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I'm not in the US. But it seems like a public public policy question in the US as well - if any of the reports on the web are accurate, at least. I would like

I'm not in the US. But it seems like a public public policy question in the US as well - if any of the reports on the web are accurate, at least. I would like to hear from you how does a unconscious person decide. The family decides for them, no? That's my assumption, so that's why I am talking about people's grandmothers.

kerkeslager 6y ago
> I would like to hear from you how does a unconscious person decide. The family decides for them, no? I'm not sure why you think this is a rebuttal to anything I said--you're the person who said: "The point is that you can't decide for others". Is your grandmother not an other you're deciding for? Ideally, the way an unconscious person decides is by deciding before they're unconscious and writing it down in a living will. Since you've said, "I know she wishes to at least try", ostensibly your grandmother has at least told you her what she wants verbally. But absent that, I don't believe that "you can't decide for others" because de facto many families are put in the position where they do decide for others--their loved ones who didn't leave any indication of what they wanted in these sorts of situations. My objection isn't to you bringing up grandmothers. My objection is to you framing it in a one-sided way, like, "So, if that was your grandmother and you had a choice of giving her a 10% chance, you wouldn't?" That doesn't acknowledge the fact that there are lots of very good reasons why one might consider not giving their grandmother an extra 10% chance of living in a difficult situation.
- TomMarius 6y ago
  Well what I meant by others was unrelated/unknown people, especially politicians deciding about "numbers". Sorry I worded it wrong, I am used to seeing a family as a singular unit. There definitely are people who do not want to try and my goal is not to force treatment on them, but to not allow others (see above) to prevent them from getting that treatment.
  - kerkeslager 6y ago
    Okay, but as far as I know, nobody wants to prevent people from getting life extension treatment if they want it. So I'm not sure why you felt you had to make that point. And again, you said: > So, if that was your grandmother and you had a choice of giving her a 10% chance, you wouldn't? That's a pretty odd way of "wording it wrong", if what you intended to say was "Families should make the choice, not governments."
    - TomMarius 6y ago
      I was answering to people saying that because the chance is only 10% then maybe it's not worth it, and that's why I made that point, I don't understand why are you talking about some unrelated life extension stuff, this is infectious disease and its treatment. I wanted to personalize it because then it's harder to say no compared to talking about abstract dehumanized numbers, or unknown and unrelated people (from policy maker perspective); and I thought it's obvious that "do not treat" should be respected. English is not my native language, I will do better next time.

kerkeslager 6y ago

> I would like to hear from you how does a unconscious person decide. The family decides for them, no? I'm not sure why you think this is a rebuttal to anything I said--you're the person who said: "The point is that you can't decide for others". Is your grandmother not an other you're deciding for? Ideally, the way an unconscious person decides is by deciding before they're unconscious and writing it down in a living will. Since you've said, "I know she wishes to at least try", ostensibly your grandmother has at least told you her what she wants verbally. But absent that, I don't believe that "you can't decide for others" because de facto many families are put in the position where they do decide for others--their loved ones who didn't leave any indication of what they wanted in these sorts of situations. My objection isn't to you bringing up grandmothers. My objection is to you framing it in a one-sided way, like, "So, if that was your grandmother and you had a choice of giving her a 10% chance, you wouldn't?" That doesn't acknowledge the fact that there are lots of very good reasons why one might consider not giving their grandmother an extra 10% chance of living in a difficult situation.

TomMarius 6y ago
Well what I meant by others was unrelated/unknown people, especially politicians deciding about "numbers". Sorry I worded it wrong, I am used to seeing a family as a singular unit. There definitely are people who do not want to try and my goal is not to force treatment on them, but to not allow others (see above) to prevent them from getting that treatment.
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  Okay, but as far as I know, nobody wants to prevent people from getting life extension treatment if they want it. So I'm not sure why you felt you had to make that point. And again, you said: > So, if that was your grandmother and you had a choice of giving her a 10% chance, you wouldn't? That's a pretty odd way of "wording it wrong", if what you intended to say was "Families should make the choice, not governments."
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    I was answering to people saying that because the chance is only 10% then maybe it's not worth it, and that's why I made that point, I don't understand why are you talking about some unrelated life extension stuff, this is infectious disease and its treatment. I wanted to personalize it because then it's harder to say no compared to talking about abstract dehumanized numbers, or unknown and unrelated people (from policy maker perspective); and I thought it's obvious that "do not treat" should be respected. English is not my native language, I will do better next time.