[wjxgxey]

pfft just illusion of control theatre for people who are scared of death. Throw in some opportunists exploiting it. Just watch what happens if there are unintended side effects. Its okay to die guys. Everyone does it. The sky doesnt fall.

[zdragnar]

Dementia is a terrible way to go, both for the people who get it and for their loved ones who are with them.

One day, my grandmother forgot English when my uncle was visiting and kept speaking in her native tongue and got so mad because nobody understood her.

That was one of the few amusing anecdotes from get decline. The rest are just depressing.

Watching your father cry because he went to the hardware store and couldn't remember how to get home and had to ask an employee to call his family for him, for example, was particularly tough.

[wjxgxey]

You know why that happens? Because the health care system slows natural decay rate of some subsystems (via pills/surgeries etc) while having nothing to offer for other subsystems. So rather than all subsystems decaying together we produce this mismatched state.

[zdc1]

You can't really blame the healthcare system for this. Alzheimer's and Dementia existed before modern medicine. The reality is that many fit, active, and otherwise healthy people will hit their 60s and 70s and will experience cognitive decline and Alzheimer's.

[wjxgxey]

They hit their 60s and 70s because the health care system is good at fixing certain physical issues not bugs accumulating in the brain. The brain just like your OS cant just keep getting patched forever. So currently people just keep patching older wearing out hardware without any software upgrades available.

[temp_praneshp]

That's the response you have to the parent's anecdotes?

I hope that one day you are not sad and angry anymore.

[AdamN]

That would happen even if there was no medicine at all. It's not like in the natural world disease and dying is smooth. Individual systems fall apart and then the rest of the organism dies slowly or quickly.

[silisili]

As much as I love this forum, the one thing I learned to never say is that it's normal and even good that people die (usually on threads about people trying to live forever).

I've never received such hateful responses on any other topic.

[wjxgxey]

Keep saying it. They will get used to it. Just like the earth is round. Thats how they "learn" most things in the first place. Not by discovering it by themseleves, but through repeating what the majority around them say.

[zdragnar]

A few generations back, it was expected that half of your children would die before they reached their fifth birthday.

Death is inevitable, but that doesn't mean we need to accept that all the things that could kill us are also inevitable.

[wjxgxey]

There is no we. You can talk about what you accept or dont accept for yourself. Not for anyone else unless you take responsibility for their life if something bad happens. And currently when some unintended side effect happens or quality of life degenates guess what the health care system does? Just gives you more bills and asks you to talk to their lawyers. Its very easy to talk about "we" have to do this and that. But the test is always who takes responsibility after things dont go the way they think.

[david_shi]

If everyone had this attitude we'd still be dying of tuberculosis and countless other diseases.