What would be your worst nightmare?

[Rsandee]

Don't just post messages like: MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH or something.
I made that post as ''friendly'' as possible.

[Locas]

Waking up and still be myself and still have to get up in the morning D:<
WHY CAN'T I WAKE UP AS AN ALL-POWERFUL WINGED THING AND NOT HAVE TO GET UP D:<

[Jewish Candy]

But, if you were a powerful winged Sephiroth-a-like, why would you want to stay in bed? Surely lying on all those wings would be painful?

[DesLife]

I wonder how much longer it will be before technology becomes advanced enough to stop people from dying. I hope it isn’t too long.

I hope that will never happen.
When you say "death"... Do you mean that what scares you is the fact that you'll eventually die, or the last moments before death, when you face it ?

[Puruun]

Waking up and still be myself and still have to get up in the morning D:<
WHY CAN'T I WAKE UP AS AN ALL-POWERFUL WINGED THING AND NOT HAVE TO GET UP D:<

Your life must be hell lol

Dying.. Isn't it much like falling asleep?

[Matyuv]

Dying.. Isn't it much like falling asleep?

not really? you're alive when you sleep and it's just a necessary process... and sleeping implies waking up
death means you're going to rot, be eaten by insects, or burnt to ashes, whichever you like more

[Puruun]

Dying.. Isn't it much like falling asleep?

not really? you're alive when you sleep and it's just a necessary process... and sleeping implies waking up
death means you're going to rot, be eaten by insects, or burnt to ashes, whichever you like more

I meant the moment you die. If you fall asleep, you lose conscience, if you die, you lose it too (but it never comes back). I don't notice it when I fall asleep, do you?

[Matyuv]

well I suppose you don't notice the moment you die because you have to be alive to notice something.

[Puruun]

I guess we can conclude that the moment you die is much like the moment you fall asleep.

[Rsandee]

Yeah, maybe you don't ''feel'' that you died, or maybe you go to heaven (don't flame me for that. )
Or maybe you just get a very, very long dream.

[jhonsadins]

I am also having the same worst nightmare as someone above the page..

Death isn't scary Or maybe he worries for the world left behind... WITHOUT HIM IN IT.
Pudding basins and their assorted lids are scarier than pain.

[Jewish Candy]

Jhonni-kun is afraid of basins too?! AT LAST!!!

[Danone]

Don't just post messages like: MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH or something.
I made that post as ''friendly'' as possible.

yuups, xenon said me the same thing, will not happen again

[spiraldoor]

I personally would find eternal life like that really, really painful. Hope there's an opt-out button when the time comes!

Painful? In what way? Emotionally? And of course there would be an ‘opt-out button’: suicide. Assuming that you underwent the treatment in the first place.

Even if that idea was developed, I'm sure it would be legally rejected. Imagine the strain it would put on the world's already large population.

Legally rejected? How could any government ban something which would save billions of lives? I find that idea appalling. And even if most governments did not allow it, I find it hard to imagine that every single government in the world would all come to the same decision.

People could go and live on the moon or something. Or be required to undergo sterilisation treatment if they should choose not to die.

I hope that will never happen.
When you say "death"... Do you mean that what scares you is the fact that you'll eventually die, or the last moments before death, when you face it ?

Why don’t you want it to happen? You might want to die, but you have no right to impose that decision on everyone else in the world.

The aspect of death I find most troubling is the whole permanent obliteration of my consciousness and the destruction of all my thoughts, memories and personality forever. That part.

[Jewish Candy]

By 'opt-out' I mean never becoming immortal in the first place.
Contrary to Xenon's idea, I think the governments of the world would embrace that technology, along with sterilisation. Information and management-wise, it would be far 'easier' if people didn't have children or die - then all the data would never have to be resorted, rewritten, etc. I also think immortality would be mandatory, no excuses, because of the bureaucracy and loss of governmental control if anyone opted out. This all sounds like a conspiracy theory, and I guess it is, but if you look at the attitude today toward holding information (and if you read The Declaration and The Resistance ), well... who knows.

So I guess I fear human immortality. I fear what it would mean for people's freedoms, and I fear what it would do to the planet and its ecosystems too. I know I'd find having to go on forever painful (emotionally) - there would be no escape, because surely if you're immortal, you can't die, even if you wanted to?

