alwa 1 day ago

I can only speak for myself, but, assuming it's feasible to implement as you describe, that sounds awful. In full auto mode, unpleasant experiences happen, but at least without specific anticipatory distress. I don't see that you alleviate the overall existential state (of the possibility of shocks constantly looming over you forever) by offering individual instances of temptation to choose comfort over lifesaving intervention.

Now the unpleasant experiences become something that I'm doing to myself, and that my animal brain in the moment has the power to prevent. Every intervention becomes a test of my willpower: I know that I need this, I know I don't want to do it in the moment... What's the harm in rolling the dice this one time, in exchange for avoiding just this one painful episode? The parallel that immediately comes to mind is "well, just this one cigarette won't kill me..."

I'd much, much rather pre-commit than have to face that aversive decision time after time and day after day. Knowing that my life is on the line if I'm caught in a moment of weakness. That calculus is much too important to me to leave to the whims of my reactive brain.

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nneonneo 1 day ago

Maybe that works for you, but in the case of the article, the random shocks were bad enough to make him literally choose death over the shocks…