This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
In 2016 ISIS attackers bombed the airport in Brussels killing over a dozen people. A seventeen year old girl was present but uninjured. This May she chose to be euthanized because of her psychological trauma. She was 23 and she had no physical injuries. The news of her death was just announced recently.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/10/10/2016-brussels-attacks-victim-granted-euthanasia-after-years-of-ptsd_5999805_4.html
This seems absolutely insane to me. I don't doubt she was suffering but she was only 23. A lot could have changed over the next 70 years. She wasn't terminally ill, she didn't have cancer, she wasn't paralyzed from the neck down. She was very sad and very scared and had attempted suicide twice. But I know that at least some people who have survived suicide attempts have gone on to lead happy lives.
I used to disapprove of euthanasia but wasn't strongly in favor of making it illegal, even though it was never a choice I would make myself or approve of making for a relative. But cases like this have made me strongly opposed to it. It seems like the medical establishment can't be trusted to restrict it to only the most extreme cases. The people saying that allowing euthanasia is a slippery slope have been proven right in my opinion.
I think most people who support euthanasia have an ideal case in mind: the person is not going to survive much longer, they're in constant, terrible pain, and so it's a mercy to allow them to end their lives.
This is similar to animal euthanasia. If a dog's existence consists entirely of only suffering, most people seem to think it's a mercy to end its life, even if we have no way to know if that's what the dog wants.
However, to euthanize a dog who isn't in that state, and hasn't shown itself to be irredeemably dangerous, seems monstrous to most people. Imagine a person who has grown bored of their dog and so kills it.
This seems much closer to the bored-of-my-dog case than the life-is-endless-suffering case.
I have to wonder if this woman would be alive had she been exposed to different ways of thinking about adversity rather than to be medicated so heavily that she complained she couldn't feel anything anymore. It seems the doctors had nothing else to offer her.
She was an adult, 23 years old. She was not some nonsentient dog that society grew tired of and discarded with no thought to her desires. I find her decision uncomprehensible, but it was her decision.
Why does this mean anything?
Who do you think owns your life? Who gets to decide what you do with it?
I can't imagine this argument being persuasive to any but the most extreme libertarian -- the type who thinks that recreational fentanyl, consensual incest and consensual cannibalism should be legal. If that's you, then yeah, you're internally consistent, and I'm not sure what better argument to make against your position other than that your theory permits such self-evidently depraved outcomes as legalizing fentanyl, incest, cannibalism, and the killing of depressed but otherwise healthy 23-year-olds.
As much as suicide does agonize the family you left behind (most of the time) I'll push back on it being like hardcore drug addiction/incest/blahblahblah.
There are reduced and finite externalities. First, you stop being a direct burden on anyone else on the day of your death, and then eventually your loss fades into the background for those who cared about you. Compare that with the unrelenting toll a fentanyl addict takes on everyone around them.
As /u/DaseIndustriesLtd put it: The state is "not entitled to deny people their exit rights". This isn't just a libertarian fantasy principle. The ability to opt out of existence should be table stakes for most moralities. Nobody would begrudge someone being trapped in an inescapable room and being raped day in and day out for committing suicide. Your personal line will be different from almost anyone else's.
Should we discourage suicide? Of course. 2 years of treatment seems about right to me in terms of a support system putting up a fight with the individual and making the barrier to entry sufficiently high. The bulk of these responses seem to be that she was too young and could have gotten better. Sure, maybe. But that's the individual's decision and judgment, and 23 is old enough to be a mostly formed person.
I find the arguments against Euthanasia because COVID has exposed the average government's ability and willingness to coerce suicide far more convincing than "Suicide is Wrong"
This is a libertarian fantasy principle. I agree with permitting euthanasia for people who are terminally ill, living with untreatable chronic pain, or severely disabled (e.g. paraplegia and quadraplegia), but extending these edge cases to "anyone who wants to die" is a really fringe libertarian belief. Suicide is possible as a solo act, and the transgressive barrier implicit in the solo act is a useful check on people who would otherwise make the decision too lightly. If we reach a point where suicide is no longer possible as a solo act (quadraplegics, or some sort of post-singularity future where an uploaded mind would require admin access to delete itself) then all of this changes, but as long as people can slit their own wrists in the bathtub, the state and the medical system have no business trying to make it a more desirable option than it already is.
To reiterate, I sympathize with the argument that the government can and will encourage suicide, before eventually forcing it. There's so many signals pointing to this - whether it's the inevitable implosion of welfare state pension systems or climate change hysterics that overemphasize individual carbon footprints. From a practical perspective, I have radically altered my priors on state-controlled euthanasia being a "Good Idea".
How are we far from this with modern medicine? People exist in vegetative states for years, bankrupting their families or costing hospitals and insurers millions.
I think this isn't charitable enough to those who do want to commit suicide. I haven't checked metrics on who regrets committing it vs not, and I do believe that there has to be some barrier to entry. But it's not easy to do far simpler things like dig road rash out of my own skin or cut away lesions. There's a reason why so many people thought it was amazing when that guy sawed off his leg to escape being trapped by a boulder. I do believe that you can absolutely want to commit suicide in a real way but fumble the execution.
I mean, one person suggested black powder pistols? C'mon. I would want to have an extremely high sense of certainty that I wouldn't be signing myself up for even more excruciating pain with whatever method I chose to kill myself. The appeal of having someone ensure this happens correctly I think is natural.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link