An interesting choice. It's fascinating that even for very ill or injured people the will to survive is so strong - I wonder if at a certain age this instinct diminishes making a choice like his easier?
Great guy, very sociable, knew everyone in the little town he lived in. Kept in touch with a lot of students. Good neighbour, friendly guy who'd talk to everyone.
He got Alzheimers. He started forgetting stuff, and it frustrated him. He got caught driving dangerously, and cursed the doctor who took away his license.
He argued with me about the state of some chicken he wanted to cook. I told him "this is pink all over, you have to cook it more". He got angry. I understood he'd become like this to everyone.
He pissed off everyone on his street, and all police, medical and social workers sent to help him. The disease made him blow up every relationship he had with anyone that he didn't know well, like me and a couple of colleagues.
He got found in his house, having left the gas on, endangering the whole street. He ended up in a care home, not knowing who he was, or who I was.
If he'd been run over by a car, or died of a heart attack at the age of 80, people he knew would remember him as that nice old guy who had a dog and made a lot of art, and was friendly to everyone. Instead he was that 83 year old guy who pissed off everyone, nearly blew up the neighbourhood, and drove like a maniac.
You really don't want to end up with dementia and related illnesses, it totally sours everyone's view of you.
So you're telling me Alzheimers is a death sentence? Also, what is the minimum nuisance that should lead to someone's death? Because that is the problem with the euthanasia obsession.
At some point everything indirectly leads to euthanasia and society is not built for that at all. Everything you do might or might not lead to someone's euthanasia, which means you are liable for their death.
Let's say we can predict school shooters before they shoot and give them an euthanasia to save lives.
If bullying or encouragement causes someone to start shooting up a school, then the latent shooter will die before they do their shooting, but it also means that the instigator is a murderer themselves, because in the absence of instigation, no crime would be committed and no euthanasia would be necessary.
Since it is probably not possible to assign liability of a euthanasia to a single individual, because multiple people contributed to the outcome, the liability will be shared. Ten people being involved means each has committed 10% of a murder, meaning that they should receive 10% of a life sentence. Are you ready to serve a cumulative year in prison spread throughout your life to account for indirectly causing euthanasia?
Note that this problem isn't necessarily unique to euthanasia. The problem applies to any cure all solution. (Think of series like "Common Side Effects")
If you punch someone's face in, but cure it with a blue mushroom, was it really a crime, since their face is intact? And yet, more punching happens as a result of the existence of the panacea, which is why there needs to be a punishment for making someone dependent on the panacea.
I think you are bit wrong. Once someone close to you dies you remember them by their legacy. Also, you just have to laugh at some of the chaos these elderly cause. They call you in the middle of the night being lost somewhere and you have to guide em home. Or help the cops guide em home.
I am pro assisted suicide. Not sure about Switzerland but some countries allows it for young people with mental health problems. That I can't accept that.
That's the part that doesn't matter at all. Your life isn't contingent on others having a specific view of you - the rest of the world can, for lack of better words, go fuck themselves.
What matters is if you want to live a life where you can't drive a car, you might poison yourself with your cooking, you lose your mental facilities, etc. That is the relevant choice here.
What you say is "you don't want to end up with mental state because people will hate you" but TBH mental illness, though really harsh on environment, shouldn't be viewed differently than any other illness like broken leg. When person is riding a wheelchair you don't tell them "hey you're a pain in the ass because you drive so slow and cannot jump on the stairs" - we tend to give them hand, help by building ramps and lifts. The same should be with mentally ill. Places safe for them, mabe remembering aids software in a watch?
34M. I live with my mom who's had it for a few years.
It sucks. It's so easy to forget who they were before the disease. This is them now and it's hard as hell.
Simple things that take 1-step for us take 50+ steps for her. She doesn't readily communicate that she's hungry or thirsty or needs to use the bathroom, we have to constantly ask. She's always exhausted and walking around in circles but reacts aggressively to most suggestions to go to bed or take a nap (no matter how we word it). She can't focus for more than a few seconds, so she has no hobbies to occupy her time, and even the TV loses her interest after a minute at most. Her speech is one unbroken babble, and she gets annoyed if someone starts a conversation near her but doesn't let her interject.
