Comment by sarchertech

>but I mean specifically the unique burdens that come with age, like requiring others to do basic things to keep you alive

That's not unique to old age. People get injuries, and diseases that require other to people to help them to stay alive. Even something as simple as breaking both your arms requires someone else to keep you alive.

>The only reason for the family to be dishonest is through fear of upsetting/offending my feeling of entitlement to life

Your family could be dishonest because they they are normal human beings who don't want to upset you. Despite what you've told them about not being a burden, there's no way that you can be sure when they say they want you to keep sticking around.

>Yet you're here, trying to pressure me into making them suffer by being a big ol' age burden.

I think the risk of other people being pressured into killing themselves is worse than the burden your family might suffer because they have to take care of an old person.

>that maybe you'll be the old person who isn't a burden

I don't care if you're not a burden. Not being a burden isn't a good enough reason in my opinion for society to allow a doctor to kill you.

If you want to kill yourself, that's your choice. If you want to convince society to create an additional affirmative defense for murder, you haven't convinced me that maybe avoiding being a burden on your family is a good enough justification.

>This is already a problem

It is a problem, but this creates a very quick, low-risk, straightforward, hard to detect path to getting the entire thing.

>practically, old age is a terminal illness and most of the same arguments apply.

Life is a terminal condition. The only difference between an otherwise healthy 40 year old killing themselves to avoid a potential slow decline and an 80 year old doing it is the number of years they are expected to live.

Either you set some limit. Less than 5 years remaining life expectancy? Or you just let anyone kill themselves for any reason they like. The first case will be arbitrary no matter what limit you set.