Sarco suicide capsule ‘passes legal review’ in Switzerland

&gt; <i>P.N.: Currently a doctor or doctors need to be involved to prescribe the sodium pentobarbital and to confirm the person’s mental capacity. We want to remove any kind of psychiatric review from the process and allow the individual to control the method themselves.<p>Our aim is to develop an artificial intelligence screening system to establish the person’s mental capacity.</i><p>That sounds like a terrible idea. There are valid concerns about doctor involvement in the process, but AI won&#x27;t fix those.

Tangentially, this is my frustration with the death penalty - it&#x27;s way too complicated &amp; error-prone when much simpler, reliable, and humane methods are available like this.<p>Humans are easy to kill, and it&#x27;s not hard to do so humanely.<p>(Yes, there are many other problems with the death penalty besides the technical execution of it, but you&#x27;d think we could at least do that part right.)

For a second, I thought &quot;capsule&quot; meant &quot;pill.&quot; &quot;Pod&quot; would&#x27;ve been a better word.<p>Obligatory:<p>Does it have &quot;quick and painless&quot;, &quot;slow and horrible&quot;, and &quot;clumsy bludgeoning&quot; settings?<p>What do they do with the bodies?

&gt; A 3D-printed capsule, destined for use in assisted suicide, may legally be operated in Switzerland, according to advice obtained by Exit International, the organisation that developed the ‘Sarco’ machine.<p>&gt; It’s a 3-D printed capsule, activated from the inside by the person intending to die. The machine can be towed anywhere for the death. It can be in an idyllic outdoor setting or in the premises of an assisted suicide organisation, for example.<p>&gt; The person will get into the capsule and lie down. It’s very comfortable. They will be asked a number of questions and when they have answered, they may press the button inside the capsule activating the mechanism in their own time.<p>&gt; The capsule is sitting on a piece of equipment that will flood the interior with nitrogen, rapidly reducing the oxygen level to 1 per cent from 21 per cent. The person will feel a little disoriented and may feel slightly euphoric before they lose consciousness. The whole thing takes about 30 seconds. Death takes place through hypoxia and hypocapnia, oxygen and carbon dioxide deprivation, respectively. There is no panic, no choking feeling.

I&#x27;m glad more options for a peaceful chosen death are becoming available.<p>Between a sudden, unexpected death and dying in pain from a progressive disease, my &quot;ideal&quot; way to die would be chosen death before a progressive disease becomes bad enough to cross some personal threshold of suffering.<p>At the same time, I plan to do whatever I reasonably can to prolong my life (and its quality) for as long as possible.<p>Hopefully by the time this becomes relevant more options like this capsule and others will be readily available.<p>Having said that, his quote about an AI giving you permission to die seems a bit preposterous. The actual method of death he described sounds reasonable, but I don&#x27;t know that I&#x27;d want a machine to permit me to end my own life. Not that having to get a doctor&#x27;s permission sounds any better. Ideally, nobody should have a say over a life but the individual themselves. I recognize in saying this though that it isn&#x27;t really that simple, and that there are complex nuances with potential undue influence family members or others surrounding a person can have in the situation.

I think this device is designed to provoke a conversation rather than to solve the problem it says it sets out to solve. There is no reason it has to look like a futuristic coffin. Most people breath only through their nostrils and mouth. A simple mask could do the same job this huge contraption is sets out to do. Except you couldn’t exhibit a scuba mask hooked up to a nitrogen tank in a museum. It wouldn’t have the same visual impact and scifi otherworldlyness.

&gt; His family sees it differently. His mother begs. “I want you to live no matter what.” But that ignores his pain and his dignity, Yoshi says.<p>This is my observation of suicide hotlines and ambiguous generic anti-suicide advice.<p>It seems this conversation is so immature, patronizing and invalidating.<p>I haven’t found people able to articulate their thoughts on the matter as they just invalidate my comments on social media platforms until they are no longer visible.<p>Do things compatible with self-preservation like me, or don’t.

