[Aeolun]

> Do we get to look at your personal journals, browser history and hidden photo gallery once you kick the bucket?

No clue, but it certainly won’t be up to me. When I’m dead that’ll all be up to the ones left behind. What point is there in satisfying the wishes of someone that’s already dead? They won’t care any more.

[buran77]

> What point is there in satisfying the wishes of someone that’s already dead?

I'd say the law is a good reference for that. Some countries legislate inheritance and related topics different from others. Some let the person decide exactly what happens with their inheritance and under which conditions, others have more generic rules to go to the next of kin and don't have the concept of wishes.

[nullhole]

Not to be too aloof, but if the future doesn't care about the past, why should the past care about the future?

[ptero]

"Does not care" is not the case here. Folks usually do care about the wishes of their ancestors and take those into account. But when there is a clear conflict between the wishes of the living and the wishes of the dead, the living win. This is normal and healthy and does not indicate indifference. My 2c.

[BEEdwards]

considering how fast we're speed running climate change I don't even think the present cares about the future...

[thfuran]

There's no symmetry there. The future can be changed. The past can't.

[bluerooibos]

> What point is there in satisfying the wishes of someone that's already dead?

Well, that's why wills exist.

If you decided to split your wealth between your grandchildren when you passed away, should that wish be discarded now because you're dead so who cares?

[Aeolun]

Of course not, but that has more to do with making things workable for the living (e.g. no constant fights over inheritance) than with the wishes of the dead.

[etc-hosts]

Billionaires spend a lot of time and effort in managing their money from beyond the grave.

[Dalewyn]

>What point is there in satisfying the wishes of someone that’s already dead?

Because you're (hopefully!) not an asshole of a human being?

If the dying wish of a man costs you nothing to execute, why not? Men are brought into this world regardless of their wishes, can't men at least exit this plane of existence according to their wishes?

[CogitoCogito]

> If the dying wish of a man costs you nothing to execute, why not?

That’s not a very good argument in the case in question. The sons made money by publishing the book.

[Aeolun]

> If the dying wish of a man costs you nothing to execute, why not?

Sure, but this is for the satisfaction and closure of the living, not for the dead. The dead aren’t satisfied, or anything else really.

[moralestapia]

> What point is there in satisfying the wishes of someone that’s already dead?

Because the concept of honor should transcend death, come on.

[thfuran]

Should I get to register my intention to always vote for a particular political party and have those votes counted in every election regardless of whether I'm still alive?

[irrational]

What exactly is honor and who's honor are we talking about?

[vonjuice]

Would you say that honor is worth more than now having the works of Kafka available for all of humanity to read?

What would human kind have gained from not having read The Metamorphosis or The Trial and so many others?

[coldtea]

>Would you say that honor is worth more than now having the works of Kafka available for all of humanity to read?

I made this argument in this thread, but come to think of it there's an opposite argument too:

If honor was worth more, Kafka's works describing life as a hellish landscape of bureucratic indifference, betrayal, control, and alienation, wouldn't have been as descriptive of the state of humanity.

>What would human kind have gained from not having read The Metamorphosis or The Trial and so many others?

If they have gained honor, that would have been worth 1000 Trials and Metamorphosis.

If they haven't, and just read them violating Kafka's request, they'd be the person The Trial and Metamorphosis protested about, just another cog in the machinery of humilliation and degradation.

[vonjuice]

I did not know much context about the specifics, and I just informed myself, and I have to see I entirely disagree with you.

Betrayal, control and alienation are exactly what informs Kafka's request. Faith (in his friend, in art) and openness are what inspired his friend not to obey Kafka's wish born out of that alienation and shame.

Bureaucracy never enters into this at all. There is no humiliation, Kafka is considered to be one of the greatest writers ever.

First of all, the request was in a letter. His friend (they were friends for decades) found the letter, it's not like he agreed beforehand. Secondly this friend was a writer himself. No one knows more the embarrassment and shame that can come from looking at one's own art as much as another artist, but this is just inherently the nature of making art, and what are friends for if not to shake us out of that wrong view that we get from our perspective being too close?

Frankly I think you're making lofty claims for their own sake. This is not a matter of "humanity gaining honor", it was a matter of a man believing in his friend's art, and the rest of us benefiting from that "betrayal".

[moralestapia]

>they'd be the person The Trial and Metamorphosis protested about

Nailed it!

[Mistletoe]

Thanks for restoring my faith in HN today. Sometimes I read the most absurd takes here and wonder if it is me that is wrong or crazy.

[sneak]

Dead people cannot be wronged. When someone dies, all obligations to that person are invalidated.

[rightbyte]

Promises are promises. The only fair argument the heirs could do is to claim the father didn't understand his decision to not wanting to publish the script.

[Aeolun]

Yes, but if there’s only one party that can be wronged by breaking the promise (e.g. feeling bad you broke a promise to your dead father), it becomes a bit different.

Sure, most people would feel terrible about doing that. But you would keep that promise out of respect, not because the dead are hurt by breaking it.

[sneak]

Promises to non-entities aren’t promises anymore.

[sanitycheck]

Uh-huh. So it might be OK to, for example, construct an animatronic human centipede out of fresh corpses? Or perhaps not?

[thfuran]

That sounds both unsanitary and wasteful of potentially useful organs. I'd recommend against it.

[Aeolun]

I mean, it would be disrespectful, and probably make a lot of people very unhappy, but it wouldn’t be the dead whose bodies you used.