Not sure how much more my dad and I have left in us. The disease stripped everything from her and it's stripping everything from us. In-home care is the likely course but she hates all strangers and is always paranoid about anyone other than us being in the house. There's no good solution.
I think the takeaway should be you really don't want Alzheimer's regardless of what people think of you.
Think about what is happening from his point of view. The condition has fundamentally changed his perception of reality. You are trying to tell him that this perfectly cooked chicken is pink all-over when it clearly isn't. Everyone else has gone mad and he doesn't know why.
This leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I see that the man was Israeli in the original story and I don't want to presume a religious perspective, but I can share some thoughts from my own based on his story and yours. I've read the New Testament within a Jewish framework and one of the things it says, Rabbi Shaul says in 1 Corinthians 12:23 that those people in the community who are most embarrassing or cause us to blush, like the parts of our own body who are honoured or dignified by being clothed with underwear, likewise in the community are owed a special covering and to be afforded dignity by the other parts of the same body/community. Just something to think about in light of this story!
I hear quite a lot of these stories from my parents. Are these kind of personality shifting diseases, like Alzheimers becoming more common? And if so, is it because we take better care of our hearts and don’t die as early as?
> And even at the end, when asked what he would like to do, he said: "I would like to learn something."
Don't have an exact word to describe how I feel after reading above. Find it beautiful that such an accomplished person wanted to learn something even towards the end of his life.
Daniel wrote one of my favorite books, Thinking: Fast and Slow (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp...). If you haven't read it, and you're into economics, behavioral psychology, and thinking about thinking then I'd highly recommend it. The first half of the book is especially compelling.
You will be missed! Sad to hear he passed, but glad he was able to go out on his own terms.
When an individual facing intractable pain is given an estimate of a few months to live, does hastening death become a viable and legitimate alternative for willing patients? Has the time come for physicians to do away with the traditional notion of healthcare as maintaining or improving physical and mental health, and instead accept their own limitations by facilitating death when requested? The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge held the 2013 Varsity Medical Debate on the motion “This House Would Legalise Assisted Dying”. This article summarises the key arguments developed over the course of the debate. We will explore how assisted dying can affect both the patient and doctor; the nature of consent and limits of autonomy; the effects on society; the viability of a proposed model; and, perhaps most importantly, the potential need for the practice within our current medico-legal framework.
I'm part of the Jain community in Bangalore, and the version of this in society exists, called Sallekhna [1], a tradition that's developed over millennia, and this is venerated and celebrated.
The philosophical underpinning is giving up of materialness. The practicality of the 5 instances that I witnessed over the past year - typical terminal individuals choose this. They pass away surrounded by loved ones (they typically medicate for any pain, and the body starts shutting down when food and water stops). This is observed with somberness, but celebrated as very positive act.
When someone starts this process, it's a unique experience speaking with them, as there's usually nothing that comes up, and the moment does not really lend itself to small talk :)
So he was very old without any significant problems, but he wanted to avoid the inevitable problems?
If you’ve already made it to 90 with no major issues, you’re expected to make it to 95 and you could make easily live to 100. My wife’s grandad is 90 and he still lives alone, drives, plays golf nearly everyday, and regularly sees his 12 grandchildren and many great grandchildren. He even made the 9 hour trip to come see us last year.
I’m very wary of making it legal for doctors to euthanize an otherwise healthy person who just wants to avoid an eventual decline.
It’s relatively common for families to push people into nursing homes, but in this case there’s an even stronger direct financial incentive. I don’t trust the system to adequately prevent this.
The sad demise of Robin Williams made me a believer of assisted suicide. The option to go out with dignity should be available to everyone.
That said, there is a problem in at least some places where assisted suicide is available where it keeps getting recommended to disabled people who don't want to die. That needs to be solved. Seems like an easy solve. Just don't do it.
