Immortality...

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PurePareidolia

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Nov 26, 2008
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It might suck, but on the other hand, it could be totally freaking awesome for millions of years and more. Frankly, I'd rather take the chance than not, considering death is guaranteed to be neither. Which would be boring. If I weren't dead at the time obviously.

Whatever happens, I'd jump at the chance. If I can't handle it I'll just off myself later. I'd still be governed by physics, so it's not like invulnerability is going to come with the eternal life.
 

gewata

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Mar 21, 2009
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I think curse. Douglass Adams cam up with the best example of why being immortal would suck.

"Wowbagger The Infinitely Prolonged

Wowbagger The Infinitely Prolonged was - indeed, is- one of the Universe's ver small number of immortal beings.

Most of those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed, he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards. He had his immortaility inadvertantly thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch, and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying.

To begin with it was fun, he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody.

In the end, it was Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in at about 2:55 when you know you've taken all the baths you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

So things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other people's funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general, and everybody in it in particular.

This was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing that would drive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It was this:

He would insult the Universe.

That is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in Alphabetical Order.

When people protested to him, as they sometimes had done, that the plan was not merely misguided but actually impossible because of the number of people being born and dying all the time, he would merely fix them with a steely look and say, "A man can dream, can't he?"

And so he had started out. He equipped a spaceship that was built to last with a computer capable of handling all the data processing involved in keeping track of the entire population of the known Universe and working out the horrifically complicated routes involved. "

So yeah. Boring.
 

Bloodstain

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Jun 20, 2009
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I for one would like to live forever, with one limitation. Accidents and suicide can still kill me. Diseases and ageing, however, cannot. Okay, maybe strike the "accidents" part, I want to decide on my own when to die.
Life just seems so short to me. There is so much to learn and know...and I would like to see how the future works out.
 
Dec 27, 2010
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In short: yes. Fact of the matter is; no one wants to die (unless they're suicidal or are suffering from a terminal illness), some people may be able to accept it, but not desire it.
 

Crazy

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Oct 4, 2011
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immortalfrieza said:
Princess Molestia said:
You can still die when you're immortal, just not through age.
That's eternal life, not immortality. Immortality means you can't be killed by any means whatsoever.
Immortality is the ability to live forever. Ability to live forever. You can still die even if you're immortal. Unless you can survive with your head off, unable to breathe and have no heart, brain disconnected from your body, etc.
 

Masticate

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Oct 8, 2011
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I'd take it. I'd love to see us expand to the brinks of the universe. That is, the ever expanding brinks ;)
 

novixz

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Feb 7, 2011
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Cracked did and article on this. Immortality is worse than death if you think about it. I'll just skipped to the articles main reason: If you live forever, you're bound to be trapped somewhere forever. You think it's unlikely but if you live forever it's almost certain. Even if you do glide past all that, Earth is certain to be destroyed one day. Although that day is millions of years away, and humans will be gone by then probably, your poor ass will still be there. So it's either death or make your life a living hell.
 

remnant_phoenix

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Apr 4, 2011
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If by immortality you mean "CANNOT die," it is definitely a curse.

Ever play Lost Odyssey? The hero is immortal and the game explores the fact that everyone he befriends and develops a connection with will eventually die, but he is incapable of dying. After a thousand years of watching history repeat itself and having to say goodbye to countless friends and acquaintances, he realizes that, in the long-term sense, he is destined always be alone. Regardless of how much one loves life or fears death, living without consistent love and friendship is no life I want to live.

Of course, it's conceivable to dodge that bullet if one is surrounded by other immortals, but then your social circle is constrained to other immortals, and depending how many of them there are or what kind of people they are, you might not find yourself in satisfying company and thus may still end up perpetually alone.

Another way to get around this is if by "immortality" we mean "ageless" or "will never die of old age, but can still be killed." That kind of immortality would be kind of neat because you could live as long as you wanted to, then end your life if/when you feel that you are ready to go.

All in all though, I don't want to be immortal. Death is not an enemy, the only reason we treat it as one is because of our fear of the unknown and the fear that we have not lived our life in a way that is truly satisfying. Rather than trying to dodge death, we should be focused on improving life, for however long we have it.
 

GodofDisaster

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Sep 10, 2009
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It depends on what type of immortality were talking about, the forever young type or you can't die but still age type because that one sucks.

Ok for the sake of this post, I'm going to go with the forever young and can't die type lets look at the pros and cons.

Pros

Can't die.

You won't age and will be able to experience life on earth in the far of future.

With an eternity of life experience you could do so much.

Cons.

What if you get trapped somewere forever?

Just because you're immortal doesn't mean your invincible there's a difference. What if you get into an accident and lose a part of your body.

You'll see your loved ones leave this life, leaving you behind.

