Sarco suicide capsule ‘passes legal review’ in Switzerland
swissinfo.ch
swissinfo.ch
Our aim is to develop an artificial intelligence screening system to establish the person’s mental capacity.
That sounds like a terrible idea. There are valid concerns about doctor involvement in the process, but AI won't fix those.
Its not a terrible idea, as a society we retain some naïve and arguably zealous notions around death which often makes us push towards natural outcomes. Some natural outcomes are different from others in that they're significantly worse for all parties involved. Those outcomes are a subject that should be given more attention and seriousness as opposed to mere emotional rejection.
The original bill didn't allow it, but it got challenged in court and the government was given a deadline to add that clause.
Which is part of the reason that people who have seen it with their parents often want to submit their consent in advance. If I get Alzheimer's, please fucking kill me.
How on earth did you get such an out-of-touch callously asinine idea?
It is the most mentally debilitating state one can possibly be in. Their depth of recollection comes and goes. There is a persistent growing and waning sense of confusion. Their grasp on reality is in a shattered state. They recollect details out of context or in false connection to current events. I seriously fail to understand how you could underplay this disease.
I would also like to ask - based on your experience, is there a piece of hardware or software that doesn't exist that would improve the lives of the patients and families? Voice activated, visual UI, thermal sensing, motion sensing, etc, anything you could think of. Any human-machine interaction paradigm.
The whole idea of "assisted suicide" is like Bitcoin - invented for the express purpose of finding and abusing loopholes in the current legal frameworks.
You have to excuse the sarcasm, but if you really can't think of any cases where taking your own life in a dignified manner is not actually possible, then I'm not sure there's any discussion to be had here
For people who don't have religious prohibitions on suicide, having a reliable, simple, low cost, low-pain, low-mess option sounds great to me.
Usually, atleast a few other methods should be used to help, before deciding on suicide (with a notable exception of being close to a very painful, inevitable death, and just wanting to shorten the suffering).
Not all. Incurable disease is just one example.
How can anyone except myself decide what that threshold is?
Even buying guns in some states has a 3 day cool-off period.
Anything is better than AI in a 3d printed box.
As an example: Old age is a permanent, and worsening, problem. Why should one be forced to live to an old age where they are dependent on others, IF they don’t want to?
If average people are anything like me then I would think that they are more likely to think that a permanent problem is a temporary one rather than the other way around.
There are so many non-temporary conditions that people live with that can lead to wanting people, very rationally, to speed up end of life.
But being physically ok, but having depression is something that can be solved by therapy.. or atleast should be tried before ending it
That said I’m a Swiss citizen and knew someone with a terminal illness who used the “Exit” program and it seemed extremely humane and a positive thing overall and I fully support having it available to everyone in that situation.
A few questions and an AI box is not 'that'.
But being physically ok, but having depression is something that can be solved by therapy.. or atleast should be tried before ending it
It's also a pretty shitty thing to say. It's designed to make people who may want to die feel worse about themselves by calling their feelings merely "temporary".
My guess is that if you have such a binary view of the world, you might have lived a simple or sheltered or privileged life.
This quote is supposed to be used in the correct context of the specific situation, *if* it's truly temporary. Not just as a generalisation.
I bet most of people who resort to assisted suicide in Switzerland have terminal disease or incurable pain.
It would be a weird assumption to think that a person who carefully plans their suicide in advance, and orders a specialty device for it, hasn't considered options other than suicide. Most likely such a person has tried everything else already.
Life itself temporary, hence the death-is-permanent thing. Hence all things in life—pain, happiness, pleasure, suffering—are temporary. Suicide is just the shortening of all of these possible states (or potential states—for the hopeful). Thus a shortening of a bunch of temporary states.
Doesn’t sound as menacing and dramatic when you put it like that. And it’s equally true.
> I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave
Better than the opposite case where the AI has the ability to mandate suicide.
