# Would you choose a severing of all your current emotional connections, or certain death? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 7, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974 "2010-02-07T00:49:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/1 "2010-02-07T00:49:31Z")
Or, another silly RhymerPoll. Let’s say you contract some dread disease of the brain. Let’s call it cerebral measles, or CM. Left untreated, CM is invariably fatal, and though the progression from infection to death takes only about two days, those are two days of agonizing, bone-crunching pain. All is not lost, though. There is a cure, which works in well over 99% of all reported cases. It involves a drug regimen that attacks the microbe behind CM, and said regimen must begin before the bone-crunching pain starts. However, every single person who has taken the drugs in question discovered that all their prior emotional connections were destroyed afterwards. No matter how passionately they loved their spouses, their children, their friends, or their pets, they come out the other side utterly indifferent to them. This happens in EVERY case in which the patient survives. Moreover, about ninety percent of the time, the patients are never again able to form new emotional attachments, of any sort. The others are able to form superficial attachments afterwards, but none ever succeed in rekindling their prior feelings for spouses, children, and so forth. Now you’re one of the lucky ones. You know exactly when you were exposed, and you learn about it before in time to take the drugs, which are available. Your doctor tells you the pros and cons of the treatment and offers you two options. One is the above-described regiment; the other is a chemically-induced coma to spare you the pain. Which do you choose, why? And, for bonus points–if your spouse or child were making the choice, which decision would you want them to make, and why? ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/2 "2010-02-07T00:57:30Z")
What is this “emotional connection”? It sounds highly illogical to me. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/3 "2010-02-07T01:03:50Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > What is this “emotional connection”? It sounds highly illogical to me. I forgot to mention, but the curative cocktail causes Vulcans to burst into flame, and they can only avoid that by having gay sex with the captain of the Enterprise. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/4 "2010-02-07T01:07:13Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I forgot to mention, but the curative cocktail causes Vulcans to burst into flame, and they can only avoid that by having gay sex with the captain of the Enterprise. What if they are opposite genders? ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/5 "2010-02-07T01:11:16Z")
Hit me with the cure. Give my family the cure, as well, if they’ve got the disease. From a biological standpoint, my emotional connections aren’t beneficial (nor are my families), and my genes stand a far greater chance of being passed on if I and my family survives. From an emotional standpoint, better we all survive to be happy another day than to die. From a societal standpoint, we’re all better off alive, and productive if a little lonely, than dead. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/6 "2010-02-07T01:13:29Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > What if they are opposite genders? Then it’s the flames, my friends. Nothing but flames. Life is terribly unfair. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/7 "2010-02-07T01:15:34Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Then it’s the flames, my friends. Nothing but flames. Life is terribly unfair. To answer your question in a serious way, if I can’t have a dog to bond with then just go ahead and shoot me now. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/8 "2010-02-07T01:19:51Z")
> [@Todderbob](#): > > From an emotional standpoint, better we all survive to be happy another day than to die. I don’t think I could ever be happy if I were incapable of making emotional connections to others. ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/9 "2010-02-07T01:22:18Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I don’t think I could ever be happy if I were incapable of making emotional connections to others. You’re fully capable of offing yourself afterwords, I’m sure. Even if it ends up _not_ being to your liking, at least you gave it a shot. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/10 "2010-02-07T01:28:39Z")
> [@Todderbob](#): > > You’re fully capable of offing yourself afterwords, I’m sure. > > Even if it ends up _not_ being to your liking, at least you gave it a shot. So to speak. Sign me up for the treatment. Dead v. emotionally dead, I’ll pick emotionally dead- at least I can do something with my time, and presumably enjoy the beauty of mathematics. Do I get no pleasure, or just no emotional attachment? ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/11 "2010-02-07T01:33:59Z")
Don’t you become a sociopath with the treatment? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/12 "2010-02-07T01:34:14Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I don’t think I could ever be happy if I were incapable of making emotional connections to others. Yes, but that’s because you’re capable of emotional connections. If you were incapable your incapacity would mean you wouldn’t be unhappy about it. It’s like Commander Data being sad because he doesn’t have emotions. Not having emotions makes him a Sad Panda. Except of course it doesn’t, because he doesn’t have emotions. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/13 "2010-02-07T01:36:48Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yes, but that’s because you’re capable of emotional connections. If you were incapable your incapacity would mean you wouldn’t be unhappy about it. It’s like Commander Data being sad because he doesn’t have emotions. Not having emotions makes him a Sad Panda. Except of course it doesn’t, because he doesn’t have emotions. I would argue that Data does, in fact, have emotions (even pre-Emotion Chip), but is self-deceived about that fact. But that’s a CS thread. But you rather hit the nail on the head as to why I would choose death. I wouldn’t want to live that life; nor would I want to choose to stop loving my family. I’d rather die loving them. Also, what **Harmonious Discord** wrote about sociopathy. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/14 "2010-02-07T01:38:38Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > However, every single person who has taken the drugs in question discovered that all their prior emotional connections were destroyed afterwards. No matter how passionately they loved their spouses, their children, their friends, or their pets, they come out the other side utterly indifferent to them. This happens in EVERY case in which the patient survives. Moreover, about ninety percent of the time, the patients are never again able to form new emotional attachments, of any sort. The others are able to form superficial attachments afterwards, but none ever succeed in rekindling their prior feelings for spouses, children, and so forth. You just described the worse type of death, a fate worse then Hell, a state that is called ‘outer darkness’, it is a horrible horrible state beyond description, while still alive in the body it is painfully lonely where one is crying out for the pain of emotional isolation to end, outside the body (after death) is it a lone soul in a totally empty, dark, cold universe crying out of loneliness. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/15 "2010-02-07T01:55:30Z")
I think the thing to do here is take the cure. Even if emotional ties are severed, duty and honor can replace them to a certain extent. If I were to wake up tomorrow no longer loving my family members, I would still have certain duties to them that must be honored. If I no longer feel friendship, those affected are still people I know who share some common interest with me, and generally known for not pissing me off, so it’s not like I can’t hang out with them anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/16 "2010-02-07T02:44:54Z")
You ask the toughest questions! I only have a couple of serious emotional attachments and have already thought it through. I would choose to die rather than lose the emotional bond with my son. Also living the rest of my life without forming attachments of value is not attractive to me. This reminds me of Alzheimers disease. That isn’t living to me. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/17 "2010-02-07T02:54:02Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > Don’t you become a sociopath with the treatment? I don’t think so. You may not still love your spouse, but it doesn’t seem to mean that you won’t feel sympathy for someone being hurt. As for me, I’d go for it. I’ve never been much for such attachments to people; and the few people who I had such attachments for are almost all dead, or far enough away I’m unlikely to ever meet them again. And I don’t think my emotional attachments to other people are as strong as that of most people anyway. ---
**Author:** ![CT\_Damsel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CT\_Damsel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CT_Damsel)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/18 "2010-02-07T03:13:03Z")
I’m in; pass me that cure. Lack of emotional attachment is very freeing. However if this makes me forget why I do not like certain people then I will need to leave myself a note. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/19 "2010-02-07T04:14:47Z")
Yeah, life would suck, but it wouldn’t suck enough to choose death. So I choose life. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2010, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974/20 "2010-02-07T05:18:44Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I forgot to mention, but the curative cocktail causes Vulcans to burst into flame, and they can only avoid that by having gay sex with the captain of the Enterprise. Which captain? I want Scott Bakula, but I’d settle for Picard. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-choose-a-severing-of-all-your-current-emotional-connections-or-certain-death/527974.md?page=2)