted their decision.
> Hines climbed on to the Golden Gate Bridge after feeling 'the most horrid, emotional, turmoil' he'd ever experienced, and has remembered since feeling 'compelled' to die until the moment he leapt from the railing.
> "I thought it was too late. I said to myself, 'What have I done, I don't want to die'," Hines later said. "I realised I made the greatest mistake of my life."
There are people who have no other options left except enduring the pain and deteriating life conditions for some, sometimes a long, months or even years, time.
And there are people who, by their circumstances, think what there are no options for them left.
Not really. Maybe you got there because you're feeling out of options, and you're looking at "how to painlessly commit suicide", but you're not "opposed" to getting help, you're just pessimistic or hopeless about it.
To me, a device like this is about "having made that decision", being in control, and it being clean.
I'm a paramedic-firefighter. I have gone to every type of suicide you can imagine. And most of them are not "clean", even the ones you might think of. You can choke on vomit with an overdose. You can cause trauma (to yourself) by hanging. You can create a life threat for others (I've been to several suicides and attempts by CO poisoning) that we had to done breathing apparatus to get to the victim.
I think even the inventors of this device would say something like - we don't want suicide to be or feel like your only option, but this device can make it as ... dignified ... as it can be. And while not removing the emotional trauma of loss itself for your family, friends, or the person who finds you, it can be "one less thing" (which, when someone might be considering "all I do is cause pain and misery" can be compelling).
I mean, depending on what you believe suicide is actually harm reducing in certain situations, so sending people to get help before considering seems very in line with those believes
This is the next best Swiss "invention" just after IoT urinals with LCD... or perhaps make them watch ads in the capsule as well? Just one last ad, they're going to die anyway.
There are other good options, like losing weight. The 66% of the US population that is obese or overweight can make an easy positive change simply by eating less food. They'd save the carbon costs for the excess food, the excess clothing needed to cover them, the excess fuel needed to move them around, etc.
If you need someone to talk to please feel free to reach out at the email in my profile. Wishing you the best and a happy new year. Your work on your website is very impressive and life is long, a lot can change in a short time.
This is the interesting thing about many so-called “modern” positions: they are built on premodern foundations. Eternal souls are obviously nonsense, according to this view, however, they act as if everyone is randomly placed into a body before birth. From where? Unclear, but identity still seems to persist there.
That is a philosophical question that doesn't have a clear answer. Personally, I don't remember anything before the time I was born, it was nothingness.
> Suicide should NOT be as stigmatized as it currently is in modern society.
I think that the problem here is the fact that in some cases what might drive someone to taking their life might be preventable: either with therapy, medication, supportive people around them, or a mix of all of those. Or to call out harmful behavior when it occurs on the part of others, because humans can be really horrible to one another.
That said, I guess I agree with your take, even if it sounds very antinatalist.
Maybe with the caveat that we should decisively figure out whether anything happens after death (our best guess is that nothing, though we might eventually even stimulate a near-death experience in an otherwise healthy brain to explain away any hallucinations) and in the end let people decide: either keep existing in our imperfect world, with all of the good and bad about it, or choose... eternal nothingness, until the heat death of the universe.
It breaks my heart that this is the case. Honestly, even online you hear so much about people struggling with everything from affording food, to hoping that they'll ever be able to pay off their debts or even afford a place to live. :(
> ...either with therapy, medication, supportive people around them
I think a problem with this is that suicide is so "off limits" that talking about doing it can get you institutionalized. Some medication can have awful side effects (mainly talking about SSRIs) which some people may not wish to experiment with.
Overall, I agree that other options should be presented too. But the root of the issue is the stigmatization of it all.
> Everyone was brought into this world without their permission
I can never tell if this is satire or not. What does this even mean? Is this a bad thing? Is there some utopian goal where we somehow build some gizmo that can communicate with your consciousness pre-conception and get informed consent to 'being you into this world'?
> Is this a bad thing? Is there some utopian goal...