A maximally effective suicide AI should also be able to detect that you are a good suicide candidate before you even start having ideation, and proactively convince you of this fact.
you cannot scale those things effectively with doctors as middlemen
'to mandate suicide' is typically reduced to 'commit homicide'
What’s to say the human voluntarily entered this capsule and the “AI” does what that person wishes? One could take the Kim Jong-nam assassination as an example where the participants may have believed something completely different was occurring than the true context.
In the absence of “AI” someone could reverse the do die/do not die button. However, adding an additional, pliable layer is a bad idea.
Whether it is autonomous weapons or this, once AI or machine learning is added, the human is no longer in full control.
Well said. As Jim Jefferies said in his gun control bit referencing suicide -- 'We all have bad days.'
That's a pretty loaded statement. You're probably thinking of those ostentatious fools who end up in the news like "man was prevented from jumping off the bridge". Not every suicide does it on a whim, some think about that decision for many years.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves...
I personally don't really think that a person, who is making that a leap and decide and stop existing, has a 'clear' mind. It may be an objectively rational decision ( and frankly, I believe it is up to each of us to make that decision ), but I would be hard-pressed to argue that 'this individual, who I find of sound mind opted for the chair'. There is a reason society has certain level of concern for those that try and fail.
It is possible that I do not have enough of a population sample, but I personally see it as part of an effort way to keep world population control at certain level. Before anyone accuses me of tin-foiling, I mean it in the same sense as that there are efforts to prevent suicides by means of suicide prevention hotlines.
I guess what I am saying, as a society, we are grappling with with two competing interests:
1. We care about certain individuals and we don't want them gone from our life. 2. We care about certain individuals and we want them to have control over their own body.
We are going to die in the end. Why not bring that closer so that the useless suffering stops? I think people who want to continue struggle, is the mentally ill. Having to do work 9-5 whole life and yet not being able to afford healthcare, acceptable living standard is somehow okay to continue. People are delusional and having too much copium.
Lots of here have good job life in a first world country and they think everyone is living like that. Someone says different, then it's "why you are enjoying life like me? you are just mentally ill".
These supposedly normal people also bring a kid without their consent to study, work, have disease, die horrible death by giving birth. All of these just to satisfy their own selfish wish to have a child with their gene, but not for the benefit of the kid.
These would be even larger concerns in the US than Switzerland for cultural and economic reasons.
I am personally against assisted suicide for the same reason I am against the death penalty: the logic works but only if you ignore the ugliness and messiness of real human behavior.
We chose to euthanize our dog this summer. No matter how obvious her medical condition was, I still questioned whether we did it too early, too late, or just right. (Upon reflection, I think very slightly too late [by days or maybe a week].) I also couldn’t help but compare that experience to that of people. In many ways, I think we treat our family pets with more compassion.
Then you proceed to give an idealistic reason to oppose it... A person choosing to end their life to preserve a family inheritance IMO would / should be a valid reason, your opposition to such a choice is idealistic.
>I am personally against assisted suicide for the same reason I am against the death penalty
There is no logical or idealistic similarities between the two as there is a difference between actions being forced upon you, and voluntary actions.
This has become a common trend in the modern era where we attempt to expand the idea of coercion to include scenario;s where people have only poor choices. Examples include people taking a poor paying job being "coerced" into it because they did not have "good" choices,
it is very dangerous to equate a circumstances where there are no good options to coercion
I had a close family member express repeatedly and regularly that “they were done” and “are looking forward to finally dying”. That’s what makes me strongly support individual choice here, but I’m not blind to the possibility of abuse here (and near certainty that it will happen in some cases).
You live by the rules of whatever society you are living in. You don't live in isolation, you depend on countless other living beings to be where you are in this point of time in your life. Life is interconnected web, not an isolated event.
Your life has a value for other people too. No one can force you to live. "Permission" does not mean being forced. Unless you are physically unable to have a life, you should be needing a permission.
