11 Comments
User's avatar
Nate Winchester's avatar

You called it "diffuse guilt" in another piece didn't you?

I like that phrase. Like the old saying, "no snowflake is responsible for the avalanche" they spread the guilt out so no one has to be responsible and the "machine" can keep on working...

MM's avatar

One: the paid person exercises discretion inside a standard that isn't defined. "Grievous and irremediable" is not actually defined in law! "Intolerable suffering" is self-reported. And the same fee ecosystem supplies the "independent" second assessor.

This cannot be legally defined. You don't get a definition unless there's court cases around it, and there currently can't be court cases. Immune to civil cases, and criminal cases would require the state to bring charges, which seems unlikely as long as the doctor follows the process.

Mark Atwood's avatar

Exactly the case, and one of the many reasons why there will not guardrails developed until public revulsion does.

Humility's avatar

They could save even more money on the doctors if they allowed their military to practice on the "patients" to be assisted by lining them up and using only one bullet.

Roger Hicks's avatar

I’m reminded yet again why the term “sin of omission” is in our lexicon.

opus's avatar

Things seem problematic in Canuckistan. Soviet Union like in the utter disdain for any degree of morality in the matter. I don’t have a problem with a terminal patient that has no quality of life choosing such an option but the bloodless callousness of terminating the mentally infirm or just confused seems suspiciously criminal in my view of justice.

R. G. Newbury's avatar

A synonym for Gradient is slippery slope!

Bob Liss's avatar

Like an episode of "Star Trek"...

Trip's avatar
16hEdited

The premise here is entirely possible, I would not put it past any government to conjure up a plan to do away with those pesky old timers that can see right through the corruption.

Steven C.'s avatar

One should also recognize that cold-related deaths in Europe are higher than heat-related deaths, and recent regulations contribute to those deaths. Increasingly home-heating technologies are either made more expensive or banned outright. As for AC, if there is enough of an backlash against current policies than AC will be more permissible but have an “environmental” tax imposed.

Jay's avatar

Agree about the MAID. European A/C is complicated by their profound energy crisis; they used to get oil from Russia and the Middle East, and that infrastructure is being blown up in real time. Germany also shuttered its nuclear plants while its enormous green energy investments failed to perform (in Joules, not sure about Euros). I can't blame the Europeans for discouraging air conditioning, although I blame their elites for not upholding their own rules.