NancyLebovitz comments on Ethics and rationality of suicide - Less Wrong

46 Post author: anonymous259 02 May 2011 01:38AM

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Comment author: Nick_Roy 27 October 2011 10:08:00PM 1 point [-]

I'm considering the possibility of an experimental treatment becoming available during those two months that could save the terminally ill patient from dying of that illness. Being alive would then allow the possibility of new life extension treatments, would could lead to a very long life indeed.

This would be a conjunction of possibilities, so I realize that the overall possibility of a terminally person transitioning to a very long-lived person is slim, but even a slim chance of living for a very long time is worth almost any degree of suffering. If no experimental treatment becomes available during those two months (the likely outcome), cryonics upon death is the next best legal option. If suicide + cryonics were legal, it would make sense to try that if no experimental treatment were even in the research pipeline, but it's not legal, and so no cryonics organization would go through with it.

Also, as a transhumanist, I don't accept that most of us are eventually going to die of illnesses with fairly miserable end states.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 02 December 2011 05:55:28PM 0 points [-]

It seems extremely unlikely that an experimental treatment will appear as a surprise within two months. If it's actually new, then there will be trials of it first, and I think research could turn up that information.