mwengler comments on Female Test Subject - Convince Me To Get Cryo - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Epiphany 30 September 2012 05:13AM

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Comment author: mwengler 30 September 2012 03:14:05PM 2 points [-]

You might be a very atypical person who'd prefer death to severe disability, but if you are, could you pepper statements like that with disclaimers? That's kind of a dangerous meme to reinforce.

This idea that we need to censor ourselves when having honest discussions is a meme I would not like to see reinforced. I would propose to work against this meme by arguing emotionally and rationally against it rather than by trying to censor it.

You might be a very atypical person who'd prefer death to severe disability,

Your values are leaking all over your statements of fact. It is not plausible to me that you have not seen the idea of preferring death to severe disability in lots of places at this point in your rational career. From this I conclude your describing those who feel that way as "very atypical" is not only false, but badly motivated as well.

On the (in my estimation) extremely small chance that you really don't know what a common idea preferring death to severe disability is, google "living will," "kervorkian" "suicide law oregon" to get a jump start into the large world of people who discuss a myriad of versions and implications of this pretty common meme.