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> You really don't want to end up with dementia and related illnesses, it totally sours everyone's view of you. This seems like such an absurd conclusion to th

• sillyfluke 11mo ago
  The parent described someone who went above and beyond the norm of other members in his community in his constant positive interaction with his neighbors, collegues, and former students. It is highly likely this kind of person would give a considerable shit if he knew he would become a nightmare for the same community. There may be others reading in the thread who also can relate to the personality of the teacher and may care about their affect on others when they are "not themselves".
  • dns_snek 11mo ago
    There's a difference between "I don't want the disease because I don't want to become a menace to others" (what you're saying) and "I don't want the disease because it would make me lose social status" (what the original commenter said).
    • deleted 11mo ago
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    • wjnc 11mo ago
      I am left wondering. Can’t people (in general) understand that Alzheimer’s changes a person fundamentally, irreversibly and forever until death follows? Many positive traits of personality disappear, the negative starts to dominate, I think mainly from fear and a subconscious awareness of what is being lost. That’s pretty much 101 of grieving when a loved one is struck with Alzheimer’s. The person has left. You continue caring for a body / a different person because of the relation you have to a former them. But please don’t connect the persons past deeds and being to the actions with Alzheimer’s. For myself: I hope for assisted suicide before Alzheimer’s. I value me for me. Not-me I don’t value, and Alzheimer’s does not improve not-me over me. But people who cannot separate me from not-me (with whom not-me loses status for me)… I don’t care about them! (Philosophical mood.)
      • whatshisface 11mo ago
        Very few people would choose to be unpopular, and unfortunately this type of behavior is decided by brain function, things like depression, from the beginning.
      • wuschel 11mo ago
        Of course people understand that. IMHO it is important to see which context people are coming from. Different culture, social acceptance, historic treatment options, etc. influence the response. Also, dementia is not the only disease with a strong degenerative impact on character and behaviour e.g there is schizophrenia et al. What is common with many of these conditions that there is a strong individual component of progression and morbidity. It is great that you have the option to make a choice for yourself. Others might decide to make other choices.
    • ToucanLoucan 11mo ago
      Either and or both? I don’t want to go that way either. If I start losing my mind to Alzheimer’s or dementia I don’t want to slowly turn unrecognizable to those who love me, fuck that shit. Give me something suitable and I’ll do it my damn self if needs be.
      • dns_snek 11mo ago
        FWIW I agree with you. I want to go out on my own terms if I get that sort of diagnosis. The only major health-related concern I have is that I'll some day experience a traumatic health event that immediately disables me and stops me from making that decision, whether legally (competency) or extralegally. I know there are medical directives that can be put in place but they don't cover everything and they can't compel anyone to end my hypothetical misery, the most they can do is withdraw care.
    • rowanG077 11mo ago
      To me both those things are basically the same.
    • anjel 11mo ago
      There are lots of degenerative diseases particularly striking the various biological systems of the body. But neurodegeneration, whether Glio, ALS or dementia are especially cruel and horrific in that they attack and erode the patient's personality, a fundament of individuality and self.
• wazdra 11mo ago
  Valuing how others remember you is definitely a motivation in life for many. I respect that it is not your own, respect that it may be mine. It is by no means "absurd".
  • lo_zamoyski 11mo ago
    It is absurd because it places subjective opinions over objective goods. This is the vice of “human respect”. Human beings do not have a final say about others. They can opine, but opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one. Sure, it is nice to be remembered well, if you deserve it, but I do not live for the opinions of others. This is slave mentality and pathetic. I care about being good, and if I am hated for that, then so be it. Sad, but better to be hated for being a good person than loved for being a mediocrity or a knave. And to off yourself out of concern with how people remember you is a condemnation of our society, our lack of charity, our lack of magnanimity, and our selfish prioritization of convenience. Full throttle consumerism.
    • tirant 11mo ago
      The definition of good is probably the closest to doing the opposite of inflicting pain on others. There’s very little chance that you will be hated by being good. So definitely behaving or being good is not so different than behaving in a way that other people don’t hate you.
      • beedeebeedee 11mo ago
        > There’s very little chance that you will be hated by being good Jesus, Socrates, anyone who stands up against an immoral hierarchy. Rethink your thought
        • dkural 11mo ago
          To go down this rabbit hole, presumably someone is hating somebody in this immoral hierarchy though? If everyone is happy with everyone, where's the immoral part? I do think the OP is right that in many circumstances of everyday life, being good usually correlates with being appreciated by people you actually have relationships with. Of course, this being real life, there are exceptions. However, while a child may complain and claim they hate you for not letting them have too much candy, they do love and appreciate you in a deeper way for taking care of them.
• dkga 11mo ago
  This. Life is such a precious random occurrence that failing to protect it in the face [dementia|physical disabilities|etc] is the real tragedy.
  • paulryanrogers 11mo ago
    What does protecting life look like when one is literally losing everything about themselves that they value?
  • sillyfluke 11mo ago
    As I mentioned in a another comment, framing it as "how one is remembered" is leading to pointless tangents in this thread. The important point is this: are you causing emotional, psychological, physical distress in the real world to those you care about when you have this disease? Yes or no. That's what I care about. Whether they are able to remember me well despite that, or poorly because of that should be completely secondary.
