There was a Heinlein book where, to fight overpopulation on earth, they declared people over 65 legally dead and hence the worst you could be charged with for killing one was littering. I think about that a lot.
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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and inequities that make it hard for some people to get sufficient medical care.
Thanks, republicans! Your constant efforts to deny people the dignity of a life well lived is really something!
I expect it to continue dropping.
I had two grandmother's who made it to 95. One passed earlier this year. The other is still doing great, though starting to slow down.
The one who passed essentially spent the last several years wishing it was over. Mentally she was still there but her body was failing her. She could barely see or hear. She also had no balance. Essentially, she was a prisoner in her body. She repeatedly told people that she wished it was over.
My other grandmother is still doing as well as can be expected, both cognitively and physically. She is still active doing huge crafting projects and winning competitions. Even so, she has made it very clear that she is ready to go whenever it's her time. All of her friends are gone. She has outlived every family member her generation as well as one of her children. She spends most of her time at home doing the same things day after day. Friends and family visit sometimes but not often enough. She can't travel anymore so she has to wait for others to come to her.
Based on my two grandmothers' experiences, I honestly think old age should be considered to be a terminal disease where we offer "compassionate care" as a dignified option.
The last 4 years were like that for my father. Couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't walk, ate only for survival not enjoyment. It was a miserable existence, he said himself the last time I saw him. His brain was still totally functional. My mother kept him alive by being a 24/7 in home nurse. He almost died right before the pandemic but she saved his ass.
Due to his dementia, my dad went from being a professor emeritus who was still writing books to someone in a nursing home, barely able to do 20-piece jigsaw puzzles within a very short time. And if he knew what was going to happen and could have been offered euthanasia, I would hope he would have taken it as an option. It was such an undignified way to die.
And the dementia care facility was a very long drive away (90 minutes for me, an hour for my mom), so we weren't even with him when he died.
About a year ago I asked the grandmother who recently passed away whether she would want euthanasia. Despite being a devout Christian who firmly believed that suicide is a sin, she said "Yes, absolutely". She said that she didn't consider it to be suicide at that point. She felt that she had lived her full life, given what she could to the world, and was now only detracting from the world by burdening others.
Personally, I don't belive that she was detracting from the world, even in her state, but she was obviously miserable. Also, maybe her adult children who were taking care of her would have seen it differently since caring for her really put restrictions on their lives.
Do you want to be fully conscious when you die, or not really aware it's happening?
It's a complicated question.
It's definitely complicated. And I also think it would depend on the context of my death. If I were in a lot of pain or discomfort, I don't think it would matter to me whether or not I was fully conscious.
My grandma was the same as your grandmother, who passed away. She wished and waited for death ever since she turned 90; she was overall okay, but she was still in a lot of pain and was practically blind in one eye, and the other was going as well.
She at least died in a peaceful sleep, so she didn't have to live through anymore pain than she had to.
My condolences for your grandmas death, and more power to your other grandma!
My great grandma spent the last three years of her life almost immobile from several consecutive strokes, almost blind from several problems she developed over the years, couldn't smell or taste anything. She was basically dying in slo-mo. Everything failed on her.
The last months she essentially spent in a constant shit puddle, because here intestines somehow decided not to work properly anymore.
It's horrible and inhumane to let people suffer like that. Every diseased stray dog gets more mercy.
Seeing as our bodies start falling apart well before we die in many cases, I wouldn’t want it to keep extending.
I think a big part of the problem is that quality of life is correlated with longevity. Some people start having health issues in their 40s and die in their 60s. Others start having health issues in their 70s and die in their 80s.
And so the question becomes whether maximizing high quality years adds to the low quality years, or not. And so the question might not be about extending life itself, but about extending healthy years.
Yeah, i expect I'll want off this ride by 70-75 (assuming I make it that far)
Yeah, I fully expect it to go down the way things are going.
It's cause of the vaccines!
- some ignorant dipshit lowering the average lifespan by dying to a preventable disease
And of course:
This will teach those karens to stop being bitches, and to go back to the kitchen and make 6-7 kids, as they should!
~ some weirdo incel
"Damn you, entirely preventable smallpox!"