Depends on the person. I'm not personally looking for a consent system before being born, merely pointing out the fact you can be born and have no control over anything. Things like illness, defects, abusive parents, etc... so people should have a safe option to leave life too.
Assisted suicide is already legal in a number of countries, and I think this is the logical next step. If you can operate the apparatus yourself, you don't leave the scar on someone else's consciousness. You could say that this only shifts the burden one step away, but I think that is enough — if you decide to take your own life, whatever your reasons, it shouldn't be up to someone else to do it for you.
Then you should try pod! Pod is no muss no fuss and that's no bluff sir. Each willing customer is turned to an atomized carbon neutral plasma slurry and instantaneously buttchugged by a butthurt dirtbag. Money back guaranteed government subsidy available.
I really like the idea of using top loaded fridge as a makeshift capsule. You could prepay electricty bill. So they come clean you up at their own convenience with very little mess hopefully.
The claim that the pod is legal in Switzerland has been fact checked by multiple news organizations, and is false. Here's one article with lots of references that correct an initial misleading viral interview by the pod creator:
Legal gas chambers xd Swiss are Germans on asteroids.
Joke aside, I think it's important to explore the allowance of exits for people that want to end their lives, but at the same time I understand if people are concerned if easy suicide becomes easily available to the populance.
I admit, the "barriers to entry" raises some troublesome contradictions to my mind. Do we set an age limit, and if so, what? What about testing for various intoxicants or anything else which might cause someone to be unable to enter even into a contract for a gym membership? But it seems to stretch out: will there be a panel to whom someone must justify themselves? Perhaps an essay ...
On the other hand, I am reminded of that quote from Patrick Stewart, "I have a strong feeling that, should the time come for me, having had no role in my birth, I would like there to be a choice I might make about how I die." Indeed, nobody tests for intoxicants or goes before a panel before producing an infant. Life is something which happens to you and not a great deal of fuss is made about the qualifications.
And make no mistake, we are each born owing the grave a debt. It will come due eventually, the question seems to be whether or not you get to set a time and a manner to it, or must it happen to you just as life happened to you? Without volition or selection of circumstance. Can we offer ourselves and one another the kindness we might bestow on a beloved pet?
I've no answers, only questions I find more and more uncomfortable.
The barrier to entry will be lowered for the poor, uneducated, addicted, elderly, disabled.
Even if you've spent your entire life, working hard paying into the system. The
money for your retirement care has been spent already. Sorry you're poor and suffering. Here's an easier option out for you.
Profits made on the sale of any viable organs.
It is definitely less crude and less undignified than the turkey brining bag over the head method. Although making the process antiseptic, effortless, or palatable shouldn't be a goal. An inconvenient truth is there a threshold of pain and undignified decline for each person that a humane and orderly exit by their own volition makes it a desirable, essential capability.
There are a lot of deeply opinionated and rather thoughtless statements being made here.
Please remember that no matter what your position, others have very different views on this subject.
That said, I am somewhat of an advocate for people having the option to end their lives in some cases. I have seen first hand someone do it due to extreme medical hardship and it was intense but positive for them.
But there is the evidence that safeguards around these technologies suffer from the “slippery slope” problem:
We should be thinking very deeply about whether and how these kinds of technologies have their place in society, and maybe give us some deeper consideration.
Remember, it's never too early to write down AND notarise your wishes related to your health and death.
Make it plain, make it official, tell people you've done it. That way your relatives and family can't keep you alive forcibly "because that's what they would've wanted" or some other misguided reasons.
Mine has clear instructions to pull the plug in specific situations and not to extend my life unnaturally.
111 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
Regardless, if this somehow led to a significant percentage of the population committing suicide, wouldn't that mean we're not doing something right in society?
The program is called "medical assistance in dying" commonly referred to as MAID. A lot has been written about it the last few years. As you look, I highly recommend prioritizing the words of disabled and chronically ill writers, over those of their families and other supporters of it. It's a complex issue but IMO the only correct way to approach it is focused on the people most likely to make use of it.
Here is an example of the sort of thing we were worried about, and that was dismissed as a slippery slope. This person doesn't want to die per se, the support she needs is understood and achievable, but it will not be provided. Suicide is offered instead.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-disabilities-nears-...
