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Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

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Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#51

Post by morpheos137 »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #18
xvector wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/

I would rather we change our view on death. Death has always been a constant since life became a thing. Even the mightiest stars in the skies are destined to die one day. After you die, your consciousness fades, and so do all your desires and regrets. To me, death is the ultimate respite.

Death is neither good nor bad, nor permanent, in my opinion. Given eternity arbitrary close combinations of matter in space and time that composes you will arise again and again. My opinion is that when we die we pretty much begin a life extremely similar to the life we just lived except maybe some infintesimal thing is different. Thus if you want a better life then start creating it because you have been living variations of the same script forever.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#52

Post by kelnos »

Barrin92 wrote: post #40
nitrogen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, death is the ultimate respite. To me, this makes a virtue of necessity. We have deep philosophies around death only because it's inescapable. But if we could change that, then we could also change those philosophies.

death is more complex than just being inescapable. Death is also a change agent that wipes the slate clean and makes place for the new. It's how all organic life adopts collectively. The first thing that's going to be immortal when death isn't inescapable is Kim Jong Un. No thanks, if you want to see a world without death read Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon is just one fictionalized, dystopian account. It doesn't have to be bad.

Knowing humanity, though, it probably would be.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#53

Post by perilunar »

codetrotter wrote: post #32
xvector wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/

> so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality Step one would be to allow euthanasia. Until we allow that, we cannot pretend that anyone is ever going to be allowed to die on their own terms.

Whether it's "allowed" or not, you can still die on your own terms if you wish. You just need to organise and do it before you are incapable of doing it yourself.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#54

Post by whytaka »

SquibblesRedux wrote: post #15

Given what I would consider the eternal preciousness of a human, and the fleeting insignificance of computer software, I found it strange he opened with "I am a developer for Drupal." For example, why did he place that before his being a father? I think people too often miss the significance of their own existence, independent of their relatively brief tasks and accomplishments. I certainly do not mean to belittle or…

I think for a lot of people being a parent is not the distinguishing factor of their identity. Most people become parents so one can’t blame them for not seeing themselves distinguished by it.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#55

Post by TriNetra »

xvector wrote: post #10
dvt wrote: post #7

I personally like posts like this; a sobering reminder of our own mortality: memento mori . It hopefully motivates us to thrive, flourish, and cherish what really matters -- friendship, kindness, humility, love -- and to leave the world a little better than we found it. And if you're curious, the Aaaron Winborn Award is still going strong[1]! [1] https://www.drupal.org/community/cwg/aaron-winborn-award

Hopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/

When we understand that we have an eternal essence within – an immutable part of us that neither bourns thus nor dies, death becomes no longer something to be afraid of. And when we realize this eternal aspect of our existence with direct experience, we also gain the luxury to die (leave the body) at our own will.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#56

Post by narrator »

The strange irony to me of this post is that anyone who is older than about 80 could write about how this is likely their last birthday. Death comes for everyone eventually.

I think to myself sometimes, "How long till I'm 80?" From that point on it's just waiting to die. What am I going to do and accomplish in the time between now and then?

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#57

Post by whytaka »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #46
xfer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think being a father is anymore of an achievement?

Raising a child by being a father is a much larger achievement than writing any software. I’d say the same if you mentioned someone like Linus Torvalds.

Does Linus even have children? I don’t know cause I never cared what he did in that area of his life. It has never affected me certainly. I am certainly in awe of his accomplishments with Linux/git though.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#58

Post by glitchc »

gonehome wrote: post #42
GreenWatermelon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather we change our view on death. Death has always been a constant since life became a thing. Even the mightiest stars in the skies are destined to die one day. After you die, your consciousness fades, and so do all your desires and regrets. To me, death is the ultimate respite.

"At another point in the discussion, a man spoke of some benefit X of death, I don't recall exactly what. And I said: "You know, given human nature, if people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing. But if you took someone who wasn't being hit on the head with a baseball bat, and you asked them if they wa…

Actually there is a physics based reason. It’s entropy. Entropy can only increase over time in an isolated system. The human body is a complex multicellular organism largely isolated from the environment and largely in homeostasis once fully grown. Increasing entropy over time is inevitable. It would require increasingly larger amounts of energy to counteract its effects on our body, which over time would become impossible to supply.

If stars cannot sustain themselves forever, how can we compete? We are far more complex with a far smaller energy budget.

Re: Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)

#60

Post by ren_engineer »

gonehome wrote: post #42
GreenWatermelon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather we change our view on death. Death has always been a constant since life became a thing. Even the mightiest stars in the skies are destined to die one day. After you die, your consciousness fades, and so do all your desires and regrets. To me, death is the ultimate respite.

"At another point in the discussion, a man spoke of some benefit X of death, I don't recall exactly what. And I said: "You know, given human nature, if people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing. But if you took someone who wasn't being hit on the head with a baseball bat, and you asked them if they wa…

"science advances one funeral at a time"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

Most likely outcome of immortality as humans currently are would be stagnation and power being concentrated in a few hands

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