Are they saying the US is not going to significantly lower the rate of overdoses, shootings, obesity, and inequity in the foreseeable future? 15% of Hong Kongers reach 100 years old, the rest of the world could definitely catch up to that.
15% of Hong Kongers reach 100 years old
Between 4% and 12%, depends if you're male or female.
Thank god...
Poor Ray Kurzweil. He'll be so disappointed at the moment before his death.
He'd agree that humanity is hitting a limit.
I'm talking about his whole thing about wanting to live forever.
Yeah but he doesn't want to live forever as a human. He wants to get mind uploaded and become a post-human.
That's his newest idea, yes. Although that doesn't stop him from hawking supplement pills that he claims will make you live longer.
He was pitching that idea at least in the early 2000s.
It's ok he eats 1000 vitamins a day that has to count for something
Expensive pee is something I guess. most vitamins your body pees away any excess. The exctptions you need to be careful to not overdose on.
Im not familiar with him, but looking him up Im guessing youre mentioning him for promoting life extension research? Honestly Im not sure if what this article is talking about is even that relevant to that idea. Obviously you cant extend life indefinitely by merely trying to cure each type of common age related illness as it comes up, eventually the body is just too weak and easy to damage to keep it running. To actually extend life far beyond the current maximum you'd need to find a means to reverse the root cause of aging itself rather than just trying to patch the symptoms indefinitely
Kurzweil has been predicting human immortality via one type of technology or other for decades now. When one doesn't pan out, he switches to another. As long as his "I'm going to be immortal" prediction is part of it.
He's also made a lot of money selling "longevity" supplements. I'm not going to name the company to help him out. It's easily found.
I wish I had never read his stupid book that gave me stupid false hope for the stupid future.
I don't know which stupid book, because he's written multiple stupid books, but I love the fact that 20 years ago, he wrote a book called "The Singularity is Near" and this year, he put out a book called, "The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI."
I assume if he does happen to live another 20 years, "The Singular Is Nearerer" will come out.
Yeah I was talking about “the Singularity is Near”
That's alright, so long as quality of life in later years improves.
I think as long as we continue to develop newer and better medicinal techniques, we'll reach the point where we can keep our bodies together long enough to enjoy old age as much as we do middle age.
I see a lot of really cool medical advancements on the horizon from regrowing natural teeth all the way to literal "reverse aging" of brain cells, none of which are going to grant us immortality or multi-century lifespans, but will probably make it so that we can go into the twilight years with less pain and more cognitive function than our ancestors who had to endure the agony without being able to die in dignity.
As the population in Western countries age without younger people to replace it, and take care of the elderly, I'm going to guess the opposite will happen.
They'll just import people in from around the world to replace lagging birthrate.
Overall birthrate is expected to peak around 2080 so there's still plenty of time to shuffle people around!
In Canada we used to have a serious immigration policy that was part of the Canadian identity, and now we're literally flooding the country with people almost exclusively from 1-2 countries with no qualifications required.
The workforce collectively lost significant bargaining leverage as millions of desperate people continue to saturate job markets and suppress wages.
Plenty of jobsites have no oversight regarding certification, so even educated people lose out because it's cheaper to train a desperate person on the job and pay them next to nothing/under the table instead of hiring an educated workforce with labor rights and who expect a wage that reflects their abilities.
For what it's worth, I know plenty of educated people who are awful at their jobs too. This isn't anti-immigration, it's acknowledgement that immigration is being used to suppress everyone's wages to the exclusive benefit of employers.
So even if all the Western countries get border walls with 100% coverage and catch rates, western governments everywhere will happily throw open the gates for cheap labour regardless of public opinion
They'll just import people in from around the world to replace lagging birthrate.
I didn't realize I was going back in time. What year is it? I'd like to make a few investments.
In Canada we used to have a serious immigration policy that was part of the Canadian identity
This sentence is insane, care to explain how immigration policy has ever been a part of Canadian identity? As far as I know, "Canadian identity" consists and has consisted mostly of hockey, crappy coffee, and a false sense of superiority over the USA.
