Comment by blagie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blagie | Hacker News Reader

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I think one way to go is to do this early, with a clear bound. For example, one might set a rule that if they can:

* no longer compute ∫x²dx

* remember the capital of France; and

* recall where they were born

Then they have crossed that threshold.

Personally, though I don't want to be killed. At least by my values, killing is not okay. I think there are much better things to do, such as:

- Being frozen in Antarctica, in case medical technology improves in a century or two to the point where I can be revived and cured.

- Go some place where I will surely die, but where I can still do some good (running a school for girls in Afghanistan when the US was there is a good example)

- If none of that is possible, do something interesting and dangerous. For example, if my brain is going anyways, experimenting with drugs and dying by drug overdose seems like a decent way to go.

And to be abundantly clear, that's my opinion and my values. I'm not trying to decide for anyone else. I don't think these sorts of decisions should ever be forced, mandated, or imposed.

Footnote: Thresholds are hard to define. I did have one relative with complete loss of short-term memory who seemed to be having a wonderful life. They were happy, friendly, and told grand kids wonderful stories from decades past. It helped that they had a very easy-going personality. On the other hand, they didn't know how they got to where they were, or what we were talking about five minutes ago. They also didn't have any recent memories (e.g. if a relative had been married within the past half-decade or so, they wouldn't recognize the spouse). There was a point where I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have passed any reasonable threshold, but they seemed to be living a very full life surrounded by a big family who loved them. On the other hand, if my brain was where their brain was, I'm pretty sure I'd be completely miserable.

> - Being frozen in Antarctica, in case medical technology improves in a century or two to the point where I can be revived and cured.

Given that cryonics is currently essentially just a scam, you might just as well. For all practical purposes, it's equivalent to killing. (Legally, you need to have just died though, in most Western countries, so I think you don't actually have this option.)

https://bigthink.com/the-future/cryonics-horror-stories/

Or you meant just traveling there, going on an extended hike from which you don't return because you just purposely one day didn't get out of your tent. That's not a pleasent way to die though, and nobody is going to go there 300 years from now to unthaw you.

> - If none of that is possible, do something interesting and dangerous. For example, if my brain is going anyways, experimenting with drugs and dying by drug overdose seems like a decent way to go.

How do you know that a drug overdose is a pleasant experience? You could be hallucinating the most terrible things in the world for as it may feel like an eternity. Unless you are talking about sleep medication, but then again, just taking a bunch of sleeping pills is not different from a "classical" suicide.

The cryogenics industry is a scam, but I'm more optimistic of the progress of the potential progress of technology. I'm not going to describe what's going to happen, since I think there's an infinite number of options, but I'll give one scenario:

- Machine learning advances, and we have LLM-like/SD-like models for the human brain, which can reconstruct a plausible brain from limited data.

- DNA preserves pretty well (and again, see above for restoring from degradation).

- There is an archive of what I look and behave like

It's not beyond the realm of plausibility that in a few hundred years:

- "Frozen in Antarctica in a concrete container" will preserve enough data to reconstruct a person

- We'll have bioengineering technology to do so

- There will be enough curiosity about what people were like a millennium ago to try

Will it work? Probably not. However, it somehow moves this out of "suicide" into "morally acceptable" under my values.

> How do you know that a drug overdose is a pleasant experience?

Perhaps I'm more interested in interesting experiences than pleasant ones. Again, you're trying to map your values onto me.

How is going to Afghanistan and manage a school something you should once once you reach advanced dementia? You’d think that it would make some good? To whom?

+1. Those girls don't need to deal with old Uncle Al failing to manage the basic day to day logistics of their school.

Might as well dedicate your waning days to living out a Robinhood fantasy stealing for the poor until you're killed by the landed gentry.

That's something I do well before I'd reach advanced dementia. Part of the point is to never reach that stage.

Flashbacks to high school

Teacher: "Compute ∫x²dx"

Me: "x^3/3"

Teacher: "You forgot the + C!"

RIP

"You forgot an infinite number of other answers!"

/whipped for each one

Setting a rule is difficult because in n+1 years of dementia you've effectively started to become another person, and at some point you don't know if that person will honour the rule you made, or even be aware of how incapable of satisfying it they have become.

If you're an organ donor, you'll do more good than any of those three options once you die, IMO.

Unlikely and irrelevant.

Unlikely: Organ donor is only an option in some circumstances. It's more typical with young people and accidents than elderly. There's no age cut-off, but for example:

1) The organs need to be fresh (e.g. you died in the ER).

2) The organs need to be in good shape (e.g. not sick)

Irrelevant: It doesn't solve the fundamental question of values and ethics. I am against actively taking a life, including my own. I am not against putting my life at risk, especially for a good cause.

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