Sep 302013
 

sati01Sometimes people try to imply that those who don’t want to die don’t care about others. For example, if put this way:

“I’m dating a guy who wants to be frozen and wake up in 1000 years and plans to find a new girlfriend then.”

We sound pretty awful. Which is the entire purpose of these “How can you imagine living without your partner?” questions. They are not SERIOUS questions, they are intentional libel. This is evident if you think about them for even a few minutes.

The asker of this question knows perfectly well how someone can go on living without their partner because they see it all the time. Even the happiest and strongest relationships still almost always end with one of the two still alive. And that person goes on living, and finds happiness again. It’d be like accusing your grandma of never really loving your grandpa because a few years after he died she was still alive, and had even had the gall to remarry. The question “how can you imagine being with someone else?” is faux-outrage. It’s moralizing in its most contemptible form.

I don’t WANT to live on without my lover. But I know it won’t end the world.

I can’t force anyone to take a life-saving medical intervention any more than I can force someone to be cryonically preserved. I would be sad if my partner didn’t take a life-saving medical treatment to prevent her from dying at 40, just like I’d be sad if she didn’t get frozen so she could live to 1000 with me. But I wouldn’t kill myself if she died at 40 either, so that’s not a reasonable reason to ask me to die before 1000.

To say otherwise is to endorse Sati

  2 Responses to “Fire and Ice”

  1. I was so expecting this to be about Game of Thrones. As a bit of a side thing, do you think that perhaps people losing their life long significant other can actually have a negative result on someones own lifespan. I think it can but have no rational observations that I have personally made for thinking so.

    • Of course! I don’t have peer-reviewed literature on hand to link to, but it’s commonly reported that one’s expected lifespan drops severely when a long-term SO dies. Some people may even consider it a good enough reason to end their own life. I just don’t think it’s legitimate to tell someone they *must* do so.

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