Endings and Finders (TW: SUICIDE)
This week brings a post in Aeon, What would you choose for a good death? postulates that a business opportunity might lie in helping people to die: consider a trendy boutique called Designer Endings, which will help you to stage your death event just like one might plan a wedding, and with a similar blizzard of options: a small event in the home with just a few friends and a quick transition, or a major event on a beach where the client feels a euphoric glow for hours before transpiring.
The article talks about Capitalism having a penchant for making a business out of what was once free; why is dying free? Can't we offer an enhanced experience for those able to afford it? Can we bundle the dying with the funeral?
I myself have considered a semi-assisted suicide startup. One problem with suicide is that, generally, somebody ends up finding the body. A child might find it in the garage, or a sportsperson find it in a river, but suicide calls for and creates a Finder, and the Finder bears trauma from their discovery. They may even sustain a physical injury, lifting the body out of the river, etc. The Departed probably prefers to avoid causing trauma to the Finder, but it seems inevitable.
But a startup called Finders can take care of that. The person arranges a location and a time, and the Finder sub-contractor goes out to the location - a campsite, a car in the airport parking lot, whatever. The Finder has whatever keys or passcodes are needed, and knows what survivors to contact. Then the Finder notifies the local authorities and 911.
Probably, the Finder has an alibi for the time of death, so there's no risk of their being charged with killing the deceased or assisting in the suicide. All they've done is contracted to check on the person at a time and place.
The result is that an unexpecting stranger who finds the body is not turned into a participant and caused to suffer trauma without compensation; rather, Finders pays a generous fee to their subcontractor who expects what they're going to find, makes a few phone calls, and goes home.
We should take care of each other's deaths at least as well as we take care of our pet's deaths.