I personally cannot fear death. As a woman of faith I believe in a life beyond this one - and if I turn out to be wrong, and there's nothing afterwards, I won't know about it, will I? Besides, Spiral, you'll have an amazing legacy left to this world after you depart (that's a guess, but you seem like a mature guy with a good head on your shoulders). I think I'd treasure what I meant to other living things more than myself, though that is me talkin'.

[Xenon]

As a technological advance I'm sure the government would embrace it, but as an optional practice I'm sure they wouldn't. As I mentioned before, infinite life would mean an infinitely increasing population... do you guys really think the world's governments would promote this possibility?

There are also financial difficulties to consider, assuming people would continue to deteriorate.

And on a personal note, I really wouldn't want a ridiculously high percentage of people to be over sixty-five.

[Jewish Candy]

Which is why sterilisation would be advocated alongside immortality. As I mentioned earlier, it would be preferrable to a government if they could have just ONE database of all people, never having to add new ones (no new births) or delete entries (no deaths).

Any government that could successfully introduce this though would have to be global... therefore things like money probably wouldn't matter.

I also wouldn't want a load of over-65s blocking my view.

[spiraldoor]

So I guess I fear human immortality. I fear what it would mean for people's freedoms, and I fear what it would do to the planet and its ecosystems too. I know I'd find having to go on forever painful (emotionally) - there would be no escape, because surely if you're immortal, you can't die, even if you wanted to?

If you really wanted to die, you could always, I don’t know, jump off a skyscraper or cut your head off or something. Even an immortal wouldn’t survive that.

I personally cannot fear death. As a woman of faith I believe in a life beyond this one - and if I turn out to be wrong, and there's nothing afterwards, I won't know about it, will I? Besides, Spiral, you'll have an amazing legacy left to this world after you depart (that's a guess, but you seem like a mature guy with a good head on your shoulders). I think I'd treasure what I meant to other living things more than myself, though that is me talkin'.

If everyone could live for a thousand years, or a million, or a billion, just imagine what each person could accomplish. Look at the contribution Albert Einstein made in his seventy-six years; what theories would he be developing if he was still alive today? Or a hundred years from now?

Look at Michel Ancel. How many games will be make in his seventy- or eighty-year lifespan? Now, multiply that by infinity. See what I mean? Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick were still alive, and Orson Welles, and JRR Tolkien and Philip K Dick and Isaac Asimov and Michelangelo Buonarroti and Leonardo da Vinci. Imagine a world where all these people had endless opportunity to continue their work. A world where every single individual has enough time to achieve greatness. I suppose, if I’m being honest, that giving artists an unlimited amount of time to work with is one of the most appealing aspects of immortality, for me at least. Every year, great people die. Immortality can’t come soon enough.

I don’t believe in the afterlife, and I think we can all agree that it’s quite possible that it doesn’t exist. Even if I thought there was an afterlife, I wouldn’t want to risk dying when there might not be one.

As a technological advance I'm sure the government would embrace it, but as an optional practice I'm sure they wouldn't. As I mentioned before, infinite life would mean an infinitely increasing population... do you guys really think the world's governments would promote this possibility?

There are also financial difficulties to consider, assuming people would continue to deteriorate.

And on a personal note, I really wouldn't want a ridiculously high percentage of people to be over sixty-five.

If you think that the UK government would embrace the technology itself but not allow it to be released for general consumption, what exactly do you think they would use it for? To immortalise politicians or something like that? I think that any Luddite anti-immortality government which is condemning 100% of its citizens to death by disallowing this technology would soon be voted out, don’t you? Or perhaps they’d change their minds when they saw that the populations of other countries were beginning to make use of the technology; what government would want their country to be left behind in such a way? If the Irish government banned the immortality treatment, I would certainly consider emigrating to any country where it was available. Or perhaps some enterprising smugglers would take advantage of the situation, and start peddling the most valuable thing in the world.

In the world I’m postulating, all problems relating to disease and ageing will have been cured. Funding the NHS would not be a problem, I think.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a population full of ancient people, as long as they are fit and healthy and youthful. I’m working under the assumption that in the future we’ll have nanomachines in our bloodstreams making sure that everything’s running smoothly, or something along the lines of that.

