The best I can do now (in absence of this machine) is trying to remember we are already slowly dying day by day, and that we can drop dead in any instant. But even using this machine I think I would easily forget about my own mortality and keep wasting my time with mundane things.
Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?
#22How reliable is the read? Like what if I see I will die at say 80 and then immediately commit suicide? Maybe the world simply forks whence one touches the past/future?
Re: Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?
#23It would make no difference. I've had dreams since puberty about how I'll die. The only thing I don't know is when. But the face in the mirror in the dreams looks more and more like the face I have. So, you know, it's coming for us all in the end.
Re: Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?
#24Only if it is fixable ...
Take it as a warning sign. If I cannot change it, then all it does is cause anxiety.
Re: Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?
#25You can use actuarial math and get pretty damned close. Like within five years with 80% confidence. Not as much romance in that as there is in a Time Machine.
The problem is that what people care about are the "black swan" causes of death, i.e., the cases the actuarial table is wrong.
Re: Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?
#26https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashforward_(novel)
Re: Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?
#27Depends - is the future set in stone, H2G2-style (the Stavromueller Beta subplot, specifically)?
If I cannot change the future by my actions that means I will be completely safe from dying until the appointed time is near, so...
Re: Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?
#28I don't think that's possible, for what i've infered there is a sea of possibility so is just paths we trace and you could get the autofullfill prophecy if that happens.