The idea that the Baby Boom generation, of all generations, would willingly hasten their own exit from this mortal coil in order to save someone else (their children, the government, future generations, etc.) from trouble and expense flies in the face of pretty much everything we know about that particular cohort’s habits and inclinations. This isn’t to say that there won’t be more support for assisted suicide as the original “Me” generation grows ever-less-gracefully old. But it will be a supplement, rather than a corrective, to the demand for ever-more-expensive medical interventions that Wolff’s article laments — a minor accompaniment to the major theme of life extension by any means and at any cost. There isn’t necessarily any deep conflict between the desire for any and every form of medical intervention when you still want to live and the desire for assisted suicide when you’ve given up the fight. Instead, the two desires intertwine somewhere deep within the modern psyche, because both spring from the same quest — for a perfect mastery over death, which aims for immortality but then eventually settles for the ability to choose the exact timing of our final exit.