Eliza
29d ago
We would not accept that as a justification for other acts of violence. If a very unfortunate man all in the same day got diagnosed with cancer, was fired from his job, crashed his car, got robbed walking home, and found his wife in bed with the yoga instructor - we would understand if he was in extraordinary distress to the point of howling insanity, but it wouldn't excuse him going on a killing spree. Suicide is not 'less bad' than other kinds of violence because it targets the self. It bereaves your family, it devastates those who loved you most.
Eliza
30d ago
But both sides are backed by larger powers plus "The International Community" trying specifically to avoid a final solution. So there aren't any. I wonder if we've saved suffering this way or if after 80 years of intractable conflict the interest was greater than the principle.
The 1948 war and associated population displacement were nothing particularly notable, historically speaking. The refugee problem was grown and cultivated into today's intractable mess and political project of global prominence via the intervention of external parties, not least the UN which funded the refugees in perpetuity. Without that the displaced Arabs would have had to disperse and assimilate decades ago. Then having manufactured the problem, said international bodies have decreed that there is only one acceptable outcome to it, and refuse to see that it isn't viable.
Eliza
30d ago
I was reading a horrible tragic news story recently and it got me thinking that the powerful taboo we once held against suicide - while it seems cruel and unfair in hindsight - had a certain cold logic underpinning it. When life was far more precarious, and difficult, and miserable; when people were dying of hunger or plague or because they got a trivial cut that went septic before antibiotics; when parents commonly, routinely lost the children they loved no less than we - it must have been brutally hard to keep going, at times. That maybe shame and stigma worked where no amount of positive encouragement would have.
Eliza
5mo ago
The Native Americans did not equal ~40% the US citizenry when their citizenship was granted. If they had, you can be assured reasons would have been found not to do it. They were demographically irrelevant and presented no threat to the security or character of the United States.
Insisting that any country extend citizenship to millions of violently hostile antagonists who have demonstrably no interest in sharing a country with them is so wildly unreasonable I struggle to imagine anyone suggesting it in good faith. If Palestinians want to be Israeli the onus is on them to act like non-insane humans one can conceivably share a country with. Which starts, at a bare minimum, with accepting the legitimacy of the polity they wish to join. But of course they don't want to join it. They never did. They want to replace it. And you're surprised when Israel is disinclined to go along with that.
Eliza
11mo ago
It's disorienting to realise that our media diet is selected and proportioned far more by the availability/prominence/outrageousness of those particular news stories, than any objective importance of the events they describe. News media, like everywhere else, is scrambling to keep broadcasting with squeezed budgets. It's much simpler (and cheaper) to repeat verbatim a report from some NGO than pay an investigative reporter.
Eliza
1yr ago
I skim-read that as 'Call of the Wild' (the Jack London novel where a sled dog goes to live in the woods with wolves) and was very confused. But happy that 'girl stories' were finally moving in my direction. Alas.
Eliza
1yr ago
Most of these claims arise in the rare periods of lucidity that bless/curse the severely demented. You get a few good minutes or hours to realize how your brain is rotting, often before your body has, and you realize how awful things have become. Then you slide back into the vague half-life of semi-consciousness, and I hope your mind is choosing to devote its last dregs of cognition to happier memories, instead of the living hell you currently dwell in.
I sometimes think that our approach to euthanasia is stymied by fundamental incompatibilities and contradictions with post-enlightenment principles. We highly prize autonomy and regard as foundational the need for consent. But the ones most in need of euthanasia are those who have declined to the point they no longer meaningfully can consent. And I find it somewhat cruel to imagine a person struggling with a terminal illness or other severe mental or physical suffering, being additionally burdened with having to take the sole decision of if and when to end their life. What a huge question to have to grapple with at the lowest point in your life.
I think there is a serious and tragic problem here; but we lack a suitable cultural programming to adequately solve it. Our focus on preservation of life to the exclusion of all else creates outcomes where people spend months or years existing, suffering, without hope of recovery. An insistence on the inviolable importance of consent means many of those who arguably need it most cannot access euthanasia under any system we could invent. And a belief that any such avenue must be systematized and accountable will create a system overloaded with bureaucracy, hoops to jump through and people covering their asses at every turn in case they go to jail. None of it will be the best interests of the patient.
Eliza
1yr ago
There are not too many years separating the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Both are deemed illegal under international law. Both restrict the rights of the former occupant population. But one has been an on-and-off war zone ever since, and one has not. Why? No single reason. But a big one is that Turkey accompanied their annexation with near-complete ethnic cleansing.
Eliza
1yr ago
In vitro fertilization involves creating more embryos than you intend to implant and then destroying the rest.
I share some of your ethical concerns around IVF. But the wilful misrepresentation of how IVF works does not help pro-life arguments. IVF superstimulates the ovary in order to collect many eggs in one go. Of these, only a proportion fertilize, and only a proportion of those start developing, and only a portion of those become embryos, and only a proportion of those are genetically viable. The 'many embryos used up to make one child!' faux-statistic is because of natural attrition, because human reproduction is dicey and inefficient. Not because someone arbitrarily decided to discard them. If there are any surplus embryos at the end of this gauntlet they would normally be frozen for later use.
Hard disagree. The honourable thing would have been for Arday to retire into obscurity, work on his character flaws, make amends where possible, give back to the society he wronged, and live with decency going forward. Seppuku might be honourable in some times and places where it improved the lot of surviving family who would otherwise suffer from stigma or ostracism or material deprivation. But here and now, in 21st century west, Arday has widowed his wife and orphaned his children for absolutely no purpose at all.
More options
Context Copy link