We already give permission in courts and write rules on how a person should live (or not) their lives for so many reasons we think are beneficial/harmful for rest of us. How is this any different?
Like what are they doing to do, throw your body in prison? Hand your body a fine?
We already put people with mental issues in mental health facilities instead of killing them. We could probably do something similar (not the same) for people who decide to take their own lives and seek out before doing it.
This is one of those, "in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there are" situations.
Nobody owes society anything. In fact, the reverse is true: society owes things to those brought into this world without being asked: clean water, safety, clean environment, reasonable standards of living. I just don't see how it could cross anyone's mind to try to prevent people from ending their life, since they didn't ask to be here in the first place, to support a society that has clearly failed that individual.
If a society is good and just and receives conscious support from people, that's acceptable. But I don't see how it could possibly justify interfering with a right of self determination w.r.t. ending the ride early.
I guess I just don't get it. It seems cruel and Kafkaesque.
Society usually tries to help, not deny the rights in a larger scheme of things. If you find someone on the verge of ending their life will you judge their sanity based on their age (what age if so and why) before deciding whether or not you should stop them or just let them do it because they must have a good reason?
I always wonder how we decide that at certain age a person is sane enough to start making decisions for their own life. In some ways or the other, we always need assistance from other people no matter how adult we become. This is just one of them. Society thinks it can help people from killing themselves just like we help kids from killing themselves unknowingly for first many years of their lives.
Our modern society has tried so hard to defeat death that we have essentially surrounded ourselves in it. Once we've made machines that try to defeat death, the only natural extension is to make machines that do the exact opposite, since there is no longer a distinction between the two.
(I highly recommend reading Chapter 5 from Baudrillard's Symbollic Exchange and Death, which elaborates about how modern society has ripped apart the symbolic exchange between life and death and neatly partitioned it, and as a consequence death becomes an immortal force that we cannot deal with.)
But given access to data and an appeals process for those it turned down, I would be morally okay with writing the software.
We let parents have as many children as they want, why shouldn't those children get to say if the life they have is worth living?
But we care surely agree that 14 days is looooong past the point where it can be considered a spur of the moment thing?
I've not posted about this before, for a variety of reasons:
A close family friend of mine - in his mid 20s - took his own life a week or so before Christmas a couple of years ago.
I was with him and his father in a pub the evening before, he was telling jokes and buying drinks, he was dead a few hours later.
Unfortunately taking your own life doesn't have a cooling-off period :(
Also on the list of concerning statements. Why do I get the feeling that “various other reasons” play a bit of a more important role than he’s letting on there?
Whether there are valid exceptions or mere failures of treatment is what most people are inclined to debate (plus the difficulty in discerning rational consent, free of pressure or other external failures).
the very consent required for life doesnt exist.
people dont consent to being alive.
holding someone who feels suffering alive would be considered torture.
when you strip away the selfishness that is keeping others alive, suicide might be the only truly zelfless act.
i do not think you need a complicated ai to allow a suicide machine. you treat it as you would the way we sane people regulate guns. cool down periods, background checks and coercion checks.
We live in a weird time leg.
But going beyond that, Kahneman in his latest book summarises the recent research in the area as such:
- Simple linear models generally outperform experts.
- Simple linear models generally outperform experts when the experts get additional information to base their decisions on, that the model does not get.
- Simple linear models generally outperform experts when the experts get to know and use the outcome of the linear model.
- Simple linear models trained only on an expert's judgments and not the actual outcome outperform the very expert they were trained on.
- Simple linear models with random weights (!) outperform experts.
- Simple linear models with equal weights (i.e. transform the predictors to the same scale and then just sum them) outperform experts.
- Simple linear models with equal weights and almost all predictors removed except the best 1--3 outperform experts.
At what? At correctly diagnosing patients or predicting prognosis once an issue has already been identified, as in Meehl's paper? That is not the same thing as determining whether a patient has the "mental capacity" to commit suicide.
