Kübler-Ross took a job as an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago. … She began a series of seminars, interviewing patients about what it felt like to die. … Many of Kübler-Ross’s peers at the hospital felt that the seminars were exploitative and cruel, ghoulishly forcing patients to contemplate their own deaths. At the time, doctors believed that people didn’t want or need to know how ill they were. They couched the truth in euphemisms, or told the bad news only to the family. Kübler-Ross saw this indirection as a form of cowardice that ran counter to the basic humanity a doctor owed his patients. ….
You asked which truths were worth hiding. Nick's "information hazards" paper is all about when it is worth hiding the truth. Have you worked through his lists?
Robin: *obviously* a huge part of why we're not frank about everything is selfish reasons. Even if I thought I would be making the universe a better place by being frank about everything, that's a larger sacrifice than I'm willing to make.
People seem to be missing the point that I was trying to focus on comparing being frank about death to being frank about other things. If you say we should be frank about death, and death is on the face of it a pretty good case for hiding, then why don't you think we should be frank about everything?
"Although nobody makes a brief for ignorance generally, there are many special cases in which ignorance is cultivated - in order, for example, to protect national security, sexual innocence, jury impartiality; to preserve anonymity for patients, clients, reviewers, and voters; to create suspense in films and novels; to protect trade secrets; to measure the placebo effect and avoid various research biases; and to create mental challenges for gaming and study."
This New York Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2009... , offers a look at the issues facing doctors when they tell patients they are dying. As Seth says above, patients are sometimes unwilling and more or less unable to process the news. The article implies that sometimes the doctors leave it at that, and allow patients to cling to false hope if it brings them comfort. I don't know how that squares with the perception that doctors today always deliver the brutal truth.
So isn’t imminent death a great examples of a truth that makes folks feel very bad without much helping decisions?
not really. a patient who doesn't really know s/he is dying is deprived of the opportunity to make informed decisions about how much treatment s/he needs/wants to endure.
doctors themselves say that terminal patients choosing aggressive treatments often don't even realize that they're dying and regret their choices later.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die"
What about suicide? Wouldn't it be better to tell friends and family that their loved one died in some sort of accident than taking their own lives? This seems like a situation where many people can even event and convince themselves of some sort of lie. One famous case is Turing's death and his mother's belief that it was an accident.
Afterthought: the first kind of case may just be a special case of the second, since one of the big benefits of following a policy may be having others believe you are following the policy to the best of your ability.
Most supercentenarians ought to be reasonably aware that they are likely to die in about ten years; we don't do much to hide this truth from them.
Nevertheless, many of them will avoid thinking about that every day, and their friends would also not confront them with their uncomfortable circumstances. Why should your example be any different?
Here's a game theory-inspired answer: we want to be frequently, though not always, uncertain as to the truth when it's in our interest to have a policy of responding to certain situations in certain ways, but not interest to act in that way *every* time such a situation occurs. For example, it might be in your interest to have a policy of shunning people who dislike you, but if you were always able to determine who strongly dislikes you, it might greatly impede your social interactions too much. Or: it's in your interest to have a policy of getting a divorce if your spouse cheats, but on some particular occasion, following that policy might not be in your interests.
Ignorance can also be in your interest if people will behave in a way more favorable to you if they believe you to be ignorant, and actual ignorance is the best way to avoid that.
What if you knew you learned you had a disease that would kill you in about ten years? Would you want to think about that every day, or would you mostly want to not think about it?
Would you want all your friends to ask you once a month "How is it going?" or would you keep it quiet to most of them?
How about "War is a Racket"? It was written by Major General Smedley Butler.
You asked which truths were worth hiding. Nick's "information hazards" paper is all about when it is worth hiding the truth. Have you worked through his lists?
Robin: *obviously* a huge part of why we're not frank about everything is selfish reasons. Even if I thought I would be making the universe a better place by being frank about everything, that's a larger sacrifice than I'm willing to make.
I wasn't frank about war after my brother joined the army. I didn't send him a copy of War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, as it could do harm.
Robin, you do look fat in that dress.
People seem to be missing the point that I was trying to focus on comparing being frank about death to being frank about other things. If you say we should be frank about death, and death is on the face of it a pretty good case for hiding, then why don't you think we should be frank about everything?
"Although nobody makes a brief for ignorance generally, there are many special cases in which ignorance is cultivated - in order, for example, to protect national security, sexual innocence, jury impartiality; to preserve anonymity for patients, clients, reviewers, and voters; to create suspense in films and novels; to protect trade secrets; to measure the placebo effect and avoid various research biases; and to create mental challenges for gaming and study."
- http://www.nickbostrom.com/...
This New York Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2009... , offers a look at the issues facing doctors when they tell patients they are dying. As Seth says above, patients are sometimes unwilling and more or less unable to process the news. The article implies that sometimes the doctors leave it at that, and allow patients to cling to false hope if it brings them comfort. I don't know how that squares with the perception that doctors today always deliver the brutal truth.
So isn’t imminent death a great examples of a truth that makes folks feel very bad without much helping decisions?
not really. a patient who doesn't really know s/he is dying is deprived of the opportunity to make informed decisions about how much treatment s/he needs/wants to endure.
doctors themselves say that terminal patients choosing aggressive treatments often don't even realize that they're dying and regret their choices later.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die"
I've seen things
What about suicide? Wouldn't it be better to tell friends and family that their loved one died in some sort of accident than taking their own lives? This seems like a situation where many people can even event and convince themselves of some sort of lie. One famous case is Turing's death and his mother's belief that it was an accident.
Afterthought: the first kind of case may just be a special case of the second, since one of the big benefits of following a policy may be having others believe you are following the policy to the best of your ability.
Most supercentenarians ought to be reasonably aware that they are likely to die in about ten years; we don't do much to hide this truth from them.
Nevertheless, many of them will avoid thinking about that every day, and their friends would also not confront them with their uncomfortable circumstances. Why should your example be any different?
Here's a game theory-inspired answer: we want to be frequently, though not always, uncertain as to the truth when it's in our interest to have a policy of responding to certain situations in certain ways, but not interest to act in that way *every* time such a situation occurs. For example, it might be in your interest to have a policy of shunning people who dislike you, but if you were always able to determine who strongly dislikes you, it might greatly impede your social interactions too much. Or: it's in your interest to have a policy of getting a divorce if your spouse cheats, but on some particular occasion, following that policy might not be in your interests.
Ignorance can also be in your interest if people will behave in a way more favorable to you if they believe you to be ignorant, and actual ignorance is the best way to avoid that.
By this logic, why doesn't it make even more sense to lie to someone about how much pain they will die in?
What if you knew you learned you had a disease that would kill you in about ten years? Would you want to think about that every day, or would you mostly want to not think about it?
Would you want all your friends to ask you once a month "How is it going?" or would you keep it quiet to most of them?