[Jewish Candy]

So I guess I fear human immortality. I fear what it would mean for people's freedoms, and I fear what it would do to the planet and its ecosystems too. I know I'd find having to go on forever painful (emotionally) - there would be no escape, because surely if you're immortal, you can't die, even if you wanted to?

If you really wanted to die, you could always, I don’t know, jump off a skyscraper or cut your head off or something. Even an immortal wouldn’t survive that.

Um, yes they would. If you're immortal, you can't die. Simple as.

Look at Michel Ancel. How many games will be make in his seventy- or eighty-year lifespan? Now, multiply that by infinity. See what I mean? Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick were still alive, and Orson Welles, and JRR Tolkien and Philip K Dick and Isaac Asimov and Michelangelo Buonarroti and Leonardo da Vinci. Imagine a world where all these people had endless opportunity to continue their work. A world where every single individual has enough time to achieve greatness. I suppose, if I’m being honest, that giving artists an unlimited amount of time to work with is one of the most appealing aspects of immortality, for me at least. Every year, great people die. Immortality can’t come soon enough.

I don’t believe in the afterlife, and I think we can all agree that it’s quite possible that it doesn’t exist. Even if I thought there was an afterlife, I wouldn’t want to risk dying when there might not be one.

Sorry - I'm convicted of an afterlife. Though I understand totally why others don't.
What you say about the potential of eternal life is certainly feasible, and the unlimited artistic possibilities that come with immortality also appeal to me - but I don't trust human awesomeness enough to see that happening. Great people with incredible skills could so easily lose their way, the good could become corrupt, etc... although immortality would give them the opportunity to turn back around again, what might their wrong-footedness already have done to others, to the rest of the world? I'm assuming people still have emotions in your conception of immortality. And, of course, think of all the dictators and power-hungry people out there today. Imagine them living forever. They are human, they could easily join the 'light side' at some point, but their terror-wreaking would no doubt leave an even larger mark on people. Without death to threaten people, what other, more horrifying methods of torture could they come up with?

I think another huge issue for me is that it would basically render any value in life as null. There would be nothing to compare it to, seeing as death had been beaten. In my opinion art and all its associated concepts are drawn from this human awareness of these two parallels, life and death. I would say that this struggle is where human hope originated, perhaps even human love. The feeling that there is something or someone you can strive for, you can protect... I know that love and hope are some of the most beautiful, overwhelming feelings I've ever had. I understand that for you, perhaps the idea that death is all that results in the end demotivates you rather than gives hope. But if we were all to live forever, there would be no need for our hope, dare I say it, no love - they're only ways for us to cling onto things that might disappear one day. I'd hate to live in a world where we'd be deprived of such anguish, and at the same time, such beauty. *Goes all poetic and grabs some shish*

May I ask what you perceive as greatness?

[Xenon]

Which is why sterilisation would be advocated alongside immortality. As I mentioned earlier, it would be preferrable to a government if they could have just ONE database of all people, never having to add new ones (no new births) or delete entries (no deaths).

Why would this be preferrable? Sure, there'd be less paperwork, but there would also be less culture and individualism. What's great about a country (speaking from a governmental and an individual level) that simply recycles the same people?

If you think that the UK government would embrace the technology itself but not allow it to be released for general consumption, what exactly do you think they would use it for? To immortalise politicians or something like that? I think that any Luddite anti-immortality government which is condemning 100% of its citizens to death by disallowing this technology would soon be voted out, don’t you? Or perhaps they’d change their minds when they saw that the populations of other countries were beginning to make use of the technology; what government would want their country to be left behind in such a way? If the Irish government banned the immortality treatment, I would certainly consider emigrating to any country where it was available. Or perhaps some enterprising smugglers would take advantage of the situation, and start peddling the most valuable thing in the world.

My point was that no government would use it, but rather refer to it as a massive advance in technological development. Even if a vote was cast to make this medication available, I still think the majority would vote against it. I for one wouldn't want eternal life. Perhaps a few more decades, but not eternal life. Immortality would remove the exclusiveness of life, not to mention batter the conventions and faith of religious groups. It's just not something any government would consent, in my opinion, despite the incredible opportunities it could offer.