I feel a great deal of sympathy for your loved ones. They'll either watch you decline care that will extend your life from ~hours to a normal lifespan, or at the other end of the spectrum they'll watch you live out an incredibly uncomfortable and tortured few months (if you're lucky). I hope you have a will.
This is such a wild statement. Why are we so caught up on ensuring people don't die? What if someone doesn't want to be alive anymore? Personal agency and absolute freedom are more important to me than life.
Conversely, the idea of not liking a bit of metal and silicon keeping you from dying a terrible death SO MUCH that you'd rather just suffer and die (to the detriment of your loved ones) is an equally wild idea to me. You do you man, but that's a hell of a principle to hold up against existing.
People keep going on about living for the sake of loved ones but a terrifying amount of elderly people don't get the visitors to show for it. A lot of families would rather ignore them until it's time to say goodbye once they become too difficult to interact with regularly. And a lot of people would rather die comfortably or suddenly at an old age than die choking on their own fluids surrounded by family at an even older age.
Although I draw my line a bit further down (and am pro-cybernetics for various reasons), I can see why invasive augmentation is where some people do. I don't plan on surviving some treatable cancers if I get diagnosed simply because merely existing as a worn out husk from the strain of the treatment is not worth the burden on my family and myself. Other cancers have a treatment that is worth trying to fight through. Managing a pacemaker is just not a fight they want to have.
Any time a thread even remotely tangential to life extension comes up, all "maybe we should think long and hard about this" commentary is met with "OMG EVIL DEATHIST" energy.
So you encounter a person who makes an informed decision about declining extraordinary and invasive medical treatment, and your solution is to paternalistically force that invasion onto his body, with a pretense of life extension?
Is this a good example of the philosophy of "My Body, My Choice" that should pervade health care today?
I have absolutely no problem with people choosing not to go through an invasive surgery. My dad declined a surgery that might have saved his life but would have put him through agony.
If you critically read the thread, my astonishment is the stated reason: a distrust in the technology. There's nothing "informed" about that choice, especially if you're looking at the data (I'm not sure how else you can be informed about such a choice).
Getting a pacemaker is also arguably NOT an invasive surgery. Many people who get them leave the hospital the same day. As far as emergency surgeries go, it's very low on the ladder. A routine appendectomy is more invasive.
Comments
I feel a great deal of sympathy for your loved ones. They'll either watch you decline care that will extend your life from ~hours to a normal lifespan, or at the other end of the spectrum they'll watch you live out an incredibly uncomfortable and tortured few months (if you're lucky). I hope you have a will.
This is such a wild statement. Why are we so caught up on ensuring people don't die? What if someone doesn't want to be alive anymore? Personal agency and absolute freedom are more important to me than life.
Conversely, the idea of not liking a bit of metal and silicon keeping you from dying a terrible death SO MUCH that you'd rather just suffer and die (to the detriment of your loved ones) is an equally wild idea to me. You do you man, but that's a hell of a principle to hold up against existing.
People keep going on about living for the sake of loved ones but a terrifying amount of elderly people don't get the visitors to show for it. A lot of families would rather ignore them until it's time to say goodbye once they become too difficult to interact with regularly. And a lot of people would rather die comfortably or suddenly at an old age than die choking on their own fluids surrounded by family at an even older age.
Although I draw my line a bit further down (and am pro-cybernetics for various reasons), I can see why invasive augmentation is where some people do. I don't plan on surviving some treatable cancers if I get diagnosed simply because merely existing as a worn out husk from the strain of the treatment is not worth the burden on my family and myself. Other cancers have a treatment that is worth trying to fight through. Managing a pacemaker is just not a fight they want to have.
Most people seem to lack theory of mind beyond assuming everyone is a clone of them, unless they actively work on that.
Many people don't have a reference point for what it's like to not be afraid of death.
Any time a thread even remotely tangential to life extension comes up, all "maybe we should think long and hard about this" commentary is met with "OMG EVIL DEATHIST" energy.
So you encounter a person who makes an informed decision about declining extraordinary and invasive medical treatment, and your solution is to paternalistically force that invasion onto his body, with a pretense of life extension?
Is this a good example of the philosophy of "My Body, My Choice" that should pervade health care today?
I have absolutely no problem with people choosing not to go through an invasive surgery. My dad declined a surgery that might have saved his life but would have put him through agony.
If you critically read the thread, my astonishment is the stated reason: a distrust in the technology. There's nothing "informed" about that choice, especially if you're looking at the data (I'm not sure how else you can be informed about such a choice).
Getting a pacemaker is also arguably NOT an invasive surgery. Many people who get them leave the hospital the same day. As far as emergency surgeries go, it's very low on the ladder. A routine appendectomy is more invasive.
Who said anything about forcing anything?