Life Or Death

On Assisted Suicide

Like many people who are not specifically educated in political science, I looked at politics as something adjacent to my lifestyle when I was growing up. It was only when I explicitly separated my politics from my sense of self that I was more prepared to make provocative statements. For about six years in my late 20s and early 30s, basically before I got married and had kids, I sensed that my political activism, such as it was, was part of serving a larger purpose. It was only after I disabused that idea, far too late I think, in 2007 that I was free to give over my brain to more interesting and rewarding pursuits. Nevertheless, I couldn’t shut my eyes and believe that politics would go away or that principles and ideas were not involved. But I abandoned all hope that electoral politics should attempt moral role-modeling.

One of the signal questions thus exposing that defective moral capability was the matter of life and death decisions. Posed philosophically, do humans have the right to make life and death decisions? Republicans would say yes of course, in support of capital punishment. Democrats would say yes of course, in support of abortion. Then they would reverse position saying no to each other’s examples. That intellectual stalemate is about 50 years old now.

If there is a fate worse than death, then I would suggest it would be anything so awful that you would prefer to die than to endure it. But depending on one’s level of maturity and wisdom it’s a broad spectrum. Also, one’s quality of life and attunement to it makes a big difference. I am always impressed by the peasants I find on Dollar Street who live on $500 per month.

Be that as it may, whether or not one has some heuristic or calculation of ‘quality of life’ or adherence to some consistent religious or political doctrine or accurate means of measuring maturity or wisdom, humans make life and death decisions anyhow. Presuming those decisions are any of our business, we are desirous of putting some kind of framework and protocol around these decisions. There is an elaborate protocol involved in training soldiers and officers such than when an officer gives an order for ‘weapons free’, all sorts of killing is legal. Similarly when a doctor makes a catastrophic error, there are protocols for whether a determination of medical malpractice can be made. Who is homeless and what priority attends their accidental death or dismemberment becomes a matter of concern surely entails some labyrinthian decision tree. Obviously there are holes and lapses. We care because there are in fact only a few fates worse than death we pay any mind over here in America.

I recall a section from Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem series in which one of the characters faced a specific protocol, as he was determined to end his life. It’s one that should be familiar to folks in IT. There’s a multi-factor authentication but this one is clever, if I remember correctly, because it has to be implemented if five separate steps over the course of a few weeks. It’s not instant and drastic like those of you who watched Apple TV’s Silo. You have to say the magic words, then in front of witnesses a day later put square pegs into square holes. Then you have to record your last will and testament. Then the next week you take a polygraph… you get the picture. Bureaucracy can be security too. But if you really want to kill yourself, your determination will get you through the paperwork. Which is sort of the point.

I cannot say with any particular certainty which particular fate worse than death would compel me to activate the final protocol. In the film Soylent Green the protocol was called ‘going home’. Not a bad take, and this remake with Radiohead works perfectly - enough to make me think about the difference between funeral music and that which you would actually like to hear before you die.

I suspect that Boomers will, on their ways out, revitalize the funeral business. It’s hard for me to imagine the likes of Bill Gates not having something extra. By the time it’s time for Zuck to go, presuming he can maintain his life and fortune, there will be new ways. Look towards Burning Man for hints, clues and inspirations.

My uncle after his deadly cancer hollowed him out chose a hospice service. Surely some professionals who are licensed to get you the right kind of pharmaceutical ambrosia are engaged in ‘assisted suicide’ under the banner of palliative care. The leap is not so far, once you’ve passed the median age of death in the US. I can see somebody at a hedge fund doing calculations now as to the impact on Social Security should Congress throw this linguine on the legislative kitchen wall.

The harm of course is political credulity. You should know that while I tend to be [civil] libertarian, I’m growing more skeptical that Americans, in the median, read enough to think. Then again, I’m reading C.S. Lewis and Charles Sanders Peirce, them boys what think a whole bunch. I’m not even so sure it’s healthy for me to be reading that much, and consequently reading so much into things.

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I wrote about this before. Check it out.