This seems like way too much bother, and it looks expensive. I&#x27;ve read the same thing can be done with a plastic bag over the head and helium gas (maybe nitrogen works just as well).<p>I still believe people should be allowed to have a safe, painless, unmessy death if they want it, for whatever reason. I don&#x27;t understand why it&#x27;s such a controversy. Why does a person who wants to leave have to resort to messy, violent methods? Our pets have more access to humane ways to die because of bad situations, than humans.

The capsule itself is interesting, seems like a peaceful and pain free way to die. I don’t understand why they feel they have to replace doctors and psychiatrists with an AI in prescribing the procedure, one of the worst ideas I have ever heard.

I wouldn’t want to be on the QA team here.

Suicide capsules? Reminds me of this short story:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com&#x2F;2019&#x2F;09&#x2F;28&#x2F;the-green-new-deal&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com&#x2F;2019&#x2F;09&#x2F;28&#x2F;the-green-n...</a>

Hoping this pill makes it to the Darknet Markets, I want to die but I don&#x27;t want to experience pain. I just want a painless exit from this world from where I find no meaning or joy.

For a moment, the catchy trade name and the mention of 3D printing made me worry that this was a startup. Thankfully, Exit International is a non-profit [1]. Imagine if this had been a commercial endeavor: what would one have to resort to, to increase revenue?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.exitinternational.net&#x2F;about-exit&#x2F;history&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.exitinternational.net&#x2F;about-exit&#x2F;history&#x2F;</a>

It&#x27;s an interesting new method: hypoxia via nitrogen. I&#x27;d prefer this to the drinkable concoctions that put you to sleep after a brief panic of thirst.

There was PBS Frontline episode about a man who after being diagnosed with ALS traveled to Switzerland to die. They follow him until the very end.<p>Very powerful episode, I still remember it vividly.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pbs.org&#x2F;wgbh&#x2F;pages&#x2F;frontline&#x2F;suicidetourist&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pbs.org&#x2F;wgbh&#x2F;pages&#x2F;frontline&#x2F;suicidetourist&#x2F;</a>

“ There is no panic, no choking feeling. “<p>I’m amazed the author of the article was able to determine this. May they rest in peace.

The next step for such a machine IMO is something that can automatically cremate the corpse inside the machine and vacuum the ashes, dispensing them into either a canister or into some kind of plumbing network for scattering them high into the air where the wind can carry them.

Is suffering a valid reason to end your own life? How much suffering is the threshold where suicide is &quot;medically necessary&quot;? How can it be quantified, what are the units? Does mental anguish count, or only physical suffering? What about existential suffering?<p>This isn&#x27;t a treatment, and it&#x27;s certainly not compassionate. Joni Eareckson-Tada is a testament to the wonderful life that can be lived in spite of suffering, and she has much to say on it that is worth a listen.

Has anyone heard from the QA team?

So nobody asks to be born. Religion tells you that some psychologically twisted individuals invented god because they recognised the best way to destroy someone is let their conscience do it. God is an extremist because not only did he&#x2F;it&#x2F;she&#x2F;whatever&#x2F;a-z invent the utopian paradise called heaven, he also invented the other extreme nightmare called hell. God does pestilence, disease &amp; suffering like no other, yet if he is all powerful and all knowing, why the need to treat his followers like he does? Religions, Royalty &amp; Govt&#x27;s will always exist as long as stupid people exist to support them. Mindless breeding as over populated the planet. Nobody has the right, nor does science have the right to dig into my privacy, yet its being stolen by countless entities whether I like it or not. Modern medicine has been and still is, just academic conformity justifying experimentation based on the current knowledge and theories. We dont live in a meritocracy but more like an oligarchy. You can know to much and then go, is that it too life? Meh! Fed up with the unimaginative cycles forced onto us. Even Hollywood is out of ideas so is now doing gender reversal - Ghostbusters! Facebook and social media in general tells me who I should avoid. There is no peace and quiet anymore, its hard to escape the constant background noise of vehicles and technology. The air stinks with pollution. Food is crap and processed too much. Produce is no longer healthy. Too much surveillance. I see Disney or Pixar was on the money with Wall-E I couldnt bring kids into the world today like it is today. I didnt realise how many legal ways there are too kill people, but its very clever! Too much conformity, in academia, govts, media, its all become too alike, but Rat Utopia aka Behavioral sink explains what we are seeing &amp; experiencing from those in charge. Lost the urge to fight, and thats probably the most significant factor, its the basic instinct the military know how to develop and control. After all basic training is a test to see if you can control yourself on the drill square with some drill sargeant shouting and spitting into your ears and face to see if you will react or not. The military do violence the best, its their job to know everything about it in case of war and this also means ignoring the laws and rules when fighting for survival. Why would someone want to suicide&#x2F;euthanise themselves and involve anyone else, beyond disposal of the body. Why does science need to know why someone wants to end their life, surely they should recognise its none of their business so why should lawyers, judges, doctors, politicians get involved.<p>Why should they control your life???