I love how you seem to be focusing on immigration as the issue rather than capitalists exploiting desperate people, even though you seem aware of the abuse the wealthy inflict on the rest of us. Yes, companies abusing immigrants in desperate situations is common and a huge issue. The solution is not curbing immigration, it's regulating corporations.
Man, I love it when people stop reading after finding one of their trigger phrases.
Try reading the entire comment next time.
Don't know why I'm wasting my time writing more stuff you won't read, so I'll just call you a dummy now before you fully stop reading this comment too.
- growing up I always felt Canada was a peacekeeping nation that helped people out and gave people struggling from war/oppression a safe place to live and become a part of the Canadian tapestry. America brought war and bombs while Canada brought hockey, donuts, a warm coat, and bad coffee. Polite, warm, and welcoming were definitely part of the Canadian identity and a source of our superiority to America.
I myself am a first generation Canadian, so yeah - kind of a fan of immigration, even if my homeland is arguably better than Canada.
- literally every other part of my original comment directly stated immigration was being used to suppress wages and it exclusively benefits employers to the downfall of everyone. And that it's not the fault of immigrants, but broken politics favoring wealthy interests.
Well first off, it seems my first comment came off as more aggressive than I intended, based on your name-calling, so sorry about that, I didn't mean to upset you in anyway.
I did read your entire comment (both of them, actually!)
I'm just frustrated by your take, because immigration is ultimately irrelevant to the shitty job market, the housing crisis, or whatever else the right likes to blame on immigrants these days. Immigrants are a scapegoat to avoid general frustration being directed towards the ruling class responsable for the conditions we live in.
If your issue is with companies exploiting workers, why does your comment do nothing but talk about immigration policy?
growing up I always felt Canada was a peacekeeping nation that helped people out and gave people struggling from war/oppression a safe place to live and become a part of the Canadian tapestry.
That's honestly quite an idealized portrait of Canada.
Immigration has nothing to do with housing or job markets?
Are you suggesting that the fundamental principles of supply and demand don't count because immigration =/= the ruling class?
You have 0 reading comprehension my friend, I'm also fairly left leaning and anti establishment which is plain as day in my comments.
Definitely must be frustrating to try and (wrongly) attack someone objectively left leaning and anti establishment for being right wing.
Also, what was your portrait of Canada growing up? Exclusively hockey, Donuts, bad coffee, and free healthcare? That's all the national pride/identity you've ever had?
I'm not saying supply & demand doesn't count, I'm questioning why you're so focused on the demand incurred by immigration and not landlords are the wealthy artificially limiting supply for their bottom line. Immigrants are not to blame for our woes, it's always the ruling class.
Definitely must be frustrating to try and (wrongly) attack someone objectively left leaning and anti establishment for being right wing
I'm not attacking you, I don't know you, I'm just trying to respond to what you said in your comment. I'm not sure where you read a personal attack in my comments (if I recall, you're the one who called me a "dummy") but sincerely sorry if anything I said bothered you.
I don't care (in the context of this conversation, anyway) whether you're a right-winger trying to stir anger against immigrants or a left-winger who's been submerged in so much right-wing rhetoric from the mainstream media that it's infecting your worldview (which, hey, it happens to the best of us).
You're parroting right-wing framing that immigrants are at the root of the issue when in reality they're victims suffering just as much (and often more!) than the rest of us. That's what I'm addressing. You'll just have to trust me when I say that I haven't formed a negative opinion of you as a person based off of one interaction on Lemmy.
Also, what was your portrait of Canada growing up? Exclusively hockey, Donuts, bad coffee, and free healthcare? That's all the national pride/identity you've ever had?
I've never been really into nationalism. Even then, I'm francophone so my relationship to Canadian identity is complicated to say the least, and I'd much earlier identify as Acadian than Canadian. At least as an Acadian I can be proud that we've maintained our culture throughout centuries of attempts to assimilate us. Most "proud Canadians" I know are just kinda xenophobic. Either that or they're immigrants who worked hard for their citizenship, in which case I feel that's more pride in themselves than pride in the country.
This doesn't sound real to me.
Anti-immigration is always protectionism, and hinges on the fact that people tend to like people they know more than people they don’t.