A lot of people don't understand what really goes on in care homes. When you keep someone alive and subject them to physical abuse, neglect, degradation and suffering, that's not care, it's torture.

They should be called torture facilities. Not a place you want to end up in. https://twitter.com/RokoMijicUK/status/1343967647126462464

A reasonable objection is that these are only "bad" care homes. But as long as someone is getting old and losing their sanity and motor skills, torture is almost the inevitable outcome. The human body under the influence of modern medicine doesn't end, it just breaks....

... and that process of breaking is inherently a form of torture for the person undergoing it. Even with the best care home in the world (not one of the ones where you are abused and neglected), you will lose your dignity.

You've been a successful man all your life. Now in the last few years you're going to sh*t yourself in front of a strange young woman, drool, vomit, forget who you are, develop disgusting sores, etc. And that's in an excellent care home.

There are choices that are better than this. You get to 85, or 88 and you have a voluntary viking burial. Take very strong drugs and go out the way people used to, on a burning longship.

You can freeze yourself. If a lot of people did this, the cost would be extremely low. And you might get a trip to the future!

This is so obvious that it's almost strange that anyone would take the other side. Why does anyone disagree with me?

Two reasons:

(1) In the past we didn't have modern medical care. Caring for the elderly meant giving them food and shelter.

Food and shelter will keep you going to 70, or maybe 80 if you're in good health.

People have an instinct that it is good to care for the elderly because of this.

And I agree! It is good to give elderly people food and shelter that get them through their "golden years" comfortably.

But when someone goes into a care home, the "golden years" are over. The person's beneficial, positive-utility life is over and the torture begins.

But this is not obvious to us. We didn't evolve with modern medicine! We don't understand that at some point, the utility of further medical care becomes negative! It becomes torture!

The techniques that they used at Guantanamo Bay - degradation, neglect, use of female interrogators to break a man's dignity are essentially the same as what goes on in a bad care home.

People are saving up for their whole lives to be tortured for the last few years.

Choose wisely

(2) Second reason: smart people are objecting on pragmatic grounds. euthanizing the elderly would create bad incentives for greedy relatives. That's true. But not insoluble, just the starting point for a conversation.

"What struck me was the indifference most of the staff had to the residents, 𝐢𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐥𝐲." https://twitter.com/BartlettChrisJ/status/1344281463068344320