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posted by fyngyrz on Monday April 16 2018, @06:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the and-thanks-for-all-the-fish dept.

Submitted via IRC for fyngyrz

Euthanasia advocate displays 'Sarco', a pod that fills with nitrogen, which he hopes will one day be available as a 3D-printable device

[...]

Called the "Sarco", short for sarcophagus, the 3D-printed machine invented by Australian euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke and Dutch designer Alexander Bannink comes with a detachable coffin, mounted on a stand that contains a nitrogen canister.

"The person who wants to die presses the button and the capsule is filled with nitrogen. He or she will feel a bit dizzy but will then rapidly lose consciousness and die," said Nitschke. The Sarco was a device "to provide people with a death when they wish to die," Nitschke said.

Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/15/nitschke-suicide-machine-amsterdam-euthanasia-funeral-fair


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by maxwell demon on Monday April 16 2018, @06:37AM (6 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday April 16 2018, @06:37AM (#667532) Journal

    Just make sure you don't confuse it with a phone booth.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday April 16 2018, @07:23AM (2 children)

      by MostCynical (2589) on Monday April 16 2018, @07:23AM (#667541) Journal

      Maybe not *this* phone booth: http://getsmart.wikia.com/wiki/All_in_the_Mind [wikia.com]

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Monday April 16 2018, @11:41AM (1 child)

        by looorg (578) on Monday April 16 2018, @11:41AM (#667585)

        There are many popculture phone booths, from GetSmart to Superman to well Futurama. I think that he was going for the last one.

        http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Suicide_booth [wikia.com]

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 16 2018, @05:01PM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday April 16 2018, @05:01PM (#667702) Journal

          I think that he was going for the last one.

          You think correctly.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday April 16 2018, @12:31PM

      by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Monday April 16 2018, @12:31PM (#667597)

      Those will be extinct long before anything like this is mainstream.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @01:18PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @01:18PM (#667611)

      If I use nitrous oxide instead of nitrogen would I die laughing?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:43AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:43AM (#667938)

        yeah n2o bind to hemoglobin but dont give o2 to the cells so you die from asphixia without a chocking sensation

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday April 16 2018, @06:41AM (9 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday April 16 2018, @06:41AM (#667533) Homepage Journal

    Most folks just need to take The Strange Pill [warplife.com]. That'll set you right up.

    In rare cases you might need Shock Treatment [warplife.com] or Electro-Convulsive Therapy.

    Most psychiatrists regard ECT as far safer than antidepressants because Happy Pills take as long as two months to take effect. Quite commonly certain antidepressants won't work at all for a given patient so every two months you need to try a different drug until you can feel your depression start to lift.

    By contrast, ECT works immediately. There's no danger of suicide as there is when one waits so long for antidepressants to work.

    I think Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation [musc.edu] is FDA-approved now and starting to come into common use.

    TMS is much less invasive than ECT. The skull is an effective electrical insulator so a very high voltage is required for ECT to work. When the voltage is high enough for a current to flow, that current will be very high and wide, which leads to permanent memory loss.

    An old friend had ECT, with the result that she had no clue who I was when I started texting her again. But by then she had grown accustomed to complete strangers dropping quite suddenly into her life.

    The skull is transparent to magnetic fields. A short, focussed oscillating magnetic field is used to induce current into much smaller, carefully selected parts of the brain.

    A study of nuns found that if you use TMS to stimulate their temporal lobes, the nuns will feel the presence of God.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @06:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @06:48AM (#667536)

      I hear also lobotomy works wonders...

    • (Score: 1) by tftp on Monday April 16 2018, @06:50AM (4 children)

      by tftp (806) on Monday April 16 2018, @06:50AM (#667537) Homepage
      You think that all those people are just insane. But what if some or many of them suffer from untreatable debilitating, but not life-threatening diseases?
      • (Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday April 16 2018, @06:59AM (3 children)

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Monday April 16 2018, @06:59AM (#667538) Homepage Journal

        Our wonderful HealthCare Industry has a treatment for everything. But some of those treatments are VERY EXPENSIVE. Euthanasia machines could save us a lot of money!

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday April 16 2018, @07:24AM (2 children)

          by zocalo (302) on Monday April 16 2018, @07:24AM (#667542)
          And yet just the other day I was reading about how those nice caring folks over at Goldman Sachs (or soulless scum, YMMV) had done a study [arstechnica.com] that showed that one-shot permanent cures wasn't a financially sound business model compared to on-going treatment. Clearly this isn't going to work out at all well for the likes of Martin Shkreli and the other money sucking leeches in Big Pharma since it doesn't get much more one shot (or cylinder of gas, lethal injection, etc.) than a Suicide Booth. Won't somebody think of the PROFITS!?
          --
          UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 16 2018, @11:27AM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday April 16 2018, @11:27AM (#667579) Journal

            Goldman Sachs is not a very good business model for the rest of us, either. Why incur their transaction fees when computers can do it all so much better and faster, without the chest beating and nauseous triumphalism? That those guys get paid that kind of money for, at best, looking at numbers on an Excel spreadsheet that they probably didn't even enter is the acme of absurdity.

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday April 17 2018, @12:32PM

            by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Tuesday April 17 2018, @12:32PM (#668010) Homepage Journal

            If you can’t take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it’s all over. I believe in universal healthcare, single payer. It works in Canada. The government's gonna pay for it. But we're going to save so much money on the other side. But for the most it's going to be a private plan and people are going to be able to go out and negotiate great plans with lots of different competition with lots of competitors with great companies and they can have their doctors, they can have plans, they can have everything. I'm a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by healthcare expenses. #MAGA [twitter.com]

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Monday April 16 2018, @08:17AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 16 2018, @08:17AM (#667550) Journal

      A study of nuns found that if you use TMS to stimulate their temporal lobes, the nuns will feel the presence of God.

