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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 23 2014, @05:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the but-what-dreams-may-come-when-I-have-shuffled-off-this-mortal-coil? dept.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the US National Institutes of Health, writes at The Atlantic that there is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. "It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic." Emanuel says that he is isn't asking for more time than is likely nor foreshortening his life but is talking about the kind and amount of health care he will consent to after 75. "Once I have lived to 75, my approach to my health care will completely change. I won’t actively end my life. But I won’t try to prolong it, either." Emanuel says that Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. "I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop."

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:45PM (#97224)

    This was the attitude in Nazi Germany during World War 2. Basically if you were NOT a 'blonde haired, blue eyed' German you were either 'put to work' (enslaved basically) or systematically exterminated en masse as undesireables. This was CHILLINGLY demonstrated in a scene from Steven Spielberg's SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) when the old, one-armed guy tried to shovel snow and the Nazi officer (Amon Goeth? [Ralph Fiennes]) took him off to the side and SHOT HIM IN THE HEAD! We see the snow underneath his head turn red with his violently shed blood--the camera tracks it as it oozes through the snow as his corpse bleeds out while there is a voice over (Oskar Schindler? [Liam Neeson]).

    I said all of that to say this: Life on Planet Earth may come to the point where you either 'kick value upstairs' to justify your continued existence or YOU DIE!...

    This is what will happen to you if you are unable to "...contribute to work, society, the world. " as Ezekiel J. Emmanuel said....