The movie Soylent Green has a passage about this kind of thing. When they are
ready to die and leave the abysmal place the world has become, people can go to
a place in which they are put onto a comfortable stretcher and wheeled into
theater. They are then given chemicals that will make them close down. As
they are doing so, beautiful music is played (parts of Beethoven's Pastoral in
the movie) and scenes of deer in pastures and bounding through woods are
projected onto a large screen above them. What a way to go!
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence de Bivort
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION
Cc: 'Keith Hudson'
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 9:31 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Here's to mental health at 90!
Agreed, Keith, Though I don't know about the bludgeoning! More and more,
people seem less fearful of death. Perhaps that fear was derived from the
religiously promoted threats of heaven and hell? My sense is that many people
have attained such a level of quality in their lives that losing much of that
quality in the face of the infirmities of age is unacceptable. And with our
longer live-spans it may be easier to conclude that one has led a good life and
that it is time to wrap it up. Some of my friends talk about pacts among
themselves to make sure that their last days are not spent in hopeless agony.
Going to a service in Switzerland may be the best option now -- though a
program I saw about it some time ago made it seem too austere for my tastes --
is an expensive option and like so much else, the virtues of 'grow and buy
local' may extend themselves to this end-of-life realm.
Cheers,
Lawry
Arthur,
Over here the idea of euthanasia is proceeding far faster than I would have
expected even as recently as a year or two ago. My partner and I have both
signed a legal Advance Notices (requesting non-resuscitation in case of severe
debilitation, etc), and there are increasing numbers of press stories about
individuals (usually the totally paralysed with locked-in minds who can only
communicate by blinking) who want to be sent on their way, retired doctors who
confess to mercy killings when they practised, and there's a growing stream of
people leaving for the clinic in Switzerland that does this thing.
I think that well within 20 years -- when there'll be huge numbers of the
old -- we'll see voluntary euthanasia on a large scale. I think we'll start to
see a lot more involuntary euthanasia than already goes on in our nursing
homes. My guess is that, already, hundreds, if not thousands, of cases go on
every year that are never revealed.
As recently as 200 years ago when Scandinavian families in the far north
had had a bad summer and insufficient food to see them through the winter if
they had an aged parent on board, they would hold a ceremony (usually on a
particular family rock) whereby the ancient was clubbed to death (with their
permission). Once we get this Christian thing about souls and so forth out of
our head then euthanasia of anybody who's become a severe economic drain will
become culturally acceptable. It will take generations but, I think,
inevitable. It seems terribly shocking to us now but it will be normal then.
Keith
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