The only reason right-to-die isn’t something universal is because the dead can’t vote. They suffer immensely and the usual feedback loop that mitigates societal problems and suffering is cut off. So every day thousands of people suffer terribly for absolutely no reason at all.

Doctors will actually euthanize patients by giving them morphine. They can only legally do it if they are using it to treat pain. They slowly increase the dose as needed. They will hover over an unconscious patient and claim that they are in pain and therefore the morphine dose needs to be increased. They repeat this until the patient dies. It’s a workaround. Because everyone is selfish and stupid, nobody wants to confront reality and just formalize it.

It’s not that simple. Granting a right to die shifts a heavy burden of responsibility onto the patient. The current situation in most countries is that euthanasia is not legal. That means the patient’s family had a sense of obligation to support a terminal patient as best they can for as long as they can (and in geographies with universal healthcare “family” extends to a much broader definition of society). Granting the patient the right to die also puts them into a place where they have to make considerations about how much of a burden they are to those around them. The status quo allows a terminally ill patient to be selfish without guilt (well, modest amounts of guilt) because the alternative is illegal. It comes at the cost of undue suffering for many at the end. The alternative shifts this and risks people who’d have otherwise been able to eek out some continued enjoyment from what remains being forced into a thought decision out of a sense of guilt and obligation to not burden those around them.

It’s a complicated issue with lots of unsatisfying trade-offs. I’m personally conflicted about which path is better. It’s definitely not as simple as obvious as to which way is better that people want to imply.

Hard disagree. People already kill themselves. They already reason about how much of a burden they are and they already kill themselves because they think they are too much of a burden. People already do everything that you said.

The only major difference between the two worlds is that in one, death is grizzly, painful and traumatic and usually preceded by an enormous amount of suffering — and in the other death is none of those things.

You are clearly very naive and you clearly have never been in the position of needing to die.

I found his opinion enlightening and pointed, unlike your own, rather barbed, post.

Also, being in a "position of needing to die" isn't an absolute predicate for debating this issue.

Apparently it is because the only people who find themselves advocating it are people for whom the topic has become real rather than just words on a screen. Just like everything else in life. Nobody gives a shit until it’s their own skin.

>Nobody gives a shit until it’s their own skin.

I hope that your life improves and one day you can meet emphathetic people who do give a shit about others skin. Maybe that day, you can make good posts online.

Interesting. The fact that people already do kill themselves regardless of it being permitted or not seems to me to be an argument against legalizing it because it being illegal doesn't stop many people... but it may help them avoid being coerced into it.

I wouldn't care to argue that case-- I think assisted suicide should be legal, but the concern that the legality of it can lead to people feeling pressured into it seems quite legitimate to me.

There's a huge difference between attempting suicide and succeeding. Also, there are people who aren't physically capable of trying.

Legally forcing people to live just to suffer is wrong.

You're arguing we should force people to live against their will in terrible pain so that a few people don't have to feel guilty?

How many people have you watched die? By the time you get to the point anyone is talking about hospice or refusing life saving care that person's life has been nothing but misery, pain and suffering for a while.

This kind of comment is exactly why I'm glad you don't have the option of deciding that my life is not worth living.

I'm not sick or anything right now but people who say things like this terrify me.

Everyone is going to have to depend on other people's judgement sooner or later, and by the numbers, most people still think there is some kind of soul or afterlife, or at least don't assume there isn't! The only protection from people like that is for there to be no mixed messages and no option for them to commit what they believe to be mercy.

> I'm glad you don't have the option of deciding that my life is not worth living.

The comment you are responding to is not asking for the option to decide if your life is worth living. It is asking for everyone to have the option to decide for themselves if their own life is worth living.

> I'm not sick or anything right now but people who say things like this terrify me.

Things like what?

He is also saying that you don’t have that option either.

I made no such argument. I even specifically called out how conflicted I am in how to even assess what the right answer is.

To answer your question: numerous, with a multiple of that impacted in terms of the long painful witnessing of someone dying and/or carrying the emotional and physical burden of supporting the patient. Which is precisely why I am so conflicted.

Though I feel like your question was rhetorical and not an actual attempt to engage in understanding an alternate perspective.

Your experience must be vastly different from mine.

Did you have the experience where people were talking about end of life care before the afflicted individual was ready to go, and you believe if euthanasia were legal they would have pressured the individual to go through with it?

Yeah... if you continue that idea, you just might end up with a society where everybody customarily commits suicide at the age of 60 to avoid being a "burden to society", like in this Star Trek episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_Ne...

