🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@mundauf Just because t means something else for everyone doesnt mean it is unquantifiable. I mean one person may like grapes another person hates them. That just means giving one person grapes increases happiness and giving it to the other person does not.

I mean if i could scan your brain i could measure how happy you are in theory right?

@mundauf I agree both points are valid potentially. I think im just not entierly clear what @psychwede is arguing for. Which is why i keep pressing. I think, but I may be wrong, that his premise is something like "we cant know the consequence of our actions and thus shouldnt act". If that is the case it doesnt seem prudent. But im not trying to disagree with him, just press him for a the detail so i could better understand his stance.

But to answer your question.. should someone be allowed to kill themselves if there are treatments.

Well for me this goes slightly beyond topic because of the word "allowed". I think what is allowed isnt exactly the same as what is moral.

For example I believe in body autonomy. To that means the right to choose what happens to your body, good or bad, is yours alone. So by that logic id argue that even if it is not moral to allow someone to kill themselves they should still be allowed to do so.

But i could also simply argue that body autonomy, even if it fails in individual cases, is critical for a moral populous as a whole. So I could argue that int he big picture it would still be the more moral law to pick.

@pschwede
I appreciate your thoughts so far, thank you

Well sure there are tons of books. I'm not interested in books im curious about your thoughts. but i mean its cool if your just no longer interested in the topic too. Also fair if your just not sure.

As for best judgment, while i agree you can be wrong and that can be costly, what could possibly have a better chance of getting it right than ones "best judgment"...

I mean in my mind you have two choices, kill or not kill. One will do more good than the other. You are required to pick one. So what can we do other than use "best judgment" to minimize harm in the choosing.

Anyway, at this point we are probably beating a dead horse. But please if you have anything else to add feel free.

@pschwede How so? I cant think of any better way to justify it than to maximize overall happiness. I mean what other measure of any value is there? I cant think of one, but of course im open to hear what you think would be a better measure.

@pschwede Well I'm not suggesting we kill everyone who is sad and wants to die on a whim. I'm saying we should use our best judgement to decide if their suffering is likely to be pertual and based on that decide where we stand on a case by case basis.

I'm not sure someone simply saying they are sad and want to die is enough to convince me their suffering is likely to be perpetual.

@pschwede I'm not sure im looking for anything to be resolved. Mostly just want a peak into peoples heads and to understand and learn about how they might reason about it, even if my own reasoning to me already seems solid.

@pschwede While i could see how the topic of healthcare might play into this topic it has nothing to do with why I asked it personally.

I'd say this topic, and my line of reasoning (as well as others) applies to pretty much any political or moral decision we have to make rather equally.

@pschwede threshold for what exactly? I mean if you know for a fact youd make any child a mess, abuse them, make them suffer, then id say you probably should avoid having babies at all costs, considering having one in that case is likely to only increase suffering.

@pschwede Well one thing i pointed out in another thread is that it isnt about the momentary happiness, it is about the happiness across all of time. Depriving someone of future happiness they would have had is also "evil" by the same thought pattern.

As for how we know that wont change to happy again, we dont... We **never** truly know if our actions are good or bad, since we can't see all outcomes. What we CAN do is have good intentions and use our best judgement to best achieve "good".

That means in the case you cited one would have to use their best judgement to determine if they are likely to change from sad to happy, then weight the likelihood of that judgment being correct, then based on that take the course of action they feel has the greatest liklihood of generating the most happiness. Yes you could be wrong, there is always a space between intent andreality in real life.

@pschwede Because as a person who has felt both, i know one is enjoyable, one is not. Why would we want a world filled with people who dont have enjoyment over one that does have enjoyment.

@pschwede Agony is just the inverse of happiness. So I see that as the same thing. Negative happiness is agony/suffering...

As for fate, by definition you can not avoid fate, so no one need take any action to prefer it or bring about its ending. It will always occur by definition.

If if you think you can choose to avoid your fate (which makes no sense to me but lets roll with it), in that case how would you be able to distinguish between a fate where you are suppose to die vs one where you are supposed to live?

@pschwede Well measuring and predicint happiness/suffering is ultimately the tricky part. There is no fail safe way to do this. So no garuntee that if you intend to be a good person that you actually ARE a good person. But thats another matter entierly.

In theory one could measure happiness if we had some sort of a brain scanner. OF course im not suggesting we do this. But the point is that it is an objective characteristic.

I think an example where there is a very good liklihood of increasing happiness is the suicide of a suffering terminally ill patient. If every day is agony and that fate is a virtual garuntee, then ending their life could be seen as the only moral act.

@pschwede I am asking because at least for me it is a rather easy and simple thing to reason about. Moral/good = maximizing happiness.

Yet despire how simple it seems to reason about for me I often find its something people struggle to quantitfy, what is good or what is moral. They often just default to "its cultural and not an objective thing" which i personally think is wrong and short sighted.

As such I wanted to see how people thought about this stuff.

@snder For a good minute there I thought this was thekerbal game.

@doliu666 Im not sure im looking for an explanation exactly, secular or other wise. I guess I'm just asking what the reasoning you use, within your own thought processes. If the answer to that is "well god told me so in the bible" or something similar that is as fair an answer as any.

@doliu666 I prefer anything salty myself

I modified my twsbi Diamond fountain pen with a ultra flex steel nib from fountain pen revolution and a new ebonite feeder. She writes insanely well. Not as much line variation as my antique waterman's but with a fiber point it still does spencerian style way better. Plus it's a demonstrator so can't really go wrong.

I decided today to block everyone int he fediverse that isnt a dog, cat, or other non-primate animal. I will also make an exception for the occasional shrub or flower.

@robcolbert You do realize all the people attackingyou guys, their **intention** is to get you to de-federate.

So if thats your end-game, and since thats what the people attacking you want, why bother wasting time on implementing it. It will be inevitable