Here's a blog post written around the time when the "forseeable death" restriction was removed a couple years ago. It touches on and predicts specific cases that have since happened as described.
https://socialwork.ubc.ca/news/social-justices-poor-cousin-d...
> In one recording obtained by the AP, the hospital's director of ethics told Foley that for him to remain in the hospital, it would cost "north of $1,500 a day." Foley replied that mentioning fees felt like coercion and asked what plan there was for his long-term care.
> "Roger, this is not my show," the ethicist responded. "My piece of this was to talk to you, (to see) if you had an interest in assisted dying."
> Foley said he had never previously mentioned euthanasia. The hospital says there is no prohibition on staff raising the issue.
Canada, where the healthcare is “free”, but if you cost too much they’ll encourage you to kill yourself.
https://reason.com/2022/09/07/some-canadian-health-care-pati...
But in general I tend to agree that there should be some means to humanely end ones own life that doesn't automatically presume insanity. I think there's probably a reasonable middle ground to be had between the extremes of whenever and never.
I'm happy to go: I've experienced everything I wanted to. The longer I exist, the more living is becoming a burden to me.
https://scifiinterfaces.com/2022/09/13/thanatorium-the-patie...
"The result is a quantity of green-brown tinted liquid (containing amino acids, peptides, sugars and salts) and soft, porous white bone remains (calcium phosphate) easily crushed in the hand (although a cremulator is more commonly used) to form a white-colored dust."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cremation
The whole point of such devices is to make sure it's done properly.
I assume that helium would not have the alert effect CO2 has - similarly to nitrogen which is probably too Henry to just it with a bucket as you describe.
Yikes. It seems like you would want a barrier to entry when it comes to legal suicide...
I'm pointing out the most obvious flaw with this conclusion.
Read some Camus and meditate on relativity’s reach; can’t ever know the abstract signals others feel. We’re not made of philosophy but mush and go propagating electricity.
Is it temporary if they stick around or are they role-playing?
You can’t ever actually know. Just argue rhetorical positions in symbolic logic. Not the same as being anyone else.
There’s no “flaw” as there’s no “one true symbolic rhetorical argument” to rule them all. Suggesting there’s a flaw implies there is.
Grow up. People dying has impacts on the world. Ignore them, decry the immorality of it all, or bury your head in Camus if you like.. it doesn't magically dispell any of it.
People usually think that they are acting with a sound mind, and in their own interests. Except that they often are not. This is ok when the consequences are less grim than death or permanent disability.
People get confused, depressed, angry, drunk, high, or even have a psychotic break.
I can acknowledge it may have an emotional effect on family/friends, but it isn't illegal to make someone sad or else breakups would be outlawed...
The pod here doesn’t need to mean that any psychiatric assessments are foregone, it just takes the doctors finger off the trigger (which is a good thing)
But either way, I think everybody overestimates the cosmic importance of death to people whose careers are waist deep in it.
> Hines climbed on to the Golden Gate Bridge after feeling 'the most horrid, emotional, turmoil' he'd ever experienced, and has remembered since feeling 'compelled' to die until the moment he leapt from the railing.
> "I thought it was too late. I said to myself, 'What have I done, I don't want to die'," Hines later said. "I realised I made the greatest mistake of my life."
There are people who have no other options left except enduring the pain and deteriating life conditions for some, sometimes a long, months or even years, time.
And there are people who, by their circumstances, think what there are no options for them left.
To me, a device like this is about "having made that decision", being in control, and it being clean.
I'm a paramedic-firefighter. I have gone to every type of suicide you can imagine. And most of them are not "clean", even the ones you might think of. You can choke on vomit with an overdose. You can cause trauma (to yourself) by hanging. You can create a life threat for others (I've been to several suicides and attempts by CO poisoning) that we had to done breathing apparatus to get to the victim.
