We overvalue quantity of life and undervalue quality of life. amirite?

I am seeing this with 2 family members. No quality of life. Healthcare has kept them alive, but to what avail? Makes the nursing homes money, I guess.

by bashirianjany 1 week ago

Unfortunately a lot of the time it's the family's fault. I worked in a home for a while and we had dementia patients that kept saying they didn't want to live and wanted a DNR, but they'd signed a power of attorney and their children were refusing... if the family won't sign a DNR or the resident hasn't then the home has no choice but to try to bring them back and continue treating illnesses they won't actually get better from.

by Nolanbettie 1 week ago

🙄 the nursing home has no say in the matter. The fault lies with families who won't sign the DNR.

by Gino79 1 week ago

A DNR is signed by the individual. These people were not that close. But getting things fixed has kept them alive a really long time, and now other things are broken and they can't ever live without assistance again.

by bashirianjany 1 week ago

Insurance too. Health care should be severely limited after age 80. Let people die. Nobody wins when you're 90 and you're kids have to check on you every hour, change your diaper, wash you, feed you, and move you.

by alicebosco 1 week ago

Spry 81 year olds in good health deserve useful insurance if they break a leg or get pneumonia. Nobody should be denied medical care because of their age.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

That's not what I meant. For example, my wife's 90+ grandmother has cancer. it's *huge* burden on the family member(s) taking care of her and is making everyone miserable. you're over 90 and severely kneecapping your family's ability to enjoy their 60s-- probably their last really good decade before age creeps up on *them*, and your insurance is paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for your healthcare.

by alicebosco 1 week ago

I am almost certain that the Healthcare workers agree with you but they aren't the ones who decide to transition care to comfort care

by Anonymous 1 week ago

No quality of life to you. They may believe otherwise. "Healthcare has kept them alive," Is that everyone who seeks emergency medical treatment?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I completely agree with you.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

in Oregon we have legal physician assisted suicide. I guess I don't like the term euthenasia as it implies doing something against someone's will, specifically allowing them to die when they don't want to. But I don't get why "right to die" isn't legal everywhere.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Oregon is a bastion of forward thinkers with compassion. The west coast in general is absolute tits.

by santino64 1 week ago

The cost of living crisis, fentanyl addiction homeless encampments may beg to differ.

by Brobel 1 week ago

Euthanasia literally translates to "good death". It has nothing to do with someones willingness or lack thereof.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

This rings true to me. The high-level ways we talk about life, suffering, and death in our society is disingenuous and often juvenile.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yes! Thank you for articulating this. Lots of our art and media seem to perpetuate these superficial ideas

by Anonymous 1 week ago

3-5 times a week is brutal.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Okay? You're speaking about Late Stage Dementia and these people typically have a DNR. What do you want anyone to do?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Quality of life tends to increase lifespan.

by UnderstandingBig 1 week ago

It is natural to fear death the most when our quality of life is highest. Fear of death tends to erode our quality of life, as we exploit it to enslave and oppress one another. Decreased quality of life erodes our fear of death. When enough people no longer fear death, there is widespread violence. This is how humans experience nature's boom and bust cycle.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Interesting

by Anonymous 1 week ago

If we lived for 300 years, we would most likely not have kids until ~100 years old, and they would have their kids after ~100 years old. So population wouldn't explode, in theory.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

All we have is quantity, more hours of work, more bills, more things consuming every moment of our day, more headaches, more stress. All this while less time with our families, less time to breathe, less time to think to prepare, less time to enjoy anything and less time for peace.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It goes the other way as well. I find a lot of people that are anti-abortion tend to only care about keeping the fetus alive, and don't seem to think/care much about the repercussions of raising a life that was never wanted, and the psychological and societal problems of the individual because of this

by Minimum-Chipmunk-250 1 week ago

I'm going to double down on your opinion by saying that often, the reason that people's lives are needlessly prolonged is because some family member who is next of kin insists on keeping them alive and miserable for their own selfish reasons. They don't want to see them go and insist they continue living in misery for their sake.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I feel like you could have worded that better.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

how so?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

"We overvalue length of life and undervalue quality of life" would fix it for you. As worded it sounds like you want to reduce the amount of people alive so the quality of the lives of those remaining goes up.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yes. 🥸

by Garrison59 1 week ago

On that Thanos Grindset

by Anonymous 1 week ago

OK, point taken.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

My grandmother lived to be 103. The last 8 years were not good

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Thats basically what social services/government programs do with homeless addicts, we can't force them to make a change and we can't actually help them live a better life without them fixing themselves. So all we do is try to keep them alive long enough that they make change But I don't think it's an either or situation, it's just that change has to come from within (unless you're down with fascist control over people), but food and medical care can come from society

