Mortality

[Rhyfelwyr]

When I think about it, the idea of not being able to die is pretty terrifying. Hard to comprehend...

[a completely inoffensive name]

I am starting to firmly believe that mortality will be eradicated by the time I would be old enough to die.

[Hooahguy]

I welcome my morality. For multiple reasons, mostly because my life holds more meaning, knowing that I have a limited amount of time here, and I need to make the most of it.
I will direct you to my favorite poem, "If" by Rudyard Kipling, specifically the ending of it:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

If I can fill my life- the unforgiving minute- "with sixty seconds worth of distance run," in other words, as much effort and passion that I can, "Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it" which in other words is saying that I can do anything I want in this world.

I draw from that poem the rationale for my morality that while I will eventually die- that is inevitable- I should not cower in fear of it; rather I should use the time that I have to sally forth and meet the world head on.

I also think that the longer our lives, the more pain and suffering that we will have to endure and watch. For those who play Mass Effect, they would know that the Asari (a race of aliens in the Mass Effect series) live for a thousand years or so. This might seem like a great thing. But when asked about it in the game, one elderly Asari answers that it really is not such a great thing. The Asari tells you that while living for so long may seem like a good thing, it really is something very painful. Due to their long age, the Asari have seen countless wars and so much suffering that many of them become recluses from society. Not to mention that they always outlive their lovers, making the search for true love very difficult if you have to do it every 100 years or so. That is why morality is a good thing. Granted, we would all like to live to 1000, but the toll that would take on us, both physically and emotionally, would be too great for us to bear and we would eventually collapse, either physically or mentally.

So thats why I value my morality. Knowing that I don’t have too much time on this planet gives me the drive to make the best of it at all times, and living forever only means that I would have to bear witness to the inevitable sufferings that would occur throughout history.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I disagree with you Hooah. I think it would only be a terrible toll on those who are too weak to handle it. If I knew I could live forever, quite honestly I would work so damn hard. Know why? Because now I can fulfill my big desire to learn everything. I want to learn everything, but in my 90-100 year time span I only have enough time to specialize in one field and perhaps along the rest of my life take intermittent breaks in my job to take classes in my later years to expand my learning. If I could live forever... I could see humanity become god and see us reach the point of terraforming entire planets far off in the future. It would be glorious and I would welcome it fully.

[Hooahguy]

I disagree with you Hooah. I think it would only be a terrible toll on those who are too weak to handle it. If I knew I could live forever, quite honestly I would work so damn hard. Know why? Because now I can fulfill my big desire to learn everything. I want to learn everything, but in my 90-100 year time span I only have enough time to specialize in one field and perhaps along the rest of my life take intermittent breaks in my job to take classes in my later years to expand my learning. If I could live forever... I could see humanity become god and see us reach the point of terraforming entire planets far off in the future. It would be glorious and I would welcome it fully.

Of course, that would only be for those who are very committed. There will be always those who will spend centuries sitting around being lazy. If I knew that I would live forever, I would do that. Spend a century being a nerd, another century being a jock, and so forth. But eventually I would ask myself what Im doing on this planet if Im just wasting time. Of course people would say they are tough enough to handle it, but would they actually be tough enough? We will never know, for there wont be any cure for death in the future. At least within the next century. First we got to cure AIDS and Cancer.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

bah, "immortality would be terrible" is one of those things that come from mythology. Like "getting three wishes will turn out terribly!" etc. Authors love to cheat when they write about it.

Ask someone who's 80 if they'd like to be rejuvenated along with their wife and best friends, and given 80 more years and see what they say. And then make the same offer in another 80. How about living for a thousand years, that would be cool? Why do these stories always involve people who want to commit suicide but inexplicable can't, and people who lose all friends to death?

[Hooahguy]

But then that just trivializes your actions of the past 80 or so years.

[a completely inoffensive name]

But then that just trivializes your actions of the past 80 or so years.

No it doesn't. If you spent your 80 years finding a cure for cancer and then managed to be given another 80 years, your accomplishments are not demeaned in any way.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

But then that just trivializes your actions of the past 80 or so years.

So what would you say to a 40 year old then? Don't live to 80, it'll trivialize your actions of the past 40 years? And how does it trivialize it?

[drone]

I have no idea how I would pay for my immortality.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I have no idea how I would pay for my immortality.

How so?

[naut]

I have no idea how I would pay for my immortality.

Heavy.

[Yaropolk]

Sure is going to be fun to be an immortal neanderthal in 1 million years. Good luck getting laid with all that hair and brow ridges. If you're immortal, the human race will evolve and leave you behind!

[Motep]

Sure is going to be fun to be an immortal neanderthal in 1 million years. Good luck getting laid with all that hair and brow ridges. If you're immortal, the human race will evolve and leave you behind!

Plastic surgery, dude. Besides, guys with lots of hair and heavy brows still get some. Look at my father

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Sure is going to be fun to be an immortal neanderthal in 1 million years. Good luck getting laid with all that hair and brow ridges. If you're immortal, the human race will evolve and leave you behind!

Maybe a million years from now they'll invent a machine for removing body hair...some kind of sharp metal utensil...

[naut]

Maybe a million years from now they'll invent a machine for removing body hair...some kind of sharp metal utensil...

Madness!