lsparrish comments on death-is-bad-ism going a little bit more mainstream? - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Psy-Kosh 24 March 2011 08:27AM

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Comment author: lsparrish 24 March 2011 10:49:07PM *  0 points [-]

The main thing I don't understand is what incentive does anyone have to keep me plugged in after I passed away? It would seem that unplugging me would be the easiest thing to do. I'm already dead, I'm not producing anything of value, and not paying you anymore--why not unplug me at the least inconvenience? Lets say there's an earthquake or a tornado in the area, it would be easy enough to say that this was the reason why the bodies were lost. It would always make more sense to people to save the living rather than the dead.

I'm going to call this muddled thinking. Triage in an emergency situation is not equal to casually murdering patients "at the least inconvenience."

As far as the implication that "humans who are not producing anything of value have no social status", that's simply untrue. There are plenty of trust fund babies, for example, who do no useful work for their entire lives yet enjoy a much higher social status than the average wage-slave.

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 25 March 2011 12:31:39AM *  0 points [-]

why not unplug me at the least inconvenience? Lets say there's an earthquake or a tornado in the area, it would be easy enough to say that this was the reason why the bodies were lost. It would always make more sense to people to save the living rather than the dead.

I'm going to call this muddled thinking. Triage in an emergency situation is not equal to casually murdering patients "at the least inconvenience."

I think Gray was trying to say "They'll unplug me to save money and lie saying they had to because of the disaster," not "They'll be forced to unplug me if there's a disaster." If that's what you meant, Gray, my answer is only that that would be illegal, so with any luck they won't do it. While there's always a risk of abuse when some people are tasked with caring for others, there's still decent odds.

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