When should we just let old people die ?

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09 Apr 2017, 12:24 pm

Government clearly has a lot involved, I don't know about 'by the people' but the 'for the people' part is definitely burdened by complexities - ie. fuel, foreign policy, foreign dictators and the ethical compromises in bolstering them, selling ammunition and armaments to the third world to save money on our own, etc. etc.

This is part of why I really don't like the fetish of the last twenty or thirty years that people have to take everything they want to the federal level. It's where good ideas go to be modified into a parody of themselves if they get passed at all.

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leejosepho
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09 Apr 2017, 12:44 pm

androbot01 wrote:

...at the crux of so many issues ... the value of a life versus the burden of that life.

Some people might say our government is really great for imposing the expense of that burden upon the unwilling where others condemn the needy as being mere leeches, but why actually is the government providing for them? And even if "we, the people" did demand a review of "the value of a life versus the burden of that life" in relation to governmental impositions (taxes) to pay the seeming burden, the government would still do little more than to re-shuffle the deck and keep right on playing just as at present. Does nobody but me ever wonder why that is?

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XFilesGeek
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09 Apr 2017, 4:50 pm

Something tells me that if society wants to re-examine the "value of life verses the burden of life," people with the most money would end-up at the top of the heap.

That being said, I don't hold it against anyone for wanting to remain alive. Fear of injury/dying is one of our most basic instincts.

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09 Apr 2017, 5:02 pm

When God wants an elderly person to die, He'll take them in His time. Man should never have that dangerous a decision. If you start killing the elderly off because you think they're a burden on society, what comes next? Killing off the disabled? Sounds eerily like the Nazi thought process to me.

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techstepgenr8tion
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09 Apr 2017, 5:11 pm

androbot01 wrote:

To my mind, death is nothing to be feared. It happens to everyone; it is unavoidable. How one dies can be horrible. And I think palliative care needs to be given more attention. But death, meh, it is what it is.

That's about where I'm at.

I think people should be discouraged from the fear but encouraged to make the best choices they can based on their prognosis and where they're at in terms of their life. There probably shouldn't be a stigma on wanting to go on, particularly if you have important business to resolve before you go, but I don't think there should be any stigma at all for people who look at the 500,000+ in medical bills for a terminal illness and say no thanks - I'll take hospice and keep the grubby hands of the medical system and HMO's off of my money. That person could donate their life savings as they choose, or give it to their children as they choose, it shouldn't be torn away from them by other people's views of what their liabilities and obligations are, ie. CYA behavior with someone else's money.

One of the great tragedies is when an elderly person finds themselves in a position where they feel like they need to commit suicide so as not to have their life work and savings cannibalized by the system. I don't know how much better things have gotten in that regard in the last 10 or 15 years, I'd really hope a lot better, but stories like that disgusted me.

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10 Apr 2017, 1:02 am

LittleCandle wrote:

godwin's law: invoked

i concede that a lot of this thread is lost on me, but i do believe that it's not about the deliberate killing of the elderly, as the nazis did to their victims. IMO, there's an important distinction to be made between deliberately killing, and allowing someone to die...though it might not appear that way to loved ones.

man has already achieved feats beyond the powers imagined of some ancient gods, it seems.

all facets/segments of society should get ideal opportunities and treatment in an ideal world, and personally i don't react well to the idea of some of them growing (metaphorically...) at the expense of others.

XFilesGeek wrote:

That being said, I don't hold it against anyone for wanting to remain alive. Fear of injury/dying is one of our most basic instincts.

i think it is a bit sad, how many people are never properly introduced to the topic of death and loss as children, and grow up to become scared, paranoid adults that do not know how to handle it, when it inevitably comes up and stares them in the face. a downside of a culture that makes death and loss such a taboo subject. it is no less universal and fundamental to the human condition, than eating, breathing and sh*****g.

when the family dog passes away, it can be a terribly sad occasion, but IMO it is good that kids learn to realize the impermanence of life, and how to deal with griefthoughts.

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LoveNotHate
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10 Apr 2017, 4:14 am

Yo El wrote:

LoveNotHate wrote:

I know someone who has gotten multiple organ transplants.

I was told that just one of the operations was over one million dollars in cost. He is on the organ receiver list again for a new liver. He's in his early 70s. He goes to the hospital often for treatments.

Thankfully, it's all "free" to him, since he uses Medicare.

Should we pay any amount, any price, to keep old people alive a little longer, or should we draw a line in the sand somewhere?

Why is a transplant actually so expensive? It seems like doctors just want to fill their pockets with money.

Transplant surgery cost a lot because so many doctor specialities are involved.

Also, they fly the organ in by way of helicopter, so there are pilots and staff involved too.

In 2011: Intestine, heart, and heart and lung total transplant total cost were over 1 million dollars.
See ...https://www.transplantliving.org/before ... the-costs/

LoveNotHate
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10 Apr 2017, 4:28 am

LittleCandle wrote:

This is regarding whether health-care should be rationed to disfavor the elderly, not whether we should actively put them to sleep like we do with our pets.

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10 Apr 2017, 5:06 am

LoveNotHate wrote:

Yo El wrote:

LoveNotHate wrote:

Why is a transplant actually so expensive? It seems like doctors just want to fill their pockets with money.

Better cut on their pay checks instead of people's lives how about that?

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10 Apr 2017, 6:46 am

Kiprobalhato wrote:

Yeah, I highly doubt the fear of dying is strictly a social construct.

Quote:

This is regarding whether health-care should be rationed to disfavor the elderly, not whether we should actively put them to sleep like we do with our pets.

And why stop there? Should we ration healthcare based on disabilities as well?

kitesandtrainsandcats
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10 Apr 2017, 7:05 am

Kiprobalhato wrote:

there's an important distinction to be made between deliberately killing, and allowing someone to die...

Yes, the difference is whether you actively kill them or you passively kill them.

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10 Apr 2017, 7:45 am

Kiprobalhato wrote:

Exactly.

XFilesGeek wrote:

Yeah, I highly doubt the fear of dying is strictly a social construct.

Fear of dying is essential to survival. What troubles me is the exploitation of this fear. People can go through terrible suffering at the end of life. I don't understand degrading quality of life for a few extra months of lying in a bed decomposing.
We also live in a culture that celebrates youth; people of all ages striving to have the bodies of their prime. It's such a superficial preoccupation.
Why can't people just accept that our time in these lives is limited and get on with it, instead of making life about fighting death.

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10 Apr 2017, 7:59 am

androbot01 wrote:

Because it's a basic human instinct.

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10 Apr 2017, 8:31 am

XFilesGeek wrote:

androbot01 wrote:

Because it's a basic human instinct.

Humans have lots of basic instincts that we don't encourage - discrimination, for example, is a natural instinct meant to keep the group strong, but we curb that instinct because we know through argument and evidence that it is not beneficial.

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10 Apr 2017, 11:09 am

I agree, we tend to pick and choose our irrationality and quite often its according to our own in-group wants. In some cases we want more autonomy, in other cases we want more out of other people or simply to be left to whatever we'd prefer to believe.

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kitesandtrainsandcats
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10 Apr 2017, 11:37 am

androbot01 wrote:

Something I wonder is why were behaviors which can be destructive to humans allowed to evolve? Seems quite unfit for the survival of the fittest. Maybe I overthink things, but I do wonder that.

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