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Comment by themitigating | Hacker News Reader

I would tell people to kill me instantly. Imagine just looking foward with no interaction and just your thoughts? I'd go insane and right now I'm thinking of those in comas.

Am I weird that I think suffering past a certain level is worse than death?

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Sometimes I think I'm actually the weird one for preferring to live anyway. It seems like the world's best opportunity to cultivate an incredible interior life of prayer or meditation or whatever.

It sounds excruciatingly difficult, but I don't know. It seems worth doing to me.

It depends on the emotional/financial burden you put on your family so you can experiment with introversion. In my case, I couldn't do it, I've learned that feeling useful is an important component of my happiness.

I agree it seems worth doing, especially if you have the belief that at some point technology will advance sufficiently to allow interaction with other people again.

Then why is solitary confinement considered torture?

That's an interesting point for sure. I guess because it happens against ones will, and I think a coma where one is still conscious would be a similar thing.

Probably because it'd be excruciatingly difficult, like I said.

I guess it matters what you think life is for. I don't think I get another go at life on this planet, so I figure I might as well experience as much of it as I can, even if it's extremely limited and painful.

More horrifying than being stuck in your thoughts, imagine having a cramp or pain you can't do anything about nor ask for help.

Being unable to scratch an itch is bad enough.

I can get used to a pain and touching it doesn’t really help but an itch oooh boy drive me mad, probably because I knew it’ll feel so good in the short term at least!

There have been people with persistent itches that scratch, sometimes subconsciously, in their sleep, etc, until they hit bone or an internal organ, or both, like their brain: https://www.npr.org/2008/06/24/91852486/the-mystery-and-powe... The itch-scratch reflex is mighty powerful.

Yeah, nope, I read that years ago and it’s still one of the more horrifying things I’ve read.

I suddenly became itchier than I can recall in recent memory. Thanks.

Yes indeed that was what I was thinking about, that type of case. Literally itch through your skull in the right circumstances and it sure isn't will power.

> Am I weird that I think suffering past a certain level is worse than death?

No you are not. The OP is being emotional and somehow thinks he is special and deserves some more treatment. I think everyone deserves some healthcare (proportional to the advancement of society). But at a certain cost (and time), just pull the stupid plug and move on.

That's how most of your ancestors for most of their lives did.

this is your choice, not his. your argument permit us just kill people who can't move themselves.

Ah but then who? They are in a coma and their loved ones have emotions making them bias

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