The common objection against this evidence is "sure, it happened to work there, but it won't work in this case!" And of course, it's very hard to defend this research against an accusation like that.
However, it's been a remarkable stable result whenever it is tried for a new task, so I guess what I'm saying is that I like to stay open to simple algorithms making better decisions than humans. Not because the algorithms are good (linear models with random weights are not very good) but because humans are incredibly fallible.
Please let me know when this is done, I am very curious how one would implement such a thing. How can an AI determine if the person is in a "clear" state of mind? What does it even mean? Can they actually define this mental capacity that a person must be in to be able to make the choice? They have to define it, and then they have to somehow turn it into something that the computer can understand and work with. I believe that it is not possible.
Sure, humans might do it in a more or less accurate way, but could an AI? If it could, would you please tell me how? I really am curious[2], I work at the hospital.
Oh, about working at the hospital: a patient has been deemed aggressive when in fact it is just her voice and looks and whatnot that makes it seem like she is aggressive. She is not actually aggressive in any way, she just looks and sounds as if she were. The moment you have a discussion with her, you would be able to tell that she is not aggressive at all. How would an AI deal with this, if even humans cannot? You also have to consider that these behaviors are heavily influenced by the environment and changes in environment that one has to consider.
[1] Mind you, there are cultural differences at play here as well. There are some behaviors that would consider you "not in a clear state of mind" in one culture, but not in another.
[2] I am also wondering if an AI would be able to determine if a person has dementia based on behavior alone.
Sounds like a terrible feature
The software only knows what the (human) user tells it. What assurance does it have that the patient isn't being pressurized into giving the correct answers? Or that the suicide capsule is going to be used correctly (as opposed to being a murder tool)?
If you start looking for edge cases where this might go wrong, it turns out to be razor-sharp edge cases all the way down. A human with a remit to prevent false positives should be the last link in the kill chain: sure, allow the applicant to appeal if the human practitioner has made a mistake, but the default outcome should be "no kill" unless their mental capacity can be positively confirmed (which is a GAI-complete requirement, hence wanting a human being in the loop).
Very few countries give people a right to death.
This comment is legally incoherent.
You're gonna have to be more specific than that.
But I think it's more complicated for otherwise healthy people temporarily passing through a mental illness crisis or untreated depression. Though there is a distinction here in it's a government providing the means. Anyone can figure out a means themselves.
Humans are easy to kill, and it's not hard to do so humanely.
(Yes, there are many other problems with the death penalty besides the technical execution of it, but you'd think we could at least do that part right.)
Article from NYTimes from 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20210704140110/https://www.nytim...
https://www.npr.org/2015/03/11/392375383/states-scramble-to-...
It's not so much to pretend it's peaceful, as it's a error in how the drugs are administered and availability of appropriate drugs.
Or nitrogen as the article describes. Or a fatal overdose of a pleasant drug like morphine?
Even the guillotine is quite humane, though gory.
Edit: not HCl, H2SO4.
After seeing friends and family struggle with severe injury / deformities and Alzheimer's / mental decline (cancer with grueling treatment as well) - I can as a currently happy and healthy person say that I would likely use some form of firearm to end my life. It's quick, hard to mess up and above all my right as a human being.
I generally dislike political spats regarding labor / "obligations" to society in general - but I think the most sacred right is the right to decide whether you contribute by living. Both capitalism and socialism demonize the idea of suicide because each needs some form of a worker and the pursuit of a certain constructed life to work properly. Something that I'll never understand and that I believe is more morally wrong is family deciding that someone should "get over" their own choice to no longer live. In my opinion nothing is more selfish and less respectful of what life should mean to an individual.
I was under the impression it was in fact not that hard at all to mess up.
Though in fact, seems like other methods are indeed likely “worse” in terms of achieving the intended outcome:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/generalpsychiatry/83...
