[antisthenes]

One thing about keeping sick people alive that financials don't cover - keeping up the social contract.

A society must take care of its weak and old, unless you want these people to reneg on the contract and start being destructive. Marginalizing and neglecting a social group is step 1 towards fostering terrorism.

[bittercynic]

>must take care of its weak and old

Agreed, but taking care doesn't necessarily have to mean extending life as long as possible, all other factors be damned.

In some cases close to me, I believe people were kept alive through treatments that they were unable to consent to, and I believed they experienced a lot of extremely unpleasant things at the end of their lives for no benefit, and were robbed of the chance to say a peaceful and dignified goodbye.

[AnimalMuppet]

Yes... but not at unlimited cost.

In a society with limited resources, is keeping one old person alive worth 10 child/years of education? Worth heart surgery for a 50-year-old? Worth basic medical care for a dozen poor families?

Yes, the social contract says that we have to care for old people, including medically. It also says we have to educate children, and care for the poor, and provide medical care for everyone else. None of those claims on the social contract gets an unlimited budget, because the other claims are also out there, and society doesn't have unlimited resources.

[derbOac]

The tricky part though is everyone will be part of that group unless they die young.

So reneging on the social contract with the old means reneging on the social contract with essentially everyone.

"Them" being destructive in response doesn't necessarily mean 85 year-olds burning things down, what it means is the 20, 30, and 40 year-olds seeing what's coming and burning things down.

[s1artibartfast]

what makes it reneging? People in 1924 didnt have fancy end of life care. People today dont have future technology.

Why cant the social contract be an honest and up front discussion?

[pjc50]

You're not going to see a rise in elderly and disabled terrorists. No, the elderly have far more subtle ways of being destructive at the ballot box.

The politics of infirmity always comes with some categories of who's allowed to be infirm, and who can safely be blamed for their own infirmity. Quite a lot of people advocate for worse treatment of the weak not to save money particularly but because they think it's ""deserved"".

[jncfhnb]

Can you point to a single example of this occurring I history?

Because I can think of none, at the individual level or societal level, excluding explicit mental illnesses which feel like a cop out.

Aside from Jigsaw, that is.

[arp242]

Should we spend all expenditures on healthcare and keeping sick people alive? We could do that. And that would almost certainly keep more sick people alive.

Of course real trade-offs exist here. It's a finite world, with finite resources.

[bdcravens]

Correct, but this is why we need living wills, and for those without them, we need sane and humane defaults. There is a point where being alive is its own form of suffering.

[hypeatei]

Life is inherently suffering, close to death or not.