Will you be this cold when you are dying? What about when your wife and kids are dying?
Maybe I am just a hopeless optimist, but personally, if my wife/kid is dying, I am probably not going to say "BAI!1!", rip the cord out of the electrical outlet, and grin as I watch his/her eyes close for the last time. Ever. Instead, I am going to spend a lot of money to hopefully avoid ever seeing that. Because while you can always make more money, we can't clone people yet.
He fought cancer over the course of 7 years, and it sounds like his quality of life was reasonable for most of that time.
I think pretty much everyone would rather die than linger on in a hospital bed without hope. At a certain point, utility of future life becomes negative and returning to a positive state is not possible. The problem is that it's not so clear cut and obvious at the time that this is the case. A big part of this is that doctors often want to save the patient at all costs, and often deceive themselves as to the patient's prospects. So often even the patient has no idea how bad the situation is.
but you're talking about spending your own money, not mine! euthanize you, and donate the money to a charity helping starving 3rd world kids get a chance at a whole life.
My own death doesn't scare or disturb me. It might happen suddenly tomorrow, or in 50 years, or in a million (if anti-aging succeeds). I'm sufficiently curious about what happens next not to be upset about the concept. (Although death is weird; I've never done it before.)
On the other hand, I'd fight for a child or a (healthy, not doomed to die soon) relative with everything I've got. Which is why it surprises the hell out of me that health insurance companies aren't getting the Joseph Stack treatment all over the place over rescissions and life caps.
You're genetically programmed to protect children. Doctors and hospitals know this and exploit it. Unfortunately children with cancer or birth defects are money sinkholes.
Spartan parents would kill children with defects. In contrast we keep physically and genetically damaged children alive (or on life-support in the case of cancer) at much cost to ourselves and at peril to our offspring. Would you want your daughter to marry a man who carried a life-threatening gene? Did she? That's what we're doing. Maybe someday we'll be able to fix these problems, but today we cannot.
Maybe I am just a hopeless optimist, but personally, if my wife/kid is dying, I am probably not going to say "BAI!1!", rip the cord out of the electrical outlet, and grin as I watch his/her eyes close for the last time. Ever. Instead, I am going to spend a lot of money to hopefully avoid ever seeing that. Because while you can always make more money, we can't clone people yet.