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Would you want to live forever if it were possible?

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    #32
    downwithpeace
    Registered Users Posts: 1,259 ✭✭✭downwithpeace


    Only if I had an "End now" ability.

    Edit: If I have a wife an odffspring then I would need to be able to pass it on to them, they would probably also want the abilty and so I would eventually have a family army...I'm over thinking this again.


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    #33
    leonidas83
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,065 ✭✭✭leonidas83


    I think the possibilities for becoming rich would be very real. For example, you could buy up land & property, live off the rental stream this would give you & continue to buy new property until you had so much money you didnt care anymore.

    It would depend on whether or not you could kill yourself if it all became too much, if you couldnt I wouldnt, if you could I'd consider it. Id imagine after your fifth partner passing away you'd probably be quite psychologically disturbed.


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    #34
    HHobo
    Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    The Dagda wrote: »
    You seemed certain about the riches, i'm sensing some doubt now...

    Dagda, he's right. You would definately become rich. There is no doubt.
    If you managed to save just a penny a year, you'd still become rich eventually. You don't seem to understand the time scale here.

    Most regular folk even manage increase thier wealth substansially in a normal length life.


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    #35
    m5ex9oqjawdg2i
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,221 ✭✭✭✭m5ex9oqjawdg2i


    No thank you.


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    #36
    sbsquarepants
    Registered Users Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭sbsquarepants


    Relationships/friendships with people would become meaningless. If you spend ten years of your life with someone that's a fairly long term thing now, 40 or 50 years is incredible given a roughly 70-80 year life span. But 50 years out of a million year life span or longer is like, someone you had a conversation with on a bus once. I wouldn't like it.
    What i would like however is a few hundred years, or a thousand maybe, but immortality - no thanks.
    Also you'd get left behind by evolution - you'd end up a different species to the rest of humanity!


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    #37
    Pawwed Rig
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 22,330 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    If you read Anne Rice's Vampire chronicles (ignoring the vampire bit) it shows her opinion on what living forever means. The tedium, depression, regrets that everyone you have ever known is dead.
    And Yes they are all rich. It would be a logical result of immortality. Anyone can get rich given infinite time.

    In Ireland for example you could rob banks. Even if you get caught you would only get 10 years or so:D


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    #38
    seamus
    Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    sbsquarepants wrote: »
    Relationships/friendships with people would become meaningless. If you spend ten years of your life with someone that's a fairly long term thing now, 40 or 50 years is incredible given a roughly 70-80 year life span.
    I can see where you're coming from, but I don't entirely agree. Many people form attachments with animals which only have a 2-3 year lifespan, and I don't think in any case these attachments are considered meaningless.
    However, being immortal would require an adjustment of such things - while each relationship/friendship would have significant meaning, you would never consider any of them to be permanent and have to accept that they will all come to an end at some point.
    Also you'd get left behind by evolution - you'd end up a different species to the rest of humanity!
    Certainly if you're talking in terms of living for a million years. Which could mean that either you'd be considered a curio with the relative intellect of a cat, or you may be the only sentient (as we know it) form of life on earth as humans evolve to lose their intellectual capacity.


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    #39
    Splendour
    Registered Users Posts: 1,580 ✭✭✭Splendour


    Cossax wrote: »
    There's a great movie that covers this question, kinda. The Man From Earth, recommended watching for anyone and everyone.

    Could be an interesting watch...

    Don't really want to get into a big debate about it but as a Christian I know I'm going to live forever.However, it won't be in this body or on this earth (as we know it).
    Not sure how the time thing will work though as 'one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day...'
    Anyway, I hope there's tons of it because I never seem to have enough!


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    #40
    HHobo
    Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    Splendour wrote: »
    ...as a Christian I know I'm going to live forever.

    *cough* you believe youare going to live forever. *cough*
    Splendour wrote: »
    'one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day...'

    The only sensible thing this statement can be saying is that time would become an irrelevant/unnoticed concept.

