Sliding to Senilicide

Defaulted Loans May Haunt Seniors

This is really amazing to me. Our society is undergoing a fundamental ethical shift....no wait...our government and corporate business interests are orchestrating a fundamental shift in our country's ethical fiber.

The corporate manipulation of our current health care debate is not going to end with Obama, even if he manages to pass his bill. I'm starting to envision a future where assisted suicide will become a corporate tactic to lower insurance rates. I can see the incentive in the insurance contract, "If you agree to "planned passing" we can decrease your current insurance rates by 20%." I can see the "planned passing" industry becoming a lucrative emerging market.

The practice of senilicide is commonly associated with the Inuit (FYI, Eskimo is actually a derogatory term). The Arctic landscape is a cruel and unforgiving environment, in order to survive in such a harsh climate the Inuit incorporated a number of social practices which seem unconscionable or "uncivilized" by our current social mores. It's important to try and look at cultural practices from the point of view of the culture which incorporates them, and the Inuit's use of senilicide can't possibly be understood unless you look at the physical challenges and spiritual beliefs they held at the time it was practiced (it isn't practiced any longer). The need for self preservation, as a group, dictated some hard realities on the indvidual.

While some of their past practices may seem cruel by modern standards, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of weeks with an Inuit tribe from Point Barrow, Alaska while working at the Smithsonian and I can tell you their social bonds and sense of altruism left me envious. I often think I would have rather lived 50 good years in such a rich cultural and social environment like theirs than 90 years in the often isolated existence known as "civilized society".

Point being, the practice of senilicide with the Inuit was incorporated out of pure necessity. If an effort unfolds to incorporate a watered down version of senilicide in modern society the impetus would have to be "it's necessary and the best thing for our society as a whole". You may think the notion is ludicrous but a society bound by the single teleologic goal of increasing capital can eventually justify anything, especially when the select few who reap the benefit of any capital gain control the media and attention of the general populous within the society.

Yeah...I'm making a huge jump from government decisions to garnish social security checks to putting a gun to Granma'ma's head, but I'm only following the logical, "ethos-evolutionary" path our society is currently on. It's not hard to imagine a future where children are so financially strapped that they can't afford to care for their elderly parents so they look to "planned passing" as an option....especially if there has been a media push by corporate entities to convince people it's "necessary" and socially acceptable.

If I live to be 90 (2050), the world's population is estimated to be 5 times larger than what it is now. In order for societies, domestically and globally, to function, something is going to have to give. In my opinion, unbridled capitalism is a recipe for disaster, but that appears to be the strategy this country has chosen.

I suppose an argument could be made that the inevitable increased warfare spawned by lack of planetary natural resources could lead to nuclear exchanges and hence lower global population. Combine that with a systemic, domestic culling of the non-productive population (the elderly), and you have a nifty blueprint to increase capital through destruction and selective death. I'm just saying the formula makes sense when capital output is your only goal.

You may think I'm crazy for suggesting that could happen, but once again, I'm just following the logical path on which we seem to be headed.