I think it depends a bit on technique and choice of firearm. Some people foolishly put a gun in their mouth and assume it will definitely kill. But it's entirely possible to miss the brainstem and just blow off the side of your face instead. Now you are alive but mangled.
Something like a shotgun is probably a bit harder to screw up.
But personally I'm far too chickenshit to use a firearm. I'd probably try to find someone who'd sell me fentanyl, were I interested in terminating my own existence. At the moment, however, I'm far more likely to suffer an existential crisis and so I've zero desire to answer life's greatest question any sooner than strictly necessary.
I had a co-worker who had earlier in life done that to himself. The bullet took an eye and a chunk of his brain out. He was instantly transformed from one of the smartest people in the room, to someone who could barely keeping up with conversations, with about half of the IQ.
Personally, I'd prefer that if the extra suffering caused by a method of execution is less than the suffering caused by, for instance, a week in jail, we should ignore the suffering and permit use of the method.
Obligatory:
Does it have "quick and painless", "slow and horrible", and "clumsy bludgeoning" settings?
What do they do with the bodies?
This idea has too many moving components, I don't think it's a good idea.
There are already companies who sell dual-use nitrogen equipment for home brewing and "home brewing."
> It’s a 3-D printed capsule, activated from the inside by the person intending to die. The machine can be towed anywhere for the death. It can be in an idyllic outdoor setting or in the premises of an assisted suicide organisation, for example.
> The person will get into the capsule and lie down. It’s very comfortable. They will be asked a number of questions and when they have answered, they may press the button inside the capsule activating the mechanism in their own time.
> The capsule is sitting on a piece of equipment that will flood the interior with nitrogen, rapidly reducing the oxygen level to 1 per cent from 21 per cent. The person will feel a little disoriented and may feel slightly euphoric before they lose consciousness. The whole thing takes about 30 seconds. Death takes place through hypoxia and hypocapnia, oxygen and carbon dioxide deprivation, respectively. There is no panic, no choking feeling.
Between a sudden, unexpected death and dying in pain from a progressive disease, my "ideal" way to die would be chosen death before a progressive disease becomes bad enough to cross some personal threshold of suffering.
At the same time, I plan to do whatever I reasonably can to prolong my life (and its quality) for as long as possible.
Hopefully by the time this becomes relevant more options like this capsule and others will be readily available.
Having said that, his quote about an AI giving you permission to die seems a bit preposterous. The actual method of death he described sounds reasonable, but I don't know that I'd want a machine to permit me to end my own life. Not that having to get a doctor's permission sounds any better. Ideally, nobody should have a say over a life but the individual themselves. I recognize in saying this though that it isn't really that simple, and that there are complex nuances with potential undue influence family members or others surrounding a person can have in the situation.
It is a long time I wish there was some kind of deice you can implant in your body that would release poison when not responding to some kind of regular request. This would at least solve neurological cases (either degenerative, or alive in a coma which is terrifying, or vegetative state)
This is my observation of suicide hotlines and ambiguous generic anti-suicide advice.
It seems this conversation is so immature, patronizing and invalidating.
I haven’t found people able to articulate their thoughts on the matter as they just invalidate my comments on social media platforms until they are no longer visible.
Do things compatible with self-preservation like me, or don’t.
If we are to allow suicide for chronic physical pain, then why not for chronic mental pain?
I still believe people should be allowed to have a safe, painless, unmessy death if they want it, for whatever reason. I don't understand why it's such a controversy. Why does a person who wants to leave have to resort to messy, violent methods? Our pets have more access to humane ways to die because of bad situations, than humans.
My older brother attempted suicide a few years ago and he tried to asphyxiate himself using nitrogen. When he was found, he was vomiting all over himself. Some part of his plan failed to work, obviously. So I don't know that I'd assume it's a trivial exercise to make a working setup on your own.
