Lydia VvintersRandomly curious:
How long would you want your life to be?
No ageing, just you, but you can't kill yourself.
100 years
500 years
1000 years
Immortal
Poll ended at .
Sehar Irfan@HeliaXyana
Recently, I watched a Korean drama called Genie, Make a Wish, and there was this line that really stayed with me.
“The longer he lived, the more he suffered.”
Immortality sounds beautiful, but in truth… it’s just another kind of punishment.
Yes, while I'm curious about the future, perhaps it's the ephemeral nature of life that makes it precious enough to be bearable?
@HeliaXyana
The ending is what gives meaning to every moment we get
The ending is what gives meaning to every moment we get
Alan R Paine@HeliaXyana
I've put 100 but I'm already 70 and I wouldn't mind living to at least double my current age if I could have the same health and fitness I had at, say, 50. I've written a substach article about aging. https://open.substack.com/pub/alanrpaine/p/times-winged-chariot?r=2u8nhi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I've put 100 but I'm already 70 and I wouldn't mind living to at least double my current age if I could have the same health and fitness I had at, say, 50. I've written a substach article about aging. https://open.substack.com/pub/alanrpaine/p/times-winged-chariot?r=2u8nhi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Ah, fascinating. Thank you.
skribe 🇺🇦 
@HeliaXyana I want to see how the story ends.
I get that.
@HeliaXyana of course you do. You're a story teller.
Ha, good point. Yes, it's an intriguing narrative we're all part of, and I'm pretty certain it won't end with a boring 'happily ever after'.
@HeliaXyana everything is reduced to subatomic particles and all the lights go out. That's about as happily ever after as it gets.
There is a beauty in the finite nature of reality and life. I don't know if that makes me happy, but it certainly doesn't make me sad. Everything, and everyone, is a phenomenon. The duration and the ending are part of that. So, I don't think I would choose immortality. Despite how curious I am to see how it all end, I feel removing those aspects from my own life would fundamentally alter what I am in a way I can't predict.
Bern@HeliaXyana my 10yo said "immortality would be bad, because when the earth gets destroyed you'll end up floating in space, suffocating and freezing, but unable to die"
🤔
Ah, very true. So, the question is, are you curious enough about the end of reality to face such a scenario? I'm certainly not.
Being a bit of a pessimist, I wouldn't even dare to pick the 1000 years option. Our planet is such a fragile little dot in space. But I am curious enough to risk the 500 years option, I think.
@HeliaXyana the problem, in my mind, is that you'd end up in a world of strangers who share very little with you in terms of mindset, and possibly even speak a different language (thinking about the differences in spoken English even since the time of Shakespeare).
We are the sum of our experiences, and having grown up in, say, the 1500s, it would be horrifying (to some degree) to live in the early 2000s...
Would you retain the brain plasticity of a child, that let you learn and adapt as the world changed around you? Or would you be like some of the elderly of today who are utterly bamboozled by the very concept of the internet, and struggle to adapt to modern society?
Ah, valid concern. If I consider the difference between the world I grew up in and my mother's, I am always very forgiving about any struggle she has comprehending the digital age. I hope I can keep up as well as she has.
Let's say I'm frozen as is, with this mind, it will take some serious dedication to keep up with the changes happening through 500 years. That would be only just achievable, but frustrating.
Just imagine; At least 400 years of struggling to open a PDF attachment...
@HeliaXyana 400 years waiting for that one PDF to actually finish opening... 😆
Yeah, I consider myself relatively up-to-date, but my kids use technology in completely different ways to me.
Scarlet Phoenix Collective@Bern @HeliaXyana I would thinnk you would keep the things thagt allowed yout to move aand change with the times, otherwise what's the point in a longer life?
@the_spc @HeliaXyana that's a very good question.
It leads to interesting ways of considering the implications of immortality for an otherwise ordinary human, that's for sure.
wyatt@Bern @HeliaXyana almost right but the lack of pressure will turn you into a blob
but i guess a still living blob?
but i guess a still living blob?
Feral Fury 🏴☠️ 🏳️🌈 🫂🔞@HeliaXyana Interesting you've picked larger numbers than almost anyone is likely to live on the assumption people want MORE life.
I want my life to be about 10 years. Not much that was good happens after that.
Fascinating. Would it be the same if it was random? As in, you being the next in-line soul for a random life on earth, and you're able to pick the duration beforehand.
@HeliaXyana Well that's a question no one can answer because people must answer having experienced their lives to date. I'd pick the smallest amount of time allowable in that scenario. After all, there are things whose whole life is a day as we count it.
That's fair.
How about the scenario in which you died today, with full knowledge and awareness of your previous life, are offered a random life as a human on earth born today?
I wonder if I would politely decline...
@HeliaXyana Promptly decline.
Schroedingers_Cat@HeliaXyana I have to assume my pension providers would be having a epic fit at the time I was drawing. But I would like more time - time to see if we, as a species can pull back from destroying everything.
Long enough to dance on the graves of some of the scum in charge.
Also, I might need some new joints.
There is a long history of companies having a fit when they get the idea that immortality might be invented.
I can vaguely remember a story of a government promising morticians compensation in such event. I think in the 1960s the futurists caused similar panic in pension providers.
Even today, some companies voice concerns about curing cancer and improving general life expectancy.
So, indeed, there is an argument for choosing a long life, even if just out of spite. Ha!
@HeliaXyana But I don't think long life would be especially attractive if we had to work for most of it. If we expanded it by 5 times, and were expected to work until we were 455, that would not be any fun at all.
Yes, that's what irks me about adjusting the pension age to life general expectancy. It feels absurd that we reward our collective struggle against cancer with more years of employment for our children.
UnCoveredMyths@HeliaXyana I had a few years in my early 20's, as my brain began to not function, that I could still do things. Walk, hike, comprehend speech.
Honestly, at 50, I was already a few decades past functioning.
I know people in their 90's who still have better working brains and bodies than me!
I miss my brain. I miss the knowledge I had in my teens, and even early 20's.
I know I could hike in my 20's. I might have been able to in 30's, if I hadn't ha to work every waking moment, which only disabled me faster.
Living to 100 is not something I would wish on anyone!
Not even the evil abusers I grew up around! The gators can have them.
Good point, the answer thoroughly depends on your current state.
Simon AshcroftNothing I can do about it, whether or not consciousness survives physical death.
C. R. Collins 🌳 🐸With the way things are in the world? I'm in my late 60s so have already aged a bit. 😊 My mother lived into her 90's and that sounds depressing to me these days. I'd need a cabin in the woods to hide in.
NaraMoore ⛩️👻八尺様👻⛩️ at FediImmortality implies being stuck during an eternity of virtual entropy. (Virtual because you would be the one exception to the absolute stasis.)
Christina@HeliaXyana I picked 509, but with the stipulation that I have the ability to fix some of the physical issues that come with being a 50 year old.
Robots can be gay deal with it@HeliaXyana Let's assume it's not a magical gotcha kind of immortality, but biological immortality. You're like Wolverine, and you will die if heat death or an extended environmental condition that doesn't support life exists. However, you will regenerate if even a shred of you survives and finds itself in a hospitable environment.
I think much of what roots us to a time, is the facts of mortality itself. If you were 25-35 forever, then you could let yourself go with the times a bit more. Yeah, you will lose your family, the people you love will be supplanted by people who you barely know. At the same time, you will have found family, people you care for as family. The worst will be the bureaucracy, but like...