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yeah, this is a tough and very real thing. Well put.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I often joke about how the Idiocracy overpopulates.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Well everyone has to make this decision for themself. Right now you might look at sick 80 year old and ask yourself why they still want to life. That is completly normal. But when you yourself are at that age then you will probably still want to life. Wanting to survive is part of human nature and it is very hard to fight that. Even when you know that death might be a better alternative.

by Mental-Bet-2644 1 week ago

yeah and I know plenty of 80+ year olds who are in good shape to be honest

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I often wonder how popular Futurama phone booths would be.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Midsommar seemed to have a simple solution for getting old

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Consciousness, it's a hell of a drug.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I totally agree with this. My partner's Grandmother is in an advanced care home. We were passing through the city the home is in our way to a different town last week, so we paid her a visit. Every time I go into one of the places, I just feel depressed. It's like watching zombies. All of them are barely coherent, wheelchair bound, they can barely speak, barely eat, etc. etc. I never want my kids (if I choose to have any) to see me like that. I never want to live like that. If I hit my late 70s - early 80s and I'm not in constant, unmanageable pain, I still have living friends/family, I can still go on short walks and short drives, I can still eat and drink food I actually like, and if I'm still with it, great. If I get to that stage, and I'm completely dependent, unable to do something even as simple as walk to the nearest park to have a coffee and sit on the bench and read a book, and spend my day getting ferried around from the common room to my private room, I'll euthanize myself.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

This is why I'm very pro assisted suicide program in Canada. My grandma used to and it was nice. My grandpa suffered through terminal cancer for years. It was bad. My grandma one day got terminal bone cancer and she decided on her own terms when to go. My last memory of her is full of laughs and smiles. My last memory of my grandpa is him in a hospital bed spasming out looking at me before he passed. This is why I'm pro assisted suicide. What's the point of prolonging inevitable suffering?

by No_Highlight 1 week ago

I would rather be alive and miserable than dead.

by Striking_Oven1133 1 week ago

I'm gonna get raked over the coals for this, but I think it is at least somewhat a product of society becoming more secular. Religion has a boatload of problems, but the one thing I've always agreed with is the belief that there is something more beyond this life. Death isn't something to fear because it's not the end. People that don't believe in any sort of afterlife could be 100% right, but I also think it is partially why people cling to life at the end. That's all they have left in existence.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It's a lot easier to measure quantity of life than quality. It makes sense to focus on the thing that is more tangible and easily measurable, because it's a lot harder to see whether your efforts are improvements and worth your time on the less measurable case.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Look at how long Americans are willing to sit in their car staring at taillights because they don't want to sit on a bus or rail car with others. They love the low QOL

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I drive 15 minutes each way to work to avoid commuting in an over crowded bus for 90 minutes each way. Driving is far faster, more comfortable, and more enjoyable than public transit. You may live in a place where driving is terrible but it is an order of magnitude better in a lot of places in North America.

by Ok-Raise 1 week ago

Right, and on public transpo you could be reading a book, checking emails, an infinite number of things other than driving! It like the gravestone should say "he spent a lot of time driving"

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I agree. I love numbers but not placing too much value in them. I wish I personally WAS in a position to do ANYTHING than merely survive in my living situation.

by Top-Estimate4189 1 week ago

I worked in a nursing home for a while and I agree with this to a degree. Sometimes death is the most mercy a person can get. But I also believe we live in a society that overindulges to the point of self destruction. I don't think either extreme is ok.

by Nolanbettie 1 week ago

I don't think you understood what they meant and I don't think you know much about anthropology by the looks of it haha.

by Anonymous 1 week ago