    Still, eternity would get mighty boring. Especially in Christian heaven. God is generally anti-fun and big on the worship. Yuck. I'll take oblivion! (hopefully after a decent run, of course :))


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    #41
    Splendour
    Registered Users Posts: 1,580 ✭✭✭Splendour


    HHobo wrote: »
    *cough* you believe youare going to live forever. *cough*



    The only sensible thing this statement can be saying is that time would become an irrelevant/unnoticed concept.

    Still, eternity would get mighty boring. Especially in Christian heaven. God is generally anti-fun and big on the worship. Yuck. I'll take oblivion! (hopefully after a decent run, of course :))

    If He spends eternity (however way it works) turning water into wine I'll be a happy heavenly camper!


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    #42
    johnolocher
    Closed Accounts Posts: 84 ✭✭johnolocher


    Yeah absolutely. It'd be easy to get rich, keep robbing banks, so what if you had to keep doing 20 years, that's like a few seconds in eternity.

    Imagine all the advances you would see. I wouldn't like people to know I lived for ever though because then you'd be famous and have people forever coming to you asking about the past.

    It'd take some adjustment seeing loved ones die but I suppose you just stay close to their descendents or get a new wife every 100 years or so. You'd get used to it.


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    #43
    HHobo
    Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    Splendour wrote: »
    If He spends eternity (however way it works) turning water into wine I'll be a happy heavenly camper!

    Ha! That might liven things up a bit, alright! :)


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    #44
    Snake Pliisken
    Registered Users Posts: 237 ✭✭Snake Pliisken


    Eternity is in a moment, living longer wont save you if you never live a true moment in your life. On the other hand, this transient but persistent experience is quite enjoyable so I'd like to keep it going for as long as it's enjoyable.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iYpxRXlboQ


    I posted this in the other live forever thread but I think it deserves a berth here as well...


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    #45
    sbsquarepants
    Registered Users Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭sbsquarepants


    HHobo wrote: »
    Still, eternity would get mighty boring. Especially in Christian heaven. God is generally anti-fun and big on the worship. Yuck. I'll take oblivion! (hopefully after a decent run, of course :))

    I'm with you HHobo.
    You know how annoying it is to be around the type of woman who is always fishing for compliments, wanting to be told how funny and sexy they are and so on. That's how i see the idea of christian heaven - yea "god" you're fúcking marvelous i get it, i told you so yesterday, congratulations on the univerese and stuff. But now could you kindly fúck off - i have plans to take my newly contructed army of jennifer lawrence clones sking down mount cocaine before going skinny dipping in vodka lake. Worship? Eh, i was going to skip it today, this is sorta more my idea of heaven!


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    #46
    ruthloss
    Closed Accounts Posts: 637 ✭✭✭ruthloss


    I don't want to live forever., I shall be happy to outlive several miscreants I have encountered along my journey.


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    #47
    trxking
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39 ✭trxking


    100% yes without a doubt...but would u age thats the only thing


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    #48
    bbam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,410 ✭✭✭bbam


    Well I think I'd give it a go.
    Plan would be to start doing the euromillions every time. With endless time my numbers would come up at some stage, then it's time to live forever;)
    No point in living a mundane life eternally.


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    #49
    sbsquarepants
    Registered Users Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭sbsquarepants


    seamus wrote: »
    I can see where you're coming from, but I don't entirely agree. Many people form attachments with animals which only have a 2-3 year lifespan, and I don't think in any case these attachments are considered meaningless.
    However, being immortal would require an adjustment of such things - while each relationship/friendship would have significant meaning, you would never consider any of them to be permanent and have to accept that they will all come to an end at some point.
    Certainly if you're talking in terms of living for a million years. Which could mean that either you'd be considered a curio with the relative intellect of a cat, or you may be the only sentient (as we know it) form of life on earth as humans evolve to lose their intellectual capacity.

    True, but 3 years is a large percentage of an average persons life - say around 3% - 4%.
    If you lived to be a million then to maintain that ratio you'd need to be spending 30 - 40 thousand years with someone for them to be as memorable as a hamster! A 50 or 60 year marriage - which is extraordinarily long by todays standards would have the equivalent impact of a butterfly that landed on you once. You may remember it, but it's far more likely that you won't.


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    #50
    maximoose
    Registered Users Posts: 9,197 ✭✭✭maximoose


    Did you start this thread after watching Indiana Jones yesterday?


