[Link] Death with Dignity by Scott Adams

Gunnar_Zarncke

Over at Scott Adams' Blog you can find a very fine example of using the 'Rationality Engine' to solve the social problem of assisted dying.

Surgery requires a lot more skill then giving someone a lethal dose of something.

There no need to argue for slippery slope, it's quite possible to write laws that allow doctors euthanasia but make clear that they are not forced to do so.

It's also possible to right laws that allow for gay "marriage", but don't force, say bakers, to bake cakes for gay weddings. The way things actually play out suggests this isn't actually possible in practice.

Also I have a question. Do you actually not want doctors forced to perform euthanasia or are you just trying to alley my concerns? If the latter, you are being disingenuous. If the former, why did you reply to me but not to Jiro?

It's also possible to right laws that allow for gay "marriage", but don't force, say bakers, to bake cakes for gay weddings. The way things actually play out suggests this isn't actually possible in practice.

"In one of a dozen or so countries where X was done, Y also happened" isn't even terribly strong evidence for "it's not possible in practice to do X without Y also happening", let alone "it's not possible in practice to do anything in some reference class including X without something in some reference class includ... (read more)

1ChristianKl11y

I don't want doctors to be forced to perform euthanasia in the sense of giving a dosis of a drug with the direct intention to kill. There are cases where I think it could be argued that a doctor shouldn't be able to put a patient without that patients consent on life support. I can imagine forbidding a doctor from engaging in life lengthening actions without the consent of the patient even if the doctors feels a moral obligation to lengthen the patients life. There are cases where not given a patient valium and morphium means that the patient is in huge pain. A obligation on the part of the doctor to give valium and morphium to the point where the patient doesn't suffer even when that shortens life is debatable. [...] When I look at your link it doesn't seem to be the case that this is about laws enabling gay marriage. It's about a law called the Oregon Equality Act of 2007 that prevent businesses to discriminate against gay people. Whether or not the government has a law recognizing gay marriage that law would prevent bakers who fall under the "Public accommodations" section from baking those cakes. Given that only in 2014 Oregon seems to have returned to legalized same-sex marriage. That gives 7 years without a government having legalized same-sex marriage where as far as my understanding goes a baker should be banned to refuse selling wedding cakes to gay couples. Apart from that I don't think it makes sense to have special regulation about baking cakes that specifically speak about the freedom of bakers to choose whether or not to bake cakes for certain purposes. Cake backing doesn't seem to me an activity that deserves special legislation. I do think that euthanasia is a subject that deserves issues based legislation. A good example might be how we regulate prostitution in Germany. You can legally make a contract in Germany to engage in prostitution. If two people however make such a contract and then the prostitute decides they don't want to have sex wi