There is a cost reduction incentive, though, which is why it happens. Costs can be reduced for abled people by convincing them to exercise and eat more fiber, so the same pressure can do good instead of evil. At some point we have to decide to care about people.
I find it really weird. So someone pays CHF 10K to be given a lethal injection then it becomes dignified and the other way isn't? I think it is an insult to the departed if you question the path they choose - because then both the choices can be questioned and judged.
And did you just go to eating more fibre from euthanasia in the same few sentences? :D
Ever since I watched my father waste away in agony and die in a veterans home, it has become my greatest fear in life to suffer until the bitter end. I choose euthanasia because I don't want to put my family through that, and the last thing I want to do, if you'll pardon me, is to waste away in my own urine and feces in what will likely be a sub optimal care situation.
I think it's beautiful he got to go out on his own terms, when he felt it was the right time to do so.
I'm often reminded about a case in my own country: a young person had decided it was time to end her life after struggling for many years, without a sign of improvement. She was denied the right to euthanasia. After multiple failed suicide attempts, she went for the nuclear option and jumped in front of a train.
Everyone deserves to die in a dignified and humane way, not in multiple pieces or with a mind deteriorated beyond recognition. Forcing prolonged suffering is unnecessarily cruel. I wish more countries were as progressive with euthenasia as Switzerland.
Coincidentally, today there was an article in a Belgian newspaper about a 25-year-old woman who will undergo euthanasia in a few weeks due to severe psychological suffering with no prospect of improvement. After years of suffering and 40 failed suicide attempts, I indeed think it's much more dignified to have euthanasia as an option.
Euthanasia has some strict rules in Belgium, especially for cases involving psychological suffering. In 2014, the age restriction was dropped (except for psychological suffering). Since then, 6 minors have received euthanasia.
I'm surprised and fascinated that this is apparently legal in Switzerland. The Netherlands, famous for allowing assisted suicide, has pretty strict criteria for this[1].
In particular, the physician must "be satisfied that the patient’s suffering is unbearable, with no prospect of improvement", which from this article sounds far from the case here.
The guy who spent his life researching how to live rationally chooses suicide at age 90, upon seeing “increasing metal lapses”, presumably in order to not ever live irrationally.
I’m trying to figure out why this feels so unsettling to me. I can understand wanting to end one’s life because of unbearable pain or illness, but something about this just feels wrong.
I 100% understand his rationale, and in the same position I'd probably do the same -- "probably" because this is one of those things you can't possibly predict in advance.
To me, Daniel Kahneman humiliated himself by choosing suicide (if he was in a sound state of mind to make that decision). He was a scared, little old man. He made an assumption that his life was "obviously no longer worth living", how little he thought of life is pathetic.
Now he could have been depressed after his wife died and was just lying to himself that this was his own, autonomous, decision. Depression can do that to you, it can make you think suicide is the most rational decision.
I was curious about how he actually died and found an [1] article describing it:
> Kahneman used the services of Pegasos in the village of Roderis in Nunningen, Switzerland. In the death room with a view over green hills, wearing a suit and tie, he lay on the bed and turned on an infusion of sodium pentobarbital himself. A companion held his hand and told him they were holding it on behalf of his loved ones. Kahneman's last words were "I feel their love."
Not going to express an opinion, I'll just leave this except from the Hippocratic Oath [1], which reflects society's primary beliefs on this topic approximately up until the 19th century:
Took care of someone with Alzheimers for six years until they passed away. No one should have to exist like that, for that long. A biological shell simply of automatic inputs and outputs.
80 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 76.3 ms ] threadGreat guy, very sociable, knew everyone in the little town he lived in. Kept in touch with a lot of students. Good neighbour, friendly guy who'd talk to everyone.
He got Alzheimers. He started forgetting stuff, and it frustrated him. He got caught driving dangerously, and cursed the doctor who took away his license.
He argued with me about the state of some chicken he wanted to cook. I told him "this is pink all over, you have to cook it more". He got angry. I understood he'd become like this to everyone.