    • lo_zamoyski 11mo ago
      That’s irrelevant here. What is relevant is that we have a contempt for human life and a lack of charity. The teacher was not at fault for his condition. We should learn magnanimity. Sure, we can think about how the burdens of caring for our family can be lessened as they age, or how we may help reduce that burden for our family, but family does have the duty to care for its members, and to place such considerations above the intrinsic value of human life is very sad indeed.
      • AlexandrB 11mo ago
        > The teacher was not at fault for his condition. We should learn magnanimity. This is equally true of conditions like paranoid schizophrenia or psychopathy. Sometimes a person is just born with wiring that makes you dangerous to others. Does this mean that everyone around them must have the magnanimity and charity to them attacking people at random?
• coldtea 11mo ago
  >This seems like such an absurd conclusion to this, as though the opinions of other people of you are what matter when you functionally lose your personhood and then die. They do matter. Being concerned with how your behavior affects your family or your community, and the opinion they have of you, above your own self-interest, is how good parents, good friends, good citizens, and so on, are made.
  • dns_snek 11mo ago
    > Being concerned with how your behavior affects your family or your community, and the opinion they have of you, above your own self-interest, is how good parents, good friends, good citizens, and so on, are made. You've changed the meaning behind the original comment in a subtle but important way. The original commenter wasn't concerned about their effects on other people, they were concerned about how the disease would ruin their public image. Maybe they didn't mean that but it's what they wrote. This distinction matters because those people whose top priority is their public perception (i.e. social status) are never "good people". It's normal to care about your social status to some degree but it shouldn't be the first thing you consider.
• Noaidi 11mo ago
  My brother had schizophrenia. No one thought well of him. I guess he should have killed himself as well by the logic some are professing on here. Oh, he tried, but he ended up dying of heart disease. > Maybe a better focus would be that there often isn't a good way for a community to manage a person who suddenly becomes irrational because of an illness. Yes, this is the focus. Science has stalled when it comes to neurological disorders. But the response is love and understanding. I do not understand how someone would "sour" on a person because they have an illness. A very absurd conclusion indeed.
  • prmoustache 11mo ago
    Dementia and Alzheimer is not something that can simply be managed throught treatment. It is an inexorable descent into suffering for both the person and its entourage with absolutely zero hope of getting better. At best in the last stages you get very short glimpses of normality within hours of confusions, frustrations, anger and pain. If I am ever diagnosed with one of those, I absolutely want the chance to end my life before I reach a stage I become a burden to my loved ones and can't give a trustable consent. I'd rather go too soon than too late.
    • LorenPechtel 11mo ago
      Yup. Ask me if I want to live. If I'm unable to answer and it's not reasonably expected that I will be able to answer in the future then the answer is no. I am the mind inside, not the body outside. If the mind is gone that's it, the body is worthless.
    • Noaidi 11mo ago
      I’ve had a lot of people suffer in my life from health conditions, ranging from mental illness, heart disease, and cancer. And I’ve had to take care of them all at different times. Did I consider this a burden or a gift? Oh, it was hard, but does that mean it’s a burden? If you think you’ll be a burden on your loved ones can we really say they’re your loved ones? This is a serious question. If you’re thinking that you’ll be a burden do you think that these people really love you? At least I would want to let them use experimental drugs, or do anything to further the cause of curing Alzheimer’s. But again, this is all far from the original article about an old man who decided to die because well, we don’t really know, he just didn’t see the point of living anymore.
• pas 11mo ago
  the conclusion is true, though obviously the worst part is that this guy spent at least a year in varying states of despair, anger, and even worse psychological terrors. you don't want dementia because it damages and hurts you and everything and everyone around you (my grandpa physically attacked grandma multiple times in his last year)
• ratelimitsteve 11mo ago
  idk man whether the people I love hate me matters to me...
  • deleted 11mo ago
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• carefulfungi 11mo ago
  In my experience having had a parent suffer this way, you lose them before they are dead and you grieve along the way. I can understand the "souring" phrasing - in that there is less affection for the altered person in the present even while feeling a duty for their care and a deep love for who they were. I'm grateful for this story - it's powerful to see examples of autonomy at end of life - and contrasts starkly with the experiences many of us have with aging parents. End of life, at least in the US, can be deeply flawed and misery for all.
• fatata123 11mo ago
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• idiotsecant 11mo ago
  It's not so absurd. The only afterlife that exists (in a materialist sense) is what other people think of you. The only part of 'you' still around us quite literally just a memory in someone's head. That's not nothing. Whether we should care about that or not is a philosophical conversation, I suppose. I would take the side of if we care about what people think about us when we are alive, surely we should care what they think of us when we are dead. Otherwise, we only value their opinion of us as a function of what they will do for/to us, which seems not great.
• doetoe 11mo ago
  To more precisely represent the words of the person you're replying to, you should have said "memories" not "opinions".
• grandedogg 11mo ago
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• abustamam 11mo ago
  My wife's grandma passed some years back due to dementia/Alzheimers. Her final memories of her were of struggling to change her diaper because she insisted "she didn't need a change" and being really racist. I really don't want my family's last memories of me to be that. Yeah my wife remembers when her grandma was of sound mind, and has some good memories with her back then, but they stopped due to the disease. Everyone should be entitled to their own opinions on how they want to be remembered. I would rather be allowed to pass in sane mind.
• alex77456 11mo ago
  This is a maximalist view, in reality not feasible or scalable. Of course this is what we need to strive for, but aiming to decrease 'total unhappiness' with what we have, is a rational, if somewhat cynical, aim. But even at aface value, more rational long-term approach would be to treat it, surely