From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 00:00:36 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker writes
> (Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com>):
> >
> > I've always thought that figures such as these---three million---
> > do need to be adjusted for "expected number of years of life lost".
> > That is, although it's still a tragedy, the loss of an eighty-five
> > year old ought not to be regarded with the sense of loss as a
> > fifteen year old. Their deaths (on the first reading) cannot
> > be equated because the eighty-five year old is nearly certain
> > to die anyway shortly.
>
> Can I nominate this for the most un-extropian statement of the
> month? Perhaps the year?
You ought to have quoted my follow up paragraph:
> > (That being said, of course, it's still always important for
> > extropians and cryonicists to emphasize that so far as we
> > know, all deaths today are needless. The technology currently
> > exists to banish death (again, so far as we know). Hence, from
> > this point of view, one can consider the death of an 85 year
> > old to be an even *greater* tragedy.)
and perhaps I ought to have made that even stronger! But
as it is, damn few people on this list have spoken out
more strongly in favor of cryonics and against death
than have I. I should publish my "Deathoid Holocaust"
piece here again soon.
> Death--all deaths, for any reason--are bad. But if I am forced
> to compare the loss of an 85-year-old to a 15-year-old, I would
> think the former more tragic because more has been lost: more
> knowledge, experience, wisdom; more friends and family and
> working relationships. The fact that the 85-year-old is likely
> to die soon is not a premise to be reasoned from, it is the very
> battle we are trying to fight.
To fend off death for our elderly is indeed the major
long-term battle. But when you have to triage, you
have to triage. If a doctor had to choose (yes, I
know that thank goodness it's never so simple) between
the life *TODAY* of an 85 year old and a 15 year old,
there is only one moral answer. Let us suppose that
this particular 85 year old has a life expectancy
of three years, and that the 15 year old has a life
expectancy of sixty years. It's clear *to me* at
least, what the correct decision would be.
Lee Corbin
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