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    #51
    FloatingVoter
    Registered Users Posts: 6,133 ✭✭✭FloatingVoter


    Yes, on a nice warm island with bags of money and keeping my ugly little face as it is. Plenty of crap telly to watch until somebody invents proper space travel and I get off this rock.


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    #52
    Dyr
    Registered Users Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    Too fkin right I'd live forever, I want to see what happens next


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    #53
    The Dagda
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,345 ✭✭✭The Dagda


    HHobo wrote: »
    Dagda, he's right. You would definately become rich. There is no doubt.
    If you managed to save just a penny a year, you'd still become rich eventually. You don't seem to understand the time scale here.

    Most regular folk even manage increase thier wealth substansially in a normal length life.

    You don't seem to understand economics, it takes more than simple time to generate wealth.

    I agree that immortality would be an advantage, but it wouldn't guarantee wealth.


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    #54
    Pawwed Rig
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 22,330 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    seamus wrote: »
    Which could mean that either you'd be considered a curio with the relative intellect of a cat, or you may be the only sentient (as we know it) form of life on earth as humans evolve to lose their intellectual capacity.

    +1 on this. From wiki
    IQ test scores have been rising at an average rate of around three IQ points per decade

    Therefore in 200 years you would already be labelled as someone with learning difficulties. In 10,000 years :eek:


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    #55
    HHobo
    Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    Pawwed Rig wrote: »
    +1 on this. From wiki
    IQ test scores have been rising at an average rate of around three IQ points per decade

    Therefore in 200 years you would already be labelled as someone with learning difficulties. In 10,000 years :eek:

    If this is true, I would find out what it is like to be intellectually average in about 160 years or so ;)

    Still, I'd undoubtedly be considered a moron 160 or so years after that :confused:

    I might be interesting for a short while to be surronded by people who are comparitve geniuses. Imagine the things they would be capable of figuring out.

    In 10,000 years at that rate of progression, I would probably be eating my dinner out of a bowl while a super-intelligent Homo-superiorus was stroking my head and talking to me in that voice people usually reserve for cute pets. Basically, all my ambitions would be finally realised! :D


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    #56
    HHobo
    Registered Users Posts: 298 ✭✭HHobo


    The Dagda wrote: »
    You don't seem to understand economics, it takes more than simple time to generate wealth.

    I agree that immortality would be an advantage, but it wouldn't guarantee wealth.

    I understand economics as well as most economists, that is to say not very well :)

    I took the poster to be suggesting that you are unique in this living forever bit. In that scenario I give you Einstein


    “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest”


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    #57
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    The Dagda wrote: »

    You don't seem to understand economics, it takes more than simple time to generate wealth.

    I agree that immortality would be an advantage, but it wouldn't guarantee wealth.

    What doesn't he understand. If you live forever and economys continue to grow, a small bit of investing would make you rich.

    All wars and economic collapse could harm it a bit, so diversify.


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    #58
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Pawwed Rig wrote: »

    +1 on this. From wiki
    IQ test scores have been rising at an average rate of around three IQ points per decade

    Therefore in 200 years you would already be labelled as someone with learning difficulties. In 10,000 years :eek:

    That effect is more an artefact of how IQ is measured than anything else.


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    #59
    Davidius
    Registered Users Posts: 4,893 ✭✭✭Davidius


    Yes I would. I would dedicate myself to then constructing an artificial reality in which all people could be immortalised and create a very real form of heaven. To accomplish my goal I would have to capture the minds of people of course so for a while I'd be a supervillain.


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    #60
    The Dagda
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,345 ✭✭✭The Dagda


    Duggys Housemate wrote: »
    What doesn't he understand. If you live forever and economys continue to grow, a small bit of investing would make you rich.

    All wars and economic collapse could harm it a bit, so diversify.

    So is it time or the "small bit of investing" that's creating the wealth, in your scenario?


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    #61
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    The Dagda wrote: »

    So is it time or the "small bit of investing" that's creating the wealth, in your scenario?

    Both. Compound interest. Maybe you should explain why we are wrong.


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