Re:How to live forever: meet the extreme life-extensionists
by n4r9 on Monday June 24, 2019 @11:24AM
(#20264421)
You raise a very good point. I hadn't thought of looking up research on attitudes towards death in actual elderly people.
It's an unusual one because I'm specifically thinking about people who might want to die simply because they've seen and gotten from life all that they want, not people who are fed up with the (present-day) privations of old age. I suspect you're right that only a very small proportion of today's elderly match this
The closest thing I found after a little looking around is a recent initiative in the Netherlands called "Completed Life" - which seeks to extend the option of euthanasia to relatively healthy elderly people who have decided that their life is complete - and some associated research [0][1].
Lastly, on a slightly pedantic note, I think it's valid to invoke fictional worlds in response to someone who says that it's "insane" to feel a certain way.
It's an unusual one because I'm specifically thinking about people who might want to die simply because they've seen and gotten from life all that they want, not people who are fed up with the (present-day) privations of old age. I suspect you're right that only a very small proportion of today's elderly match this
The closest thing I found after a little looking around is a recent initiative in the Netherlands called "Completed Life" - which seeks to extend the option of euthanasia to relatively healthy elderly people who have decided that their life is complete - and some associated research [0][1].
Lastly, on a slightly pedantic note, I think it's valid to invoke fictional worlds in response to someone who says that it's "insane" to feel a certain way.
[0] http://www.elsvanwijngaarden.com/
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361...