This would greatly increase our ability to enjoy our earnings instead of having to save a retirement fund large enough to take us to 90. Sixty is silly, though; my parents do more for me than I do for them and they're 70.

> It’s a complicated issue with lots of unsatisfying trade-offs

I can't see it as complicated. The absence of a safe, legal exit for the terminally ill is unethical.

I understand that death affects more than just the individual passing, but that doesn't give anyone a right to force them to suffer.

If this issue is personal to you, I am sorry. It is for me as well.

Nurses will do it, too.

My Mother worked in the palliative unit and shared stories about how the staff regularly collectively decided to inform the patient that the button to administer morphine was in their control, and that they controlled enough dosage to peacefully end a person's life and so to be careful with it. Patients routinely ended their lives. This would have been in the late 80s, in Canada.

Since then Canada has legalized medically assisted dying; and I wonder if the increased regulation has made it _more difficult_ for patients to access it. No longer can a ward of palliative nurses simply opt to inform patients of their ability to die, but now those patients need the approval of doctors to do so.

Yeah this account of mine has been kept separate from my true identity as well as I could, but I think I've observed this when my SO passed. They were also in palliative care from cancer.

I'll never forget that last night, I slept next to them on an extra cot.

I won't go into details because of the survivors but my SO had a new machine that was keeping them awake.

They were suffering.

The nurse gave them a very strong sedative. They curled up in their favorite sleeping position and went to sleep. Just a couple hours later they stopped breathing.

At the time I was in shock but I remember thanking the nurses when we left the ward and calling them angels.

> to inform the patient that the button to administer morphine was in their control

Sometimes (I don't have a statistic) in Israel this is used for placebo effect. Patient doesn't control anything, but still might feel a relief.

Typically its not that they have no control, in the cases you're talking about, but the machines do have specified dose limits still. You can press the button as many times as you like, but it typically won't let you hit yourself with a gram of morphine or something. So in that case, I can see the button being an applied placebo effect.

Is there any reason why the new law would make it harder for the nurses to do that?

Probably because now that there is a protocol, an ethical nurse would feel compelled to follow it.

I recently heard about this in my stage 4 support group. No doctor will go on record that they do it however. God forbid there be dignity in choosing when to shuffle off the mortal coil.

Being a doctor must be tough. My brother is a doctor, though we aren't close or even on speaking terms. But I hear his tales via our mom.

A recent tale is that a family member got a bad cancer. Our mom called him to get the scoop, who he'll only give to her, apparently. He said 'Mom, she'll be dead in two years. She'll initially respond really well to treatment, then just get worse until the end.'

Doctors know these things, but many won't tell the patient because it's depressing, and also there's a tiny chance they're wrong.

Of course neither told said family member, and she's currently in the responding well phase. It's shattering hearing their hope, so I guess their doctor wasn't blunt either...

My mother spent thirty years in the OR saving cancer patients, so I know a thing or two about this topic. Different patients respond differently to treatment, life expectancy can vary greatly even in the terminal stage, so doctors are unlikely to know “she'll be dead in two years. She'll initially respond really well to treatment, then just get worse until the end.” Delivering that information when there actual is non-negligible hope left would be imprudent.

I think the pendulum might be swinging the other way - me and a lot of other folks in my stage 4 support group got given a very grim diagnosis and subsequent prognoses from our oncologists even though the 5 year survival statistics are outdated.

It was quite depressing in the beginning but after connecting with some people who have survived years past their onc's expiry date, I feel hopeful.

I'm hopeful for you!

Apologies if my previous comment was doom and gloom - was just thinking about the things doctors do and perhaps even know and have to decide... sounds incredibly stressful. But of course that was one specific case, and every case and person is different.

Anyhow, stay strong, and best of luck to you, truly.

> My brother is a doctor, though we aren't close or even on speaking terms

Given the nature of this post, maybe consider working on this relationship and at least getting back to the point of talking to each other.

Thanks.

Rereading what I'd written sounded awkward, I guess I was trying to explain it was third hand information without being evasive/mysterious.

Didn't mean it as a complaint or even bad thing. Last time we saw each other he kept making incredibly racist comments about and even to my (nonwhite) wife and kid's face - it was the first time they'd even met!

> Last time we saw each other he kept making incredibly racist comments about and even to my (nonwhite) wife and kid's face - it was the first time they'd even met!

Well, that's certainly unfortunate. I honestly do not know how you can bridge a gap that wide.

Yes — my grandfather, who had a chest infection aged 99¾, was given an increasing amount of morphine for the pain (instead of antibiotics). The death came at the point he could no longer recognise his children, where his quality of life was basically nil. It was a release.

