How do you want to go?

[Bazz]

Death, dying, kicking the fucking bucket. It has to happen, we all die at some point, unless technology saves us, but that doesn't appear to be on the cards for anyone reading this right now. So you have to die at some point, what's it going to be? 80 years old, had a full life, die having shat your pants in an old folks home. 30 years old, pissed up, run over by a bus. 40 years old, push some old lady out of the way of a tram...
We all have to die at some point so I'm wondering where the balance is... Obviously we'd all like to die some heroic death pushing some child or something out of the way of a bus, but failing that what are the plans?
I'm not really up for getting really old and slow and being, basically, shit at everything and dependent on everyone else to carry on. I probably won't kill myself to stop that happening though... which leads to me being a bit shit scared of being old...
So ummm... Anyone got any views on noble deaths or stuff in that region?
You have to die, how do you want to go?

[Damien]

No 63 opion, so I picked the closest one.

Me, I want to get old and not mad. I know it can be possible, it's just very unlikely

[Anonymous]

The RDM wants to live to be old enough that he can do whatever he wants and not make excuses for his actions. That included being mean to children. That's the RDM's dream. He'd also like to die in some sort of hugely dramatic fashion, something that really sticks in your mind.

[Entr0pi3]

I plan not dying. UncAer. Dying is lame.

More seriously, though, if a "cure for death" was discovered, the consequences would be more than rather dramatic, IMO. I'd expect this cure to be a scarce resource (and if not, I expect the people who'd provide it to make it artificially scarce, just for the sake of power and $€£), and mortals would be ready to do anything to get it (nothing to lose). And imagine, if it'd be a drug you have to take regularly or something? Ultimate enslavement, rly. Also, I don't expect there'd be much room for children in a world were death can be killed.

[Damien]

Sounds like a bad sci fi

[Entr0pi3]

Why bad?
Hypothesis: cure for death is discovered.
Starting from there, where do you think the story should be heading?
(200 words, +/- 10%)

[Chi]

Hm, sounds like the premise for John Wyndham's "The Trouble With Lichen." And that is, IMNSHO, good sci-fi. Plus many, many sci-fi novels (not to mention mythologies) have a sub-plot involving a substance that can keep one young for evAