Ancient Koreans did this too. And the elderly agreed to it. They weren't really forced. They didn't want to live if the youngest will starve to death...
A non-insignificant amount of old people right now would agree to it regardless of starving or not, because they are simply ready to die. Not even suicidally, but just to stop fighting off the ravages of age.
We just force them to stay alive, often against their own will, because a lot of people are horrifically selfish about holding onto them or just cannot comprehend someone not being afraid to die. So we stick them in homes, force them into hospitals, and generally just violate their entire autonomy.
Of all the ones I've personally met, its a problem of doing too much to accommodate them.
They are prideful and stubborn people who've lived a full life and conquered it, and at the end often want to just be left alone to wither and rot away in their homes without fuss. But too many people want to shove them full of so many meds and pull them into treatments that they simply do not want, even if it gives them more time to live.
Ancient Japanese in desperate times would carry their elderly parents to the nearby mountain and leave them to die.
Ancient Koreans did this too. And the elderly agreed to it. They weren't really forced. They didn't want to live if the youngest will starve to death...
A non-insignificant amount of old people right now would agree to it regardless of starving or not, because they are simply ready to die. Not even suicidally, but just to stop fighting off the ravages of age.
We just force them to stay alive, often against their own will, because a lot of people are horrifically selfish about holding onto them or just cannot comprehend someone not being afraid to die. So we stick them in homes, force them into hospitals, and generally just violate their entire autonomy.
It's true. Being that old sucks. And our society doesn't do enough to accommodate elderly people.
Of all the ones I've personally met, its a problem of doing too much to accommodate them.
They are prideful and stubborn people who've lived a full life and conquered it, and at the end often want to just be left alone to wither and rot away in their homes without fuss. But too many people want to shove them full of so many meds and pull them into treatments that they simply do not want, even if it gives them more time to live.