      Based on a number of sites dedicated to a certain kind of entertainment, temporal lobes are the wrong ones to stimulate and, again, TMS is the wrong kind of stimulation.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @11:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @11:39AM (#667583)
      This suicide machine doesn't seem like it's intended for people who want to off themselves because of depression but rather for people who are perhaps dying from a terminal illness and don't want to blow away their fortunes in a vain attempt to stay alive, and would like to go with dignity and with as little pain as possible. There are many ways for people like that to kill themselves if they really wanted to, this just gives them what may perhaps be the least painful known way to accomplish it.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @03:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @03:45PM (#667666)

      I wonder how many people's suicidal depression is caused not by a chemical imbalance but from being forced to live in a fucked up world with fucked up people who refuse to stop fucking it up. I know if all you fucked up people would stop fucking up the world it would certainly make my outlook on life a whole lot better.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by mhajicek on Monday April 16 2018, @08:13AM (4 children)

    by mhajicek (51) on Monday April 16 2018, @08:13AM (#667548)

    What does 3D printing have to do with it? If all you need is a reasonably air-tight container to put a person in there's no need for 3D printing, and it can be done much faster, cheaper, and easier by other means. No doubt someone asked if 3D printing could be incorporated for publicity.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @08:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @08:42AM (#667551)

      Just pull a plastic bag over your head and then strangle yourself with a blockchain...

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Monday April 16 2018, @10:57AM (1 child)

      by zocalo (302) on Monday April 16 2018, @10:57AM (#667570)
      That actually does make some sense. The issue is that many countries have legislation concerning assisted suicide, specifically that they can (and will) prosecute any friends and family that assisted the deceased in a suicide bid, and selling suicide booths (or lethal medication kits, etc.) falls under the same legislation. This is why many people in Europe with terminal illnesses travel to countries like Switzerland that don't have such legal issues to die rather than continue to suffer under a futile palliative care programme. 3D printing your own (or just repurposing some other suitably airtight casket - I'd argue that if you are still mentally competent enough to make an informed decision on suicide you'd be able to figure that out too) means that you can do the entire thing on your own, with no additional messy legal legacies for friends and family to deal with once you're gone.
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday April 16 2018, @02:06PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Monday April 16 2018, @02:06PM (#667628)

        I've got to agree with the GP that 3D printing is entirely extraneous. Perhaps a bit of buzzword publicity. The hardest part of the whole procedure is likely to be getting a canister of nitrogen, once you have that and an oxygen mask you're good to go. Or ditch the oxygen mask for a bag over your head - all you need is a confined volume in which you can easily displace the oxygen with slightly over-pressure nitrogen, for long enough to ensure you die after loosing consciousness, since waking up with severe brain damage from non-lethal oxygen deprivation is unlikely to be a satisfying conclusion.

        I'm disappointed that the article chose to include a photo of a man in a VR headset rather than of the actual booth - because it seems to me the one thing a booth could actually offer over a DIY solution is a pleasant setting for your transition.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 16 2018, @05:00PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 16 2018, @05:00PM (#667701) Journal

      The purpose of using Nitrogen is to avoid the panic caused by CO2 buildup...which the "put a plastic bag over your head" would ensure. Personally, I think it should be a mix of Nitrogen and 5% Oxygen, or perhaps a bit more, but no CO2 so that you go out in the rapture of hypooxygenation. Fighter pilots who survived it said that it was quite enjoyable. (Many didn't, because they lost control of their planes so thoroughly that they couldn't recover when they got low enough for normal breathing to work. This was quite awhile ago, when they were still working out the bugs on the air systems...that they didn't know were there.)

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @09:20AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @09:20AM (#667554)

    I'll take two! No, wait, make it three! Oh, why not an even baker's dozen! Do they come with remote controls?

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by zocalo on Monday April 16 2018, @11:10AM (1 child)

      by zocalo (302) on Monday April 16 2018, @11:10AM (#667574)
      How much for a House of Representatives worth?

      Asking for a friend...
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 16 2018, @11:29AM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday April 16 2018, @11:29AM (#667580) Journal

        A value pack of duck tape to seal the seams of the doors and windows from the outside and a couple crowbars to lock the door handles of the Legislative chamber should do it, I'd think.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by Bobs on Monday April 16 2018, @12:56PM (3 children)

      by Bobs (1462) on Monday April 16 2018, @12:56PM (#667605)

      Why buy when you can rent?

      I worked in a convalescent hospital for a while and would prefer this new option to some of the elderly warehousing situations that are out there.

      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday April 16 2018, @02:09PM (2 children)

        by Immerman (3985) on Monday April 16 2018, @02:09PM (#667629)

        That is one of the problems - because it's not what *you* prefer that should matter, but what the elderly person prefers.

        Unless of course you meant you'd prefer it for yourself - your phrasing wasn't clear on that.

        • (Score: 2) by Bobs on Monday April 16 2018, @05:50PM (1 child)

          by Bobs (1462) on Monday April 16 2018, @05:50PM (#667724)

          Good point - I was saying I could prefer it for myself.

          There are downsides in allowing people to choose to kill themselves: there are various ways people can be coerced to make that decision.

          But sometimes, it seems like it can be the best option.

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