It’s neat that Robert Chambers predicted this well over a century ago in <i>The King in Yellow</i>.

Fascinating. It seems interesting that far more innovation has occurred in the service of corporal punishment (from the torture devices of the middle ages to the guillotine to lethal injection) than in the service of suicide (arguably cyanide tablets?).

Am I alone in wishing the person in the photo would climb in for a live demonstration?

What’s&#x2F;where’s the best “available now” service that takes foreigners?

&gt; A 3D-printed capsule<p>How is the 3d printing of any relevance? Is as relevant a claim as &quot;a lipo powered capsule&quot; or &quot;a raspberry pi controlled capsule&quot;

Outrageous. You want me to believe that it&#x27;s humane to lie in a fucking blue capsule and commit suicide?<p>People need to understand that when and if you really want to kill yourself, this is often done in affect if not the individual is very psychical sick.<p>I don&#x27;t like this. I think its ethically wrong to have people go away in a plastic box and building an actual product around that. I mean, how inhumane are you trying to make this look?<p>Have people go out in their own bed, have their loved ones next them and have professional medical staff help out during the process.

&gt; Our aim is to develop an artificial intelligence screening system to establish the person’s mental capacity.<p>I&#x27;d like to see how that works!

But weed is still illegal over there, right?

Expect to find its way on battlefield in total war next between machines and humans.

Excellent! Every person should have the right to make the choice for themselves.

Every day we draw closer to <i>Children of Men</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;IacY-MYuQQ0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;IacY-MYuQQ0</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;QYy80trSPSI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;QYy80trSPSI</a>

I wonder how they test these.

I find this very depressing.

I would be more in favour of legal guns instead of assisted suicide or euthanasia

Just in time for millenials to start thinking about retirement.<p>In all serious though, my family does not age well and I have actively thought about this as an end of life option vs decades of mental degredation.<p>I doubt it will ever be available in the United States.

The nihilistic culture of death is well established, so I&#x27;m surprised it took this long or if this thing can truly be said to be &quot;new&quot;.

Imagine next year, besides covid vaccines governments, will also be able to mandate suicide pills to save the planet

Let,s call this procedure euthanasia instead of suïcide.

my anxiety is getting the best of me whenever i see this type of stuff i always think of how a state can abuse it to get rid of people legally and use an excuse. but then again i am extremely distrusting of new “progress” in general.

Wow, even better looking than this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.kym-cdn.com&#x2F;entries&#x2F;icons&#x2F;facebook&#x2F;000&#x2F;023&#x2F;876&#x2F;suicidebooth.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.kym-cdn.com&#x2F;entries&#x2F;icons&#x2F;facebook&#x2F;000&#x2F;023&#x2F;876&#x2F;sui...</a><p>More seriously, I like it. I’m always petrified of dying a slow and painful death from some disease that cannot be cured. I would much rather just use this and be done with it.

I’m glad to see this uses nitrogen asphyxiation. It’s the humane alternative.<p>Edit: Clicked the link