I imagine there are probably approaches with complexity between "plastic bag" and "lie-in 3d printed electromechanical apparatus" that would be still be reliable. Particularly, I would imagine a device that seals around the neck but otherwise operates by the same principle would be a lot cheaper and more environmentally friendly to produce. You would have a regulated, switchable input, one arm of which would be the atmosphere and the other arm of which would be a pure nitrogen supply. And then a check valve for output.
I hope never to have to use such a device myself . . . dying peacefully in my sleep would be the ideal, like my grandfather did, or of a sudden stroke like my other grandmother and grandfather. But if it comes to pass that I am dying of a painful and debilitating disease, I hope that by then a device like this is easily obtainable.
Yep, that unfortunate time of his life has passed and he is in a much better place. Found someone who helps keep him grounded mentally. Finally qualifies for social security so he isn't struggling just to find a roof to live under. Luckily he was an engineer for many years and so his social security payment isn't half bad. He's going to be okay now, and for that I'm grateful.
I agree with your sentiments. I'm glad that I live in Oregon, so we do have assisted suicide as an option. The law makes it somewhat difficult, IMO, but in practice the rules seem to get bent. My father died with assistance a few years back when he had terminal kidney disease. Two nurses came to the house and prepared the pills for him by converting them into a liquid he could drink, they even helped him hold it. He'd have had difficulty doing that himself, so I'm grateful they were willing to help. I don't think the law allows for that much assistance, but maybe I'm wrong.
In lieu of euthanasia, I'll pin my hopes on opiates, I guess. A friend of mine passed away about a week ago (cancer) and I had the opportunity to talk with him about three weeks ago -- he was on a significant dose (but not quite lethal) of fentanyl, and he said he had zero pain. They were willing to crank the dose up to whatever it takes -- this seems normal when hospice is involved. No worries about anyone getting addicted. And if the patient inadvertently dies a little early, nobody asks any questions.
Your body has a thousand instincts inside trying to preserve itself.
Many of these people who try asphyxiating themselves end up ripping the bag even after they go unconscious. And if you fail, you risk long-term brain damage.
Trying to kill yourself is like trying to kick a the corner of a concrete wall with your shin as hard as possible. You have to override a lot of self-preservation instincts. It's not like you suddenly become immune to pain, loss, and fear.
However, when you use enough replacement gas (helium or nitrogen will do) the body won't fight it because it's the buildup of CO2 that's the trigger, not the lack of oxygen. I do agree brain damage can happen from a failure.
(Costs shouldn't be an issue, switzerland has pretty good medical insurances AFAIK)
https://zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com/2019/09/28/the-green-n...
I feel you. I'm the same, honestly.
That's probably the biggest danger of these "safe", "easy" suicide methods - some people just don't commit suicide because they are too scared of a cruel death, not because they are attached to life. Stuff like this will lower the probability of such a cruel death, making suicide less scary, raising the probability of pulling though with it. Not an easy topic.
But I really hope you can find something in life before you do it, so you don't have to do it ^^'
Not saying it'll be easy, or even promising it'll work.
I'm just saying I'm glad I gave it a shot. 10/10 would recommend. YMMV.
Also, I don't know you, but I'm confident that dying is the wrong solution to whatever problems you're having.
That being said, I am not going to be the one to say that suicide is never an option.
It's a box full of nitrogen. You can build a less polished version from a home improvement store for a few bucks.
Maybe you will enjoy the build process so much that you won't pull the trigger.
Well, subscriptions are out…
>Our aim is to develop an artificial intelligence screening system to establish the person’s mental capacity. Naturally there is a lot of scepticism, especially on the part of psychiatrists. But our original conceptual idea is that the person would do an online test and receive a code to access the Sarco.
Very powerful episode, I still remember it vividly.
I’m amazed the author of the article was able to determine this. May they rest in peace.