He pissed off everyone on his street, and all police, medical and social workers sent to help him. The disease made him blow up every relationship he had with anyone that he didn't know well, like me and a couple of colleagues.
He got found in his house, having left the gas on, endangering the whole street. He ended up in a care home, not knowing who he was, or who I was.
If he'd been run over by a car, or died of a heart attack at the age of 80, people he knew would remember him as that nice old guy who had a dog and made a lot of art, and was friendly to everyone. Instead he was that 83 year old guy who pissed off everyone, nearly blew up the neighbourhood, and drove like a maniac.
You really don't want to end up with dementia and related illnesses, it totally sours everyone's view of you.
At some point everything indirectly leads to euthanasia and society is not built for that at all. Everything you do might or might not lead to someone's euthanasia, which means you are liable for their death.
Let's say we can predict school shooters before they shoot and give them an euthanasia to save lives. If bullying or encouragement causes someone to start shooting up a school, then the latent shooter will die before they do their shooting, but it also means that the instigator is a murderer themselves, because in the absence of instigation, no crime would be committed and no euthanasia would be necessary.
Since it is probably not possible to assign liability of a euthanasia to a single individual, because multiple people contributed to the outcome, the liability will be shared. Ten people being involved means each has committed 10% of a murder, meaning that they should receive 10% of a life sentence. Are you ready to serve a cumulative year in prison spread throughout your life to account for indirectly causing euthanasia?
Note that this problem isn't necessarily unique to euthanasia. The problem applies to any cure all solution. (Think of series like "Common Side Effects")
If you punch someone's face in, but cure it with a blue mushroom, was it really a crime, since their face is intact? And yet, more punching happens as a result of the existence of the panacea, which is why there needs to be a punishment for making someone dependent on the panacea.
I am pro assisted suicide. Not sure about Switzerland but some countries allows it for young people with mental health problems. That I can't accept that.
That's the part that doesn't matter at all. Your life isn't contingent on others having a specific view of you - the rest of the world can, for lack of better words, go fuck themselves.
What matters is if you want to live a life where you can't drive a car, you might poison yourself with your cooking, you lose your mental facilities, etc. That is the relevant choice here.
It sucks. It's so easy to forget who they were before the disease. This is them now and it's hard as hell.
Simple things that take 1-step for us take 50+ steps for her. She doesn't readily communicate that she's hungry or thirsty or needs to use the bathroom, we have to constantly ask. She's always exhausted and walking around in circles but reacts aggressively to most suggestions to go to bed or take a nap (no matter how we word it). She can't focus for more than a few seconds, so she has no hobbies to occupy her time, and even the TV loses her interest after a minute at most. Her speech is one unbroken babble, and she gets annoyed if someone starts a conversation near her but doesn't let her interject.
Not sure how much more my dad and I have left in us. The disease stripped everything from her and it's stripping everything from us. In-home care is the likely course but she hates all strangers and is always paranoid about anyone other than us being in the house. There's no good solution.
Tell your parents you love them.
Think about what is happening from his point of view. The condition has fundamentally changed his perception of reality. You are trying to tell him that this perfectly cooked chicken is pink all-over when it clearly isn't. Everyone else has gone mad and he doesn't know why.
Yes, the sixty-fifth worst thing about degenerative brain disease. Good observation.
*no data though, just observing my village
Don't have an exact word to describe how I feel after reading above. Find it beautiful that such an accomplished person wanted to learn something even towards the end of his life.
You will be missed! Sad to hear he passed, but glad he was able to go out on his own terms.
Should assisted dying be legalised?
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine volume 9, Article number: 3 (2014)
Thomas D G Frost, Devan Sinha & Barnabas J Gilbert
https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-5341...
Abstract
When an individual facing intractable pain is given an estimate of a few months to live, does hastening death become a viable and legitimate alternative for willing patients? Has the time come for physicians to do away with the traditional notion of healthcare as maintaining or improving physical and mental health, and instead accept their own limitations by facilitating death when requested? The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge held the 2013 Varsity Medical Debate on the motion “This House Would Legalise Assisted Dying”. This article summarises the key arguments developed over the course of the debate. We will explore how assisted dying can affect both the patient and doctor; the nature of consent and limits of autonomy; the effects on society; the viability of a proposed model; and, perhaps most importantly, the potential need for the practice within our current medico-legal framework.