There is nothing illegal about causing death in the pursuit of treatment or reducing pain and suffering. It's obviously a fine line, but giving a patient who is in severe pain so much morphine it hastens their death is not illegal.

God bless you.

I always felt reason right to die isn't universal is religion. It makes it hard to argue logically when the other person has orders from above that suicide is a sin.

For what it's worth, I have concerns about legalizing suicide, and I'm not religious. My main concern is there's no changing your mind. A friend tried to commit suicide, and she is grateful every day she was stopped. I'm deeply uncomfortable imagining a legal and economic reality where people in distress can make such a decision quickly and permanently. This is not the same thing as euthanasia, and not intended as an argument against it. I have some concerns about a slippery legal basis, but I'm confident we could successfully separate these issues.

A friend of mine succeeded just over 6 months ago and I regret not joining her every day. I live in a gun-free country so no easy way out. I’m currently in a rural area and considering bashing a policeman’s head in to get his gun and get it over with. The alternative is synthesizing Nembutal myself. All the other techniques are riddled with risks of failure.

I know too many people who regret their suicide attempts to let this comment go unanswered: Call whatever service is available in your country to speak about your thoughts.

I’m not going to involve myself any further, because I’m afraid I’d do more harm than good.

Please don't involve another human if you have to do it.

ok i wont

I know from personal experience how seductive and attractive thoughts of ending your own life can be. Imagining and looking forward to the escape from this horrible world can be so full of joy. The calm, clarity and bliss you experience is only known to those that have been there. But you are clearly looking for help. Otherwise you wouldn't have posted this. You would just have done it. Risks of failure? Anyone can find safe and foolproof methods on the Internet. So this is clearly not what you are looking for. Seek help. Doing this always feel like failure. But you become empowered. You will grow. I did. Need a rope to cling to? Go stoic. Solid navigation methods for life and the world.

I'm sorry you're struggling so much. Having a close friend kill themself can be a major trigger if you're depressed. I've lost friends by their own hands before, and attempted once myself, so your comment worries me and I'm concerned for you.

One thing I've (personally) found helpful is keeping a bucket list, ordered from least to most dangerous/life-changing. If your job is making you miserable? Quit. Wanted to move to a different country? Get a tattoo? Go skydiving? Smoke DMT? Transition? Go for it! You literally have nothing to lose, relative to suicide.

I don't know your life, but I hope you do what's right for you.

Barbiturate synthesis isn't particularly easy, for what it's worth. Though that depends on what precursors and equipment/glassware you can get, and whether you have organic chemistry experience.

Hey, do you want or need to talk to somebody?

Legalising suicide means something different than what you seem to be implying. Legalising suicide means that we don't throw people like your friend into a prison.

Probably you are just using it as a shorthand for "legalising assisted suicide. I assume you live in a modern western country where the idea of punishing someone for trying to end their live is unthinkable. Sadly there are still countries where they would have punished your friend. Because of this it's better to be aware of the distinction between the terms.

Right to die is a fundamental human right in my book. It is but one of many rights curtailed by the sectarian majority. Abortion, kink, birth control, homosexuality… you name it. God hates personal freedom.

Sometimes I get the feeling the US medical industry is 50% people who would sell an allergy pill that gave ten percent of patients lung cancer and 50% people who would rather watch thousands of people die in screaming agony than test a pancreatic cancer treatment that caused erectile dysfunction.

No this isn't true. There are many things wrong with the medical industry, but this takes it too far.

I don't think it's appropriate to debate about policy here. Her final blog post isn't about that.

The fact that she can’t legally die in her own country even though she has a terminal illness and that she mentions she is worried that if her family and friends knew where she is going that there might be legal repercussions does open the debate to policy imo.

"Her"

edited

Survivors can vote. I got to watch my mom die of cancer like this.

I'm reminded of the line from Constantine, where he says, "Like pulling demons out of little girls. WHO IS THAT FOR?"

https://youtu.be/-828wM9lpLw?t=107

It’s worth voting, too. It’s one of few things I’ve advocated for in my life but I’ve actually seen real progress in my country and in many others.

I also watched my mom suffer a terrible death (a rocky 7 year decline into pain and madness), and she literally asked us to help her die many times along the way. She only stopped asking once her mental faculties left her. Her suffering was intolerable and we weakly watched her endure it out of fear of repercussions if people found out her death was assisted. It hurts so much to think, had she gotten sick only a little later, she could have left with some dignity and knowing who her family was. If only more people had supported the movement sooner!

It’s absolutely worth every ounce of support to give people (and maintain) the right to die.