This has resulted in many accidental recreational and commercial deaths, where e.g. divers hyperventilate beforehand to extend their time underwater (purging more CO2, so they can stave off that chest-crushing feeling of needing to breathe right now) which leads to blackout and drowning because you ran out of oxygen before the high blood CO2 sensing kicked in, or someone walking into an inert gas storage tank to perform maintenance (mistakenly believing that it had been purged), and just dropping on the spot and asphyxiating with no warning.
> a slow decrease in oxygen breathing gas content has effects which are quite variable.[5] By contrast, suddenly breathing pure inert gas causes oxygen levels in the blood to fall precipitously, and may lead to unconsciousness in only a few breaths, with no symptoms at all.[3]
They cite scuba diving rebreather accidents as one source for experiences. I think there should be people to tell the tale if they got rescued, "never dive alone", after all, and ships for divers should be equipped for emergencies. I guess other than observation of someone committing suicide with this method we may actually have personal experience stories.
I looked into this when I had a huge health scare that changed my life (it "only" was heavy metal poisoning and after lots of chelators I'm doing very well, better than before), and nitrogen was what I considered because I saw a chance to actually get my hands on some, compared to drugs. Bad thoughts, but I'll still keep it in mind in case I ever need it. Living through all the heavy metal issues was bad enough but at least I had hope. If it's similar or worse problems or even pain with no hope I don't want to have to endure.
My mother died after months of agony from cancer. The mortuary staff came and put the corpse in a black plastic bag and wheeled it out of the house on a stretcher. They used an extremely pungent chemical to disinfect the bed. The chemical smell filled the house. At the funeral, I carefully avoided looking at the corpse. I'm thankful that, in my last memories of her, she was alive and showing me tenderness.
I think she and all of us involved would have been better off if she could have used a machine like this several weeks earlier. We could have said goodbye, she would push the button, and then it would be over.
EDIT: The machine could refrigerate/freeze/preserve the corpse for ceremonies, until burial/cremation.
For burial, the pod could be in two parts, the top part is a casket for burial and the bottom part holds the gas delivery system and refrigerator. They could disconnect and bury the casket without ever opening it. This would eliminate the expensive embalming process. It would also reduce the risk of disease transmission from handling the corpse.
This could be useful for regular anticipated deaths, too. The patient could spend their last week or so in the pod bed. What would be the psychological impact of that on the patient and the loved ones? I think it could be a positive impact for most people.
Around here, there's a tradition of placing the corpse in opened coffin and leaving it in the house for 3 days, praying rosary every day. It just seems horrific to me.
This isn't a treatment, and it's certainly not compassionate. Joni Eareckson-Tada is a testament to the wonderful life that can be lived in spite of suffering, and she has much to say on it that is worth a listen.
I dislike not having the doctors involved, though--many people won't know if there's something that can be done or not.
Yes.
> How much suffering is the threshold where suicide is "medically necessary"?
When I say so.
> How can it be quantified, what are the units?
1 unit of my will to do so.
> Does mental anguish count, or only physical suffering?
Anything I feel to be.
> What about existential suffering?
This is everyone's choice.
> This isn't a treatment, and it's certainly not compassionate
Have you had anyone close to you trying to end their life and you were helpless because someone else said no?
If you did and still think that people should suffer no matter what you should seriously rethink this.
If you did not then get to a palliative ward in a hospital and discuss with people.
Seriously - all these discussions from people who are either into religion or some books and did not experience the problem themselves is exasperating.
People think this is such a winning argument.
I've been in them. I've worked in EMS. There's not been a single patient that I've encountered where I thought for a second, "I wish I could give them the option to end their life."
> Seriously - all these discussions from people who are either into religion or some books and did not experience the problem themselves is exasperating.
I'd argue it's your side of the debate which could use some more reading...
No - this comes from people who have been there, have discussed with the patients and made up their mind.
> I've been in them. I've worked in EMS. There's not been a single patient that I've encountered where I thought for a second, "I wish I could give them the option to end their life."