Let's take and end of the world scenario, what happens then? If the earth is destroyed do you just float around space for the rest of time? Actually what does happen if an immortal but not invincible body gets blown up, is the person still alive, as in has a conscious but no body or are they gone for good.

As I said before you're not invincible just immortal, what if you come down with a terminal disease. You'll proabaly want to die, due to the agony and misery, but you can't.

So in conclusion and in my own personal opinion immortality sucks, sure it has it's advantages, but with all those cons is it really worth it.
 

plugav

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Mar 2, 2011
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Immortality has it's benefits but I think it would make me even lazier and more blasé than I am now.

Also, the prospect of seing everyone I know die isn't all that tempting. Actually, a true immortal is bound to see everything die.
 

cridia

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Aug 2, 2009
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I feel immortality is kind of like a cheat cartridge. Sure, the first few years it may feel good to not be able to die, but afterwards it will just drain all the enjoyment out of life.

For me, immortality comes with a giant problem. Right now, time is always a pressing matter. It gives me the urge to do things I would normally not have done. For instance, study hard on my Japanese for my current foreign study. Or even aim at the study at all. I know that because time is limited, it is better to try and get as far as quickly as possible, because at one point it just ends. I am not just talking about death here.

However, with immortality that would all just disappear. Why do today what you can do another day, right? You won't die, so there is no hurry. Eventually it would just lead to extreme boredom. Even if I would take immortality in order to see the height of my ability, I know that at one point the improvements to said ability will be so marginal that I might just as well quit it alltogether.

This is all only considering that I would be an unique case. Lets assume that immortality becomes a common thing; would you want to work an eternity to satisfy the demands of an ever growing society? Not just that, but if a huge amount of people is immortal, we will eventually get to a point where it is considered a commodity everyone should have. At that time, would the world be able to sustain 7 billion people that will not die anymore? This is considering no one will ever have a kid; an impossible consideration given how much we as humans are still bound by our most primary instincts.

In the end, it would do not just us, but the rest of the world as well more harm than good. So thinking back; we are not even ready to have the responsibility of an ever lasting life. Honestly, I doubt we ever will.
 

AM City Watch

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Nov 10, 2010
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It depends on the individual. I'm going to put on my comic geek hat and bring up two examples from "The Sandman."

The first is a DC super-heroine whose powers make her immortal. She's lonely, depressed, and isolated, but unable to die because she's immune to all the usual methods of suicide. Eventually, with some help from Death herself ("Who am I? Just a friend. Sometimes. Maybe.") she gets the death she wants so badly, and goes to it smiling.

The other is a man in Middle Ages England who strikes a deal with Dream (like a god, but more so) for immortality. All he has do is come back to the same bar every hundred years and prove he wants to keep living. After the first century, everything is great. He's married, rich, and happy. After the second, he stumbles in half-starved and ragged. His family is dead of the plague, and he pawned their portrait so long ago to pay for food he no longer remembers their faces. When asked if wants to die, his response is an incredulous "Are you joking? There's so much to live for." Six hundred years later, in modern times, he's still alive, still going to the bar, still completely in love with being alive.

So, the serious and uninteresting answer: life can be great, and it can be shit. Immortality doesn't change that. It just makes it longer.
 

JamesStone

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Jun 9, 2010
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TheSilverTeen said:
Only if i stayed at a certain age. Become super smart, teach new civilizations maybe? Watch empire rise and fall. Cool story, bro.
My post, ladies and gentleman.

Yeah it would be cool, but it would royally bite me in the ass if those "End of the Universe" theories were real, that is, the Big Rip or the Big Crunch. Crap, it would hurt.
 

Seagoon

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Feb 14, 2010
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xOriigins said:
Immortality is something most people have thought about and I know a lot may have wanted it. Despite this, is it really a good thing to live forever? This something I have wonder for a while and now, I ask you...is immortality truly a gift? Or is it a curse?
I'm pretty sure that there's no afterlife so... yeah..
 

Galite

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Sep 11, 2011
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Aprilgold said:
Galite said:
Why are people saying "if there isn't an afterlife..." An afterlife IS immortality so that's kind of a moot point. For myself I'd like to be able to live for hundreds or thousands of years but everything has to end eventually. I find the idea of living forever more frightening than the idea of death.
.... Are you high or something? Scientifically, after death is nothing, nothing. Immortality is not afterlife because you live forever among the living, difference.
What? Am I high? did you just read the first line? Either way, care too explain how an afterlife isn't immortality? In an afterlife the mind lives on after the body dies, but if the mind can live with the body you are just the mind so you didn't die. The afterlife would presumably be full of people who died in the past, so you get to live in another world but you continue living nonetheless.
If you want to think of Immortality vs death it's fairly redundant if there is an afterlife, assuming you get to do whatever you want in the afterlife as the comments I was referring to seemed to suggest. Death with no afterlife is an end, with one it is a beginning.