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What if you could do it all over? (2020)

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Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to? But let's say I want to, we have been here for a few 1000 years and our trackrecord is absolutely horrifying. We kill people not even to eat but for some religious madness... You really believe your offspring will live in a billion years?

Sure, it's a pretty high chance they will go into space. If they use energy storage it could even be trillions of years. It really depends if humanity self-destructs or not. Also different animals kill each other all the time. It's part of the cycle of life. I don't get why you have such a negative perspective.

So, Musk then... The guy who, well, seems literally insane. Yeah, good one.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to? But let's say I want to, we have been here for a few 1000 years and our trackrecord is absolutely horrifying. We kill people not even to eat but for some religious madness... You really believe your offspring will live in a billion years?

Sure, it's a pretty high chance they will go into space. If they use energy storage it could even be trillions of years. It really depends if humanity self-destructs or not. Also different animals kill each other all the time. It's part of the cycle of life. I don't get why you have such a negative perspective.

Animals are animals, you seem to think we are above that. If we agree we are not then we agree. But we won't make it very long.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to? But let's say I want to, we have been here for a few 1000 years and our trackrecord is absolutely horrifying. We kill people not even to eat but for some religious madness... You really believe your offspring will live in a billion years?

Sure, it's a pretty high chance they will go into space. If they use energy storage it could even be trillions of years. It really depends if humanity self-destructs or not. Also different animals kill each other all the time. It's part of the cycle of life. I don't get why you have such a negative perspective.

It is not negative, its indifferent, it won't matter, to anyone or anything. As I said, I perceive that as nice.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never needed that: I like life because I know I will die soon and nothing I do matters. That is the thing I would've liked to know earlier.

If you have children you can help continue a chain of humans millions or maybe even billions of years long.

Children are great under normal circumstances, its spouses and living with them 24/7 who create friction which easily dissolve even best relationships, one atom at a time.

Many reasons for that, but most I've seen could be summed up as "women expect men to change in marriage, and men expect women to not change", and it fails all over that statement in relationship over time, when kids and responsibilities come knocking at the door of your free time and energy.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#45
post #7

If you had perfect future knowledge (which is what this article is really about) you wouldn't want to invent Slack (or Google), which lets face it would have been a ton of work with a very uncertain outcome. You'd want to invest in Slack / Google at some early stage, do no work whatsoever, and enjoy the proceeds.

Pretty much.

I always find it funny when people say: "I'd invent Google" when they could barely pass their first year Calculus class. As if stating the idea is all it took but not the engineering and well ... the actual difficult work.

But everyone can invest. That much is totally doable.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#46
Once upon a time a certain someone wanted to come over,in reality I had to decline, but in an alternate timeline she does. We have fun, she decides to keep it, but signs over custody to me. Our daughter is a musical prodigy. With her sights on Juilliard.

I can play out a similar scenario with quite a few slight variations. But this what if stuff is almost always positive.

It's never what if I never downloaded Unity and taught myself to program.

It's never, what if that eviction was a bit faster.

For most of us reading this our lives are modern miracles. I came from nothing and I've made a comfortable 6 figure salary for a decade.

Be content with where you're at, you will never have everything you want.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#47

>For some people, imagining unlived lives is torture, even a gateway to crisis. I was either born without the gene or raised to not do this for myself but I do, quite often, dwell on the unlived lives of people I knew who were never given the chance to live their lives. My best friend was murdered at school when he was 16. In the Army there are several guys I considered to be "old men" at the time who I am now decade…

Very sorry for the loss of your friend.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never needed that: I like life because I know I will die soon and nothing I do matters. That is the thing I would've liked to know earlier.

If you have children you can help continue a chain of humans millions or maybe even billions of years long.

I will be childfree, so will my sister. Both of us are queer. As far as I know, all my three cousins (two of whom are queer) feel the same. There's no reason to expect that your children will want to reproduce, and it is pretty selfish to project your own dissatisfaction with life onto another human that way.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's a pretty high chance they will go into space. If they use energy storage it could even be trillions of years. It really depends if humanity self-destructs or not. Also different animals kill each other all the time. It's part of the cycle of life. I don't get why you have such a negative perspective.

Animals are animals, you seem to think we are above that. If we agree we are not then we agree. But we won't make it very long.

People are a more intelligent type of animal but still animals.

Re: What if you could do it all over? (2020)

#50
post #45
post #7

If you had perfect future knowledge (which is what this article is really about) you wouldn't want to invent Slack (or Google), which lets face it would have been a ton of work with a very uncertain outcome. You'd want to invest in Slack / Google at some early stage, do no work whatsoever, and enjoy the proceeds.

Pretty much. I always find it funny when people say: "I'd invent Google" when they could barely pass their first year Calculus class. As if stating the idea is all it took but not the engineering and well ... the actual difficult work. But everyone can invest. That much is totally doable.

Yup, by far the hardest bit is working out which 7 star ski resort to go to next. In this alternate reality you'd be cosplaying as a VC, because that would give you the creds to raise money and meet the right founders. But the only work you'd be doing is passing on pets.com, and choosing to invest in thefacebook.
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