Not sure where this was (and EMS is emergency services, right? Not really a palliative dept) - I was a volunteer in palliative care hospitals (with my dog) and spent hours discussing with people who were very sick.
many just wished for a quick end because there was simply nothing but pain for them. It was not loneliness or something - just the fact that they were not in control anymore.
They wanted to have a choice.
> I'd argue it's your side of the debate which could use some more reading...
This is probably one reason - some read, some actually go and see.
Why should they control your life???
How is the 3d printing of any relevance? Is as relevant a claim as "a lipo powered capsule" or "a raspberry pi controlled capsule"
People need to understand that when and if you really want to kill yourself, this is often done in affect if not the individual is very psychical sick.
I don't like this. I think its ethically wrong to have people go away in a plastic box and building an actual product around that. I mean, how inhumane are you trying to make this look?
Have people go out in their own bed, have their loved ones next them and have professional medical staff help out during the process.
Doctors have ethics, morals, and feelings. Doctors, at least ostensibly, agree to "first do no harm". If you take that statement literally that means doctors are obligated to not help a patient commit suicide because killing someone is ostensibly more harm than having them in pain. I know this isn't popular on HN being very pro individual liberty, and I agree people should have control over their own lives, but the inclusion of doctors presents a problem to people who want to enable anyone to kill themselves easily.
The sarco is a techno-dystopian solution. Now that the cat is out of the bag, 3d printable, and theoretically reliable, it's only a matter of time before it's used for something other than killing yourself. Or, even worse, it's used to create some new tech startup that starts to approach soylent green. Just throw a nice screen in there with images of pretty scenery and you have the "exit" in the most literal sense.
It's humane in theory because the nitrogen provides a painless death. I say in theory because this only works in theory. There have been many failed suicides directed by exit international that demonstrate the method is not as effective as they tout but no one seems to mention the quackery by EI when they talk about them.
My concern is these people walk the line between "helping the actual sick have a peaceful death" and "homicidal psychopath" and with this device I believe they are leaning far, far closer to the latter. Creating mass scale suicide devices with the specific intent to end people's lives is immoral and unethical. As stated above, it will only be a matter of time before a company decides to provide suicide-as-a-service.
It's not up to their family, and it's not up to their friends. They can't begin to understand the anguish that person is going through and frankly neither can you.
You also have the population of people who are sick and simply want to end their life.
No affect. No psychological issues.
Just the fact that you want to be in control of your life. I find this very courageous - I for one certainly do not want to be a burden for my family if I am in a state that requires them to take care of me when my brain is gone.
And by then have people help you and be around you.
Not in a plastic bathtub with a lid, so you get to wave out.
I'd like to see how that works!
Not illegal, CBD/low THC (-1%) cannabis has been legal for a while, and « weed » can be prescribed medically.
In all serious though, my family does not age well and I have actively thought about this as an end of life option vs decades of mental degredation.
I doubt it will ever be available in the United States.
Reminds me of the Suicide Booths from Futurama. https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Suicide_Booth
That's probably one of the main reasons why they called it "suicide capsule", even in english :)
Edit: I don't really get why this is downvoted ^^ The link goes to an article that was originaly written in German and only translated by the swiss television station SRF.
"Euthanasia" is not a neutral term in German, take a look at the wikipedia entry and how much of the page contains "NS", "Nationalsozialismus" or dates between 1939 and 1945: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasie
It was used as a euphemism by the Nazis, and this still taints it. It has lost much of its original meaning because of this. If you say "Euthanasie" in German, even to someone from switzerland, there is a very high chance people think of it as "the killing of people that disabled, against their will". :/
There is a reason most people use "aktive Sterbehilfe" ("active help to die") instead of "Euthanasie", even though both things mean the same.
More seriously, I like it. I’m always petrified of dying a slow and painful death from some disease that cannot be cured. I would much rather just use this and be done with it.
Edit: Clicked the link