So after my brother passed this was one of the things our family discussed with the palliative care doc and the therapist assigned to our family by the insurance company. The way it was explained do me, and take it or leave it as you will, was that while morphine can certainly end a life, in most end of life scenarios the morphine has two roles: it reduces pain and suffering, and it actually makes breathing easier (even while it depresses respiratory rate). In my brother's case it was her opinion that it actually extended his life.

I'll never know if that was just what I was being fed, but my wife is an NP and has never shot that down, and she's not shy about correcting medical misconceptions.

I've seen this in action with a wealthy old 90+ friend of the family. At the time I was very young and thought it was odd how well timed our visit was, with him dying there only a few hours after, doctor at his side, in his home. (Perhaps it was just a nurse?) I distinctly remember the adults whispering to each other about how he was being medicated to take care of his pain, and his breathing; there was a very long pause before each inhale.

No, the problem is the slippery slope of "this patient wants to die because their life isn't worth living" to "this patient can't communicate, but it's clear their life isn't worth living, so we should end it".

I just do not see the problem. The urge to live is way stronger than a bad week. The urge to live is strong. And we already have systems in place to determine the course of medical treatment in the case of unresponsiveness, all you’d do is tack on euthanasia.

It’s not your business to determine whether or not a person should live. Why don’t you sit in the corner with people who think it’s their business to determine whether or not women have abortions?

If you think euthanasia is like abortion you're already contributing to the slippery slope by conflating different situations, but hey nuance has never been HN's strong suit.

"It’s not your business to determine whether or not a person should live.", as a member of society it sure as hell is. If some woman is suffering from post-partum depression (highly treatable) it's societies responsibility that she get proper treatment and not support for killing herself.

Violating the rights of a minority group based on a moral crusade to “save people”. It’s definitely similar. Similar also in the insane amount of suffering it causes. If you care so much about depressed people then donate some money to the effort to find a cure instead of causing innocent people to suffer with your armchair morality lectures

Wait, you're "violating the rights" of a depressed person (who isn't capable of actually judging the situation accurately) by not helping them kill themselves?

You're so far off the mark I'm not sure where you are.

The dead can't vote but their survivors sure can.

I think you’re right. It is too complex for a thread like this. But instead of literature my opinion is informed by my own firsthand experience with terminally ill people and my own fear of dying in an uncontrolled way. But you’re so right that the complexity of these things must be appreciated.

This comment is very black and white for a complicated topic. Personally I think people should have the right to die in a carefully regulated and administered fashion, after they have received appropriate counselling and support. The support is essential. However in real world application there are only relatively few cases where euthanasia is arguably the 'best' option. I am very much at the coalface of this issue if you are concerned I am an armchair commenter.

Doctors and nurses don't generally euthanize people. Pallative care are actively against the concept and do research showing that various strategies for symptom management do not shorten life. If someone is suffering a lot from pain or shortness of breath, they will receive escalating doses of drugs which can cause death, but the reason for administering them is not to cause death. The distinction is important.

When someone is suffering a lot, they should receive good symptom support and unnecessary investigations and interventions should be avoided. This means that all the blood tests, blood pressure checks, X-rays, nutritional support people would normally undergo don't get done. Is that a form of (perfectly legal) euthanasia, if an easily correctible but otherwise fatal problem doesn't get fixed?

There are underground euthanasia practitioners for sure. These are doctors or nurses who take it upon themselves to administer fatal doses of medication to people who want to die. Invariably this is done at home. I've heard terrible stories about when it goes wrong.

I live somewhere where there is legalised voluntary euthanasia or assisted dying as they call it. Patients go through a process where they are assessed by two doctors (who have been trained specifically) and then when it is approved they receive medication they can take themselves. It works well generally. But is not a fast process. Patients with cancer certainly die during the process. And they don't die in agony. Modern palliative care is excellent, if you live somewhere where it exists, particularly for cancer.

The part missing from your analysis is that the health care system has limited resources, and properly assessing patients for and administering euthanasia takes a lot of resources. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that it is easier to die than to see a psychologist where I live. The doctors who do the assessments are not seeing other patients. The money used to pay for the assessments etc is not being spent elsewhere (it's a socialised healthcare system). Even if the patient pays for everything, you are still using up time and expertise.

The 'easy' cases for euthanasia are people with degenerative neurological conditions where there is no treatment available, just gradual slow descent into disability. Cancer is more complicated - patients can be very well until close to the end, and they are often having ongoing treatment. It is hard to be considing euthanasia while hoping the next clinical trial will work. Cancer patients also tend to die quickly.

