Igenlode Wordsmith

I have just discovered that The Query Shark is dead, which explains why updates have been few and far between since I first saw the site... a bit of a shock.
(Well, I missed the boat on that one.)

[Error: unknown template qotd]This goes back to the old (at least for me) question of 'would you rather know in advance that you were dying (and hence have time to tidy up loose ends, say goodbyes, etc.) or would you rather die without knowing it (and hence without the fear of anticipation)?' Or even more specifically -- and macabrely (and yes, this question has come up, fictionally at least) -- if you were in the position of asking someone else to kill you, would you want them to take you by surprise so that you didn't know it was coming (or at least when), or would you want them to wait until you gave the specific command, so that you were in complete control?

The answer in the crashing plane scenario is fairly clear-cut, I think: you don't wake someone you love up with the pleasing information that they are about to die, simply in order to gratify your own needs.

The answer in the other cases... depends on the person in question. In my own case I think I'd probably rather not know, because I can imagine so vividly the instant of utter terror between the irrevocable knowing and the happening: as someone once wrote about execution for murder, compared to most natural deaths, hanging (at least in the 20th century evolution: the 17th century version wasn't an exit one would wish on one's worst enemy) was actually a fairly good way to go. The dreadful thing about being executed was not the actual instant of death: it was the three weeks of anticipation.