The American demand for assisted dying is rooted in a cultural obsession with control. But control, Sulmasy argues, is a philosophically bankrupt foundation: you can't control who your parents were, you can't avoid death, and you can't force someone to love you. A value system built on control excludes the three most important things in human life.
Where this was said
At 34:33 · chapter starts 31:10
Dubner pushes back on Sulmasy with the autonomy argument: if free will is a cornerstone of Catholic doctrine, how can the Church oppose the free choice to die? Sulmasy's answer is precise: free will is what makes morality possible — without it, there's no praise or blame, no ethics at all. But free will doesn't mean every choice is right; it means we are capable of choosing, and capable of being wrong [1] — Daniel Sulmasy "The American demand for assisted dying is rooted in a cultural obsession with control. But control, Sulmasy argues, is a philosophically ba…" 34:33 . The exchange escalates to Sulmasy's most memorable observation: American culture has elevated control to its highest value, but control can't account for the three most important human experiences — birth, death, and love. You can't choose your biological parents, you can't avoid death, and you can't force love without negating it. Sulmasy also raises the economics of the Canadian case: health economists were publishing financial savings analyses for MAID even before the ink on the court decision was dry. His colleague's counter: if your healthcare system doesn't provide good end-of-life care, fix the system — don't prescribe death as the cost-effective alternative.
Shortly after Canada's court ruling requiring MAID legalization, health economists were already publishing papers on how much the cash-strapped Canadian healthcare system would save. Sulmasy's counter: if your healthcare system isn't giving people good end-of-life care, fix the system — don't prescribe death.
Social media feeds men and women the absolute worst caricatures of each other while stripping away the everyday, imperfect relationships that would calibrate their expectations. Combine that with smaller families and fewer cross-sex friendships, and you get a generation that talks about the opposite sex constantly but almost never to them.
The 'would you rather be alone with a man or a bear' debate went viral not because men are objectively more dangerous than ever, but because an entire fear industrial complex of influencers and safety products had already primed women to feel that way. Once the algorithm identifies you as worried about personal safety, the content and the scrunchie drink-covers never stop.
Women feel less safe not because danger has increased, but because trust in institutions — police, churches, schools — that used to enforce safety norms has collapsed. Young women are far less likely than older women to believe those institutions will handle sexual assault responsibly, leaving them with only individual self-protection as a fallback.
Even self-identified feminist women consistently told Daniel Cox in interviews and surveys that they want men to open doors, pay for dates, and show demonstrable care. The internet noise around 'benevolent sexism' drowns out this widespread, quietly held preference.
In focus groups in Philadelphia and Raleigh, every single hand went up when participants were asked if parents discussed financial stability and education. Zero hands went up for marriage or parenthood. Parents are shaping their children's ambitions with total silence on the experiences that matter most.
American families are smaller than ever, with roughly 1 in 5 children now growing up as only children. Without the daily friction of siblings — shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms, resolving disagreements — young people enter adult relationships without the negotiation muscles relationships require.
Online dating optimises for your existing preferences rather than expanding your horizons. People who meet online give bad first dates almost no second chances; people who meet through mutual friends are far more forgiving. The disembodied, checklist-driven nature of apps removes all the social cues that actually reveal character.
A split-sample survey found that men judge male and female cheating identically harshly, and women judge male cheating the same way men do. The outlier: young women are dramatically less likely to call female infidelity morally wrong, suggesting shared-fate thinking and personal experience of being cheated on are reshaping the moral calculus.
The monk mode trend encourages men to withdraw from social life to work on themselves — but this is precisely backwards. The research is clear: close friendships are the single most powerful predictor of whether a man dates, commits, and becomes his best self. Self-improvement without social reintegration is just sophisticated avoidance.
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