The philosophical underpinning is giving up of materialness. The practicality of the 5 instances that I witnessed over the past year - typical terminal individuals choose this. They pass away surrounded by loved ones (they typically medicate for any pain, and the body starts shutting down when food and water stops). This is observed with somberness, but celebrated as very positive act.
When someone starts this process, it's a unique experience speaking with them, as there's usually nothing that comes up, and the moment does not really lend itself to small talk :)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallekhana
If you’ve already made it to 90 with no major issues, you’re expected to make it to 95 and you could make easily live to 100. My wife’s grandad is 90 and he still lives alone, drives, plays golf nearly everyday, and regularly sees his 12 grandchildren and many great grandchildren. He even made the 9 hour trip to come see us last year.
I’m very wary of making it legal for doctors to euthanize an otherwise healthy person who just wants to avoid an eventual decline.
It’s relatively common for families to push people into nursing homes, but in this case there’s an even stronger direct financial incentive. I don’t trust the system to adequately prevent this.
That said, there is a problem in at least some places where assisted suicide is available where it keeps getting recommended to disabled people who don't want to die. That needs to be solved. Seems like an easy solve. Just don't do it.
There is a cost reduction incentive, though, which is why it happens. Costs can be reduced for abled people by convincing them to exercise and eat more fiber, so the same pressure can do good instead of evil. At some point we have to decide to care about people.
And did you just go to eating more fibre from euthanasia in the same few sentences? :D
In Germany, it was illegal for doctors to recommend or advertise abortion, and that worked pretty well. You could do the same for assisted suicide.
I'm often reminded about a case in my own country: a young person had decided it was time to end her life after struggling for many years, without a sign of improvement. She was denied the right to euthanasia. After multiple failed suicide attempts, she went for the nuclear option and jumped in front of a train.
Everyone deserves to die in a dignified and humane way, not in multiple pieces or with a mind deteriorated beyond recognition. Forcing prolonged suffering is unnecessarily cruel. I wish more countries were as progressive with euthenasia as Switzerland.
Euthanasia has some strict rules in Belgium, especially for cases involving psychological suffering. In 2014, the age restriction was dropped (except for psychological suffering). Since then, 6 minors have received euthanasia.
In particular, the physician must "be satisfied that the patient’s suffering is unbearable, with no prospect of improvement", which from this article sounds far from the case here.
[1] https://www.government.nl/topics/euthanasia/is-euthanasia-al...
1. Administer the medication yourself
2. Be of "sane" mind at the time you do it.
3. Have a doctor certify that at the time you choose to do it, you are in unbearable pain/suffering, and there is no realistic relief from it.
This rules out dementia (especially item 2). So people here who are in early stages of Alzheimers go to Switzerland as well.
The guy who spent his life researching how to live rationally chooses suicide at age 90, upon seeing “increasing metal lapses”, presumably in order to not ever live irrationally.
What is the point of living your last 10 years of life bed ridden? This is how I will go.
Now he could have been depressed after his wife died and was just lying to himself that this was his own, autonomous, decision. Depression can do that to you, it can make you think suicide is the most rational decision.
> Kahneman used the services of Pegasos in the village of Roderis in Nunningen, Switzerland. In the death room with a view over green hills, wearing a suit and tie, he lay on the bed and turned on an infusion of sodium pentobarbital himself. A companion held his hand and told him they were holding it on behalf of his loved ones. Kahneman's last words were "I feel their love."
[1]: https://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/schweiz/suizidhilfe-weltstar-...
> οὐ δώσω δὲ οὐδὲ φάρμακον οὐδενὶ αἰτηθεὶς θανάσιμον, οὐδὲ ὑφηγήσομαι συμβουλίην τοιήνδε
In English:
> Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath
Robin Williams had to hang himself.
There should be easy medical options in the US.