For major organ dysfunction like heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, it is possible to withdraw active medical support and therapy and patients will die fairly quickly, while also receiving symptom support.

Euthanasia for mental illness I find would be almost impossible to implement. Euthanasia for chronic pain I think would also be very difficult. Euthanasia for dementia has obvious problems too, although we all tell our partners to push us off the pier when we can't do the crossword anymore.

Some people just want to die because they are too old, fed up etc despite no serious medical problems or overt mental illness. I don't know about this. I am not sure a medical system can support this kind of choice, it is 'out of scope' to my mind, a kind of medicalisation of the human condition. There is a complicated spectrum from 'Completely well and wanting to die' and 'Severe imminently fatal illness and wanting to die.'

> although we all tell our partners to push us off the pier when we can't do the crossword anymore.

Wow. Let's not generalise. We "all" definitely not tell that to anyone.

Literally everyone on this website is in denial. They all approach it by asking which fields will be safe. No field is safe. “But it’s not going to happen for a long time.” Climate deniers say the same thing and you think they should be wearing the dunce hat? The average person complains bitterly about climate deniers who say that it’s “my grandkids problem lol” but when I corner the average person into admitting AI is a problem the universal response is that it’s a long way off. And that’s not even true! The drooling idiots are willing to tear down billionaires and governments and any institution whatsoever in order to protect economic equality and a high standard of living — they would destroy entire industries like a rampaging stampede of belligerent buffalos if it meant reducing carbon emissions a little but when it comes to the biggest threat to human well-being in history, there they are in the corner hitting themselves on their helmeted head with an inflatable hammer. Fucking. Brilliant.

I don't think anyone is in denial about this, it's just not something anyone should concern themselves with in the foreseeable future. AI that can replace a dev or designer is nowhere close to becoming a reality. Just because we have some cool demos that show some impressive capabilities in a narrow application does not mean we can extrapolate that capability to something that is many times more complex.

I agree. It bears repeating: Where modern AI shines is where it does not matter to be precise, where programming absolutely _depends_ on being precise.

So, today some good AI applications are face detection, fingerprint detection, or generating art. Where you need to catch or generate the general gist of it without pixel precision.

Of course, programming might be under greater threat than we imagine. I can also not claim that anyone holding that position is just plain _wrong_. But I do believe that would take an AI breakthrough that is yet to happen. That breakthrough would also have absolutely crazy consequences beyond programming, because now we would have "exact AI" and the thought of that boggles my mind for sure.

I strongly and emphatically disagree. You frame it like we invented these AIs. Did we write the algorithms that actually run when it’s producing its output? Of course not, we can’t understand them let alone write them. We just sift around until we find them. So obviously the situations lends its self to surprises. Every other year we get surprised by things that all the “experts” said was 50 years off or impossible, have you forgotten already?

This comment settles it for me. You’re thoroughly way too hyperbolic in your assessment. If this was closer to reality you’d have been able to state your case in clear, realistic terms. That’s something no one has been able to do so far.

I do deny it. Automation does not destroy jobs even if you're impressed at how good it is at painting; see "Luddite fallacy" and "lump of labor".

Claiming AIs are going to take over or destroy the world has been a basis of "AI safety" research since the 90s, but that isn't real research, it's a new religion run by Berkeley rationalists who read too many SF novels.

The assumption that automation creates (or at least does not destroy) jobs is an extrapolation from the past despite the fact that the nature of automation is constantly changing/evolving.

Also, one thing that everyone seems to ignore is that even if the number of jobs are not reduced, the skill/talent level for doing those jobs may (actually DO) increase and also, switching careers does not work for everyone. So you'll inevitably have people without a job even if it's just that the job market is shifting.

But I argue that as automation reaches jobs with higher levels of sophistication, i.e. the jobs of more skilled workers, some people will simply be left out because of their talent won't be enough to do any job that has not been automated.

What does nowhere close mean to you? 10 years? 50 years?

I'm trying to understand your point, because I think I agree with you, but it's covered in so much hyperbole and invective I'm having a hard time getting there. Can you scale it back a little and explain to me what you mean? Something like: AI is going to replace jobs at such scale that our current job-based economic system will collapse?

Most people get stuck where you are. The fastest way possible to explain it is that it will bring rapid and fundamental change. You could say jobs or terminators but focusing on the specifics is a red herring. It will change everything and the probability of a good outcome is minuscule. It’s playing Russian roulette with the whole world except rather that 1/6 for the good, it’s one in trillions for the bad. The worst and stupidest thing we have ever done.

Okay. What do you want me to do about it?

