• 11 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Euthanasia for humans is a difficult ethical dilemma. On the one hand, being allowed to die seems like a rather fundamental personal autonomy, on the other, it risks producing some very perverse economic incentives in both healthcare and society.

    Nova Scotia cancer patient who said she was asked if she was aware of assisted dying as an option twice as she underwent mastectomy surgeries.

    The question “came up in completely inappropriate places”, she told the National Post.

    Canadian news outlets have also reported on cases where people with disabilities have considered assisted dying due to lack of housing or disability benefits.

    The incentives, specifically, involve a slippery slope where it becomes more acceptable for society in general to push somebody considered a “burden” towards assisted dying as a way of getting rid of them. Terminally ill, elderly, disabled, mentally ill, unemployed etc. people may find the institutions that support them slowly become dismantled with society then proceeding to offer assisted dying as a “solution” when existence as a consequence becomes more and more miserable.

    This might be a tad cynical, but I consider the risk of this ultimate betrayal of the most vulnerable in society as a consequence of legalized euthanasia so large that it outweighs the potential moral benefits.



  • I think you are highly oversimplifying the situation.

    The rapid fall of the Assad regime means the end of the Syrian civil war, which is a good thing. Syria has been plagued by war for more than a decade now, perhaps some peace will finally settle and the millions of Syrian refugees will finally return to their homes. As for what happens after, it remains to be seen. The rebels are no monolith, they contain everything from Turkish backed mercenaries, jihadists to mostly secular Syrian anti-Assad nationalists.

    Those who simply assume that the rebels are wholly “good” are no doubt naive, but there is certainly hope that the more reasonable elements of the movement will prevail and institute a more free society, perhaps by cooperating with the Kurdish autonomous zone in the east. If that happens however, or something else like a taliban-esque islamist theocratic tyranny is instituted instead remains to be seen.





  • I would say that demographic tensions in the US, colloquially “american racism” primarily have a particular flavour - namely focusing on skin colour. In other parts of the world demographic tensions come in many other forms. Between Europeans for instance it is more often cultural and religious tensions (secular/atheist vs religious, protestant vs catholic, germanic vs latin etc).

    For each region and people these sorts of tensions tend to have a basis in different historic catalysts. In Israel for instance, there are jewish-arab tensions with a long and complicated history, interreligious tensions (christians - muslims - religious jews - secular/atheist), intra-jewish ethnic tensions (mizrahi-sephardim-ashkenazi) and many others. Similar tensions can be found in other countries in the middle east.

    The problem with applying the american lens to these other areas is that it will miss important aspects and risks exacerbating problems by applying inappropriate remedies.