I think even the inventors of this device would say something like - we don't want suicide to be or feel like your only option, but this device can make it as ... dignified ... as it can be. And while not removing the emotional trauma of loss itself for your family, friends, or the person who finds you, it can be "one less thing" (which, when someone might be considering "all I do is cause pain and misery" can be compelling).
Well, other than mass murder, I suppose.
Everyone was brought into this world without their permission, they should be able to leave it in a safe and reliable way too.
Or you were nowhere/nothing, then you became something/somewhere, that action could be referred to as "brought into the world".
I think that the problem here is the fact that in some cases what might drive someone to taking their life might be preventable: either with therapy, medication, supportive people around them, or a mix of all of those. Or to call out harmful behavior when it occurs on the part of others, because humans can be really horrible to one another.
That said, I guess I agree with your take, even if it sounds very antinatalist.
Maybe with the caveat that we should decisively figure out whether anything happens after death (our best guess is that nothing, though we might eventually even stimulate a near-death experience in an otherwise healthy brain to explain away any hallucinations) and in the end let people decide: either keep existing in our imperfect world, with all of the good and bad about it, or choose... eternal nothingness, until the heat death of the universe.
I feel like you forgot the primary thing that would help people to stop thinking of ending it: being able to afford necessities.
I think a problem with this is that suicide is so "off limits" that talking about doing it can get you institutionalized. Some medication can have awful side effects (mainly talking about SSRIs) which some people may not wish to experiment with.
Overall, I agree that other options should be presented too. But the root of the issue is the stigmatization of it all.
I can never tell if this is satire or not. What does this even mean? Is this a bad thing? Is there some utopian goal where we somehow build some gizmo that can communicate with your consciousness pre-conception and get informed consent to 'being you into this world'?
> Is this a bad thing? Is there some utopian goal...
Depends on the person. I'm not personally looking for a consent system before being born, merely pointing out the fact you can be born and have no control over anything. Things like illness, defects, abusive parents, etc... so people should have a safe option to leave life too.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/12/27/fac...
This thing is illegal everywhere and has not been tested.
Joke aside, I think it's important to explore the allowance of exits for people that want to end their lives, but at the same time I understand if people are concerned if easy suicide becomes easily available to the populance.
I admit, the "barriers to entry" raises some troublesome contradictions to my mind. Do we set an age limit, and if so, what? What about testing for various intoxicants or anything else which might cause someone to be unable to enter even into a contract for a gym membership? But it seems to stretch out: will there be a panel to whom someone must justify themselves? Perhaps an essay ...
On the other hand, I am reminded of that quote from Patrick Stewart, "I have a strong feeling that, should the time come for me, having had no role in my birth, I would like there to be a choice I might make about how I die." Indeed, nobody tests for intoxicants or goes before a panel before producing an infant. Life is something which happens to you and not a great deal of fuss is made about the qualifications.
And make no mistake, we are each born owing the grave a debt. It will come due eventually, the question seems to be whether or not you get to set a time and a manner to it, or must it happen to you just as life happened to you? Without volition or selection of circumstance. Can we offer ourselves and one another the kindness we might bestow on a beloved pet?
I've no answers, only questions I find more and more uncomfortable.
Even if you've spent your entire life, working hard paying into the system. The money for your retirement care has been spent already. Sorry you're poor and suffering. Here's an easier option out for you. Profits made on the sale of any viable organs.
Please remember that no matter what your position, others have very different views on this subject.
That said, I am somewhat of an advocate for people having the option to end their lives in some cases. I have seen first hand someone do it due to extreme medical hardship and it was intense but positive for them.
But there is the evidence that safeguards around these technologies suffer from the “slippery slope” problem:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070710/
We should be thinking very deeply about whether and how these kinds of technologies have their place in society, and maybe give us some deeper consideration.
People nearly always have the option to end their life, unless they are physically incapacitated. It's just a question of how big of a mess it makes.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-servi...
Make it plain, make it official, tell people you've done it. That way your relatives and family can't keep you alive forcibly "because that's what they would've wanted" or some other misguided reasons.
Mine has clear instructions to pull the plug in specific situations and not to extend my life unnaturally.