Just know it. Really think deeply about this important issue and try to understand it thoroughly so that you have a chance at converting others. Awareness precedes any preventative initiatives.

Algorithm space is large and guess-checking through it takes a lot of effort even when it’s automated like now. It requires huge amounts of compute. And meaningful progress requires the combined effort of the entire worlds intellectual and compute resources. It sounds implausible at first but this machine learning ecosystem is in fact subject to sanctions. There are extreme but plausible ways of reducing the stream of progress to a trickle. It just requires people to actually wake up to what’s happening.

I agree that many of us are not seeing the writing on the wall. It does give me some hope that folks like Andrew Yang are starting to pop up, spreading awareness about, and proposing solutions to the challenges we are soon to face.

> but when it comes to the biggest threat to human well-being in history

Evolution doesn't stop for anyone, don't think like a dinosaur.

Ignorance is bliss in this case, because this is even more unstoppable than climate change.

You thought climate change is hard to hold up? Try holding up the invention of AI. The whole world is going to have to change and some form of socialism/UBI will have to be accepted, however unpalatable.

No, the bias is everywhere and HN is just reflecting that universal bias. It’s very popular to dislike Elon musk and it’s very unpopular to be a supporter. Count the number of supporters vs detractors in any mainstream thread — musk haters will be the majority every single time despite the fact that his detractors refer constantly to a phantom army of supporters. Every Reddit thread is basically 100 people responding to non-existent “fan boy” straw men. And they also like to spread the falsehood that Elon musk used gem mine money to become successful. It’s literally just made up nonsense.

People like to act like his pedo tweet was some kind of crime against humanity. Let’s have a look at your twitter if you’re so indignant. People are such shameless hypocrites.

I have never called anyone a paedophile on the internet, no. Have you?

None of that last paragraph is true other than me being British.

You're completely in the realms of fantasy. Seriously?

I’ve seen it so maybe uncommon but not untrue. But it’s 100% true that British people have a weird problem with pedophilia, even compared to other western countries. Problem both in the sense that you all seem to be pedophiles and also in that the topic is enveloped in moral dogma.

I'm glad that I only seem to be a paedophile, that means I won't get found by the police for a little while yet. You should join in, it's fun.

He is involved in global conspiricy to manipulate Dogecoin so he can buy more Slave mines to mine cobalt. That a fact.

Public figures are human beings too believe it or not

Yes, of course. And they made a choice willingly, knowing that there is a price. Can't have the upsides of being famous without the downsides, they are a package deal.

I used to love video games in 2010. I loved Skyrim and counterstrike. And in the last 4 years or so I have just stopped liking them. It just seems so boring. Online games are just a contest of who’s willing to sink the most time or money into oblivion. Single player games boil down to the story/writing so why not just read a book or watch a movie? And even then, why bother with a fictional story when I can read some non-fiction which is much more interesting?

Games aren't for everyone, and aren't for every stage of life. Nothing wrong with that.

Some of that just isn't true though. I can't remember the last single player game I really cared about the story, I mostly skip it. Gameplay is solid in _many_ games these days, or a huge variety of types.

For example, Elden Ring, the story is not a lot more than: there's an Elden Ring you should go explore the world and find, have fun. It's pretty far from a book in game form.

This is probably the best time to be a gamer there's ever been, the only real blemish being that GPUs are ridiculously priced right now.

Souls games have always been more about world building than story. The stuff going on in the background with small lore snippets here and there is really good, the actual story is always hardly existent.

Yeah I think in general I greatly prefer lore and worldbuilding. You can take it or leave it, as you like, it doesn't depend on going through a linear set of events, and it requires effort and awareness (and often a community).

I used to think that way, but I've been lately trying to get into more gaming and found a few non-boring games. Most games I abandon after the first try, but there are a few exceptions, namely Resident Evil Village, Control, and Doom Eternal. These are the games I've enjoyed to completion.

I've been playing Elden Ring too, and while it's quite tedious, it's interesting enough that I might be able to grind through it (it's huge in terms of hours).

Only game I play mostly these days is flight simulator. I guess it is a different type of gaming, but I agree with you. I have lost interest in most normal Games as well.

That’s why Elden Ring is good to me. I actually explore within the immersive world and discover NPCs, items, etc. If I get stuck in a boss, I can take a break and explore some other part of the game.

I can even ignore, and did miss whole areas on my first play through. I did end up finishing my first play through in 80 hours.

I then decided to wait for the DLC to begin my second play through.

I am in the same boat. Save for a few games, modern games bore me to death and completely pass by me. I play maybe ~2h a month, if any. Actually, this is true for me when it comes to modern movies and music as well.

Is there more to it other than the fact that as one gets older, one has higher expectations? I keep wondering about it...

Soulslikes don’t have “story” in the sense of other CRPGs that constantly dump words upon words on you and have romance systems that are just dungeons inside a dialog tree.

Actually, most Japanese games aren’t like that at the moment. There’s a move away from turn based JRPGs to having more action.

I went back to older games like daggerfall (daggerfallsetup), the longest journey, some goldbox games, might and magic6-8 and so on.

The singularity makes climate change look like a picnic.

Chances of AI singularity happening in our lifetime x devastation caused by AI singularity

Chances of climate crisis happening in our lifetime x devastation caused by climate crisis

Which one do you think is higher?

First one. The devastation will be unimaginable and irreversible. At least with climate it will be possible for human kind to hobble forward somehow. And changing the climate would be infinitely easier than putting the AGI genie back in its bottle.

We need some bookies in this thread. A lot of AGI skeptics could get very rich at the expense of those that are absolutely convinced that AGI/singularity is coming soon. I'm willing to put down 10k that "the singularity" (by some agreed upon definition) will not happen by 2050.

2050 is soon…

I’m worried about AGI.

I will make everything very simple. All of AI industry and research boils down to one thing: mining algorithm space. We set up programs that search algorithm space automatically until they find one that demonstrates desirable behavior. And all the progress in recent years boils down to this: we have hit veins of intelligence in algorithm space that have exceeded what we thought possible.

If you think you know what’s going to happen next because leading edge algorithm X has properties Y and limitations Z then you are lost. We are mining algorithm space and we keep striking veins. Money is being poured into mining and it is a fact that we will keep hitting veins.

General intelligence is probably a broad category. If you were to define it mathematically, there is probably more than one mathematical kernel that can underpin a generally intelligent algorithm. So the number of algorithms that are generally intelligent are probably much higher than intuition would lead you to believe. Eventually we will strike a GI vein.

Again, if you think AGI will do X or do Y then you are lost. It will only do one thing: it will change the economic equation of life on this planet drastically and permanently. It will be the worst thing that has ever happened in terms of human well-being.

If we took control of the fabs and enacted limits on processor feature size we could slow the mining enough to find a final solution. It sounds silly until you realize that it’s truly the world at stake.

Luddites get panned today as just being reflexively anti-technology, but they were acting in their self-interest: they were the textile workers whose expertise and careers were threatened by machines. They lost their livelihoods.

It's possible there were alternative outcomes where everyone won. A more fair society could have found a way to make sure the replaced textile workers benefited from the machines that replaced them.

If we make machines that replace all of our economic roles, then it's possible we could make it so we benefit too, but with AGI it's not nearly enough to just choose to use it that way. AGI will not be aligned with our values if we don't make it that way. If we solve the alignment problem, then we would be able to make AGI that shares our values. AGI could solve our problems, or uplift us to its level, if we accomplish this. But this is not the default outcome if we don't solve the alignment problem.

Yup, I agree. It's inevitable and it's scary but do keep in mind that there's no reason to believe it couldn't also be a positive thing. We have no idea what the long lasting impacts of AGI will be on our society, but we know that they will be massive. It might wipe us out, or it might aide us in building the perfect utopia.

While I am worried about it, I also recognize that worrying about it doesn't really do anyone any good -- the best thing I can do is to keep growing my skills as a tech person so that I can be as prepared as is reasonably possible when it eventually does arrive. Heck, maybe I can actually contribute to helping align it positively with humanity, I don't know. The point is that there's no point in stressing too much about it.

we've been unable to design human-powered systems that reliably value human well-being. hell, humans don't even reliably value human well-being. why do you think any agi or agi-based system we design might be different?

one would expect that initially, agi will simply act in the existing role we have already established for artificial persons - the corporation, notably uninterested in human well-being.

We'd better hope the first one is created by a reclusive mad scientist with a heart of gold, who forgave everyone who laughed at him.

I think it's good to do the following. Assume that jobs are taken over by AGI, one by one. Which job will be left last? Which job would I want, given this change?

I'm not sure I want to be the last human working.

What are you afraid it's going to do?

AGI will make many things possible that we’re not possible before. It will invent new things that wildly alter the reality of the world. The point is that you cannot predict what will happen; a million things could happen. But the good outcomes can be counted on one hand. The probability that we get a good outcome is one in millions, probably less. Obviously that is an incredibly stupid thing to do!

That a lot of words without saying anything at all. What are you afraid they will do?

If you can’t draw a conclusion from that then you simply don’t get it.

AGI will, as I said, make many things possible. It will be possible to keep a human being alive forever and suspend them in a state of pure pain for eternity. It will be possible to extract memories and information from the human brain. It will be possible to control human behavior with invasive brain surgery. Imagine every grotesque thing that you can do to a human being — it’s on the table for AGI enabled governments in the early days if that’s how it plays out. And that’s just one slice in the infinite pie of grotesque possibilities. You can’t just opt out of these things if they provide a material advantage to your country/meta organism.

I've got an imagination, but you're letting yours run wild. AGI doesn't mean immediate sci-fi level medical technology, and it certainly doesn't mean human brain copying and transfer of consciousness to some artificial storage device.

Biological brains are incredibly complex and if that level of complexity is needed to host intelligence I think we're a long ways off from building any true AGI, even if we pumped every bit of engineering skill our society has at it. And even if we _can_ build AGI I doubt we'd have the resources to host more than a handful of them for years to decades after their creation or that their intelligence would be anywhere near small mammal level.

If that level of complexity is needed. If. Of course it’s not.

What makes you so confident about that?

I'd be afraid it's going to do something you can't hope to predict.

Anything with much greater capabilities than us that would find our resources useful and that doesn't explicitly have our best values at heart would be a danger to us. European settlers were not good news for the Native Americans. Early humans were not good news for many great apes.

(It might be tempting to imagine this from a higher-level perspective and assert that each of these successors were somehow more interesting or had more fulfilling lives than what they replaced, and so therefore these successions might be ultimately good in the long run, but that's not meant to be part of this analogy. We won't have some genetic lineage with AGI; it will probably be more alien to our mind's design than actual aliens produced by evolution like us would be. The AGI might not build a world replacing ours where many of its kind have lives we would find fulfilling or interesting. It might care just about making the world completely predictable and safe, empty of outside threats and life, and hibernating in a place of safety. Plenty of animals live solitarily and might do this if they were naively uplifted into superintelligence. Humans and social animals instinctually believe in the goodness of friendship and society because evolution saw we were good at surviving in groups and molded our instincts to encourage us to do that. AGIs won't necessarily have that if we don't design that into them (or set up the process that designs them to do that).)

Do yourself a favour and lay down the science fiction for a while.

The print version has the autobiographies of the authors as well as all this. I found it interesting that everyone buys the book to learn more about Sasha but his section of the autobiography is rather sparse. It’s his wife who really fills in all the details and gives you a rich illustration of the human aspect of their lives.

I am awestruck by one thing in particular. At one point Anne took a drug that basically induced a severe psychiatric disorder, a very painful one. It was essentially the worst case scenario for drug users. But eventually she decided to take decisive action by taking another powerful drug, MDMA. Believe me, I can tell you from personal experience, when you have a severe psychiatric disorder caused by a drug, the idea of taking another drug is terrifying. But, believing it would fix her, she did. And the crazy thing is that it actually worked. I will never understand the strength it must have taken to do that.

Sasha shulgin in the greatest hero of our time. He experimented on himself to pave the way for the cure to PTSD and soon many other things. He should be put on the dollar bill.

She later did so much MDMA, that it now doesn't have any effect on her anymore, she claims. Doubt she tried it recently though, as she's 91 now.

Incidentally, Shulgin didn't discover MDMA himself. It was discovered around 1910 IIRC, but hadn't found to be useful back then. He rediscovered it much later.

I've heard similar accounts of MDMA losing effectiveness with folks who have used regularly for extended periods of time. I haven't experienced it myself but I try to wait at least 8-12 weeks between uses. I have a theory that for many people it comes down to the highly variable quality of what you get on the street. I buy all my stuff on the dark net and test it, and after figuring out a couple of other variables that have a big effect on me (mainly: timing of food consumption. I fast minimum 5 hours before a roll) I have had very consistent experiences. But the quality issue would certainly not be at play with the Shulgins so I wonder if there's something to the long term effectiveness stories.

"I will never understand the strength it must have taken to do that."

It might have been strength rooted in desperation.

I tried tiktok for a few months last year. It was refreshing and engaging in a way that nothing else is. The vitality and originality of tiktok really reminds me of Reddit in 2010 or 4chan in 2007. When a ton of dynamic younger people pile their energy into something, it gives that thing a special energy and power that cannot be created artificially.

It’s leading edge in the way it consolidates what came before. All the little optimizations to our memes and videos, all the quirks of online etiquette that have been born in the last 10 years were built into the culture of tiktok from its inception. The result is content that is more frictionless than ever before. Even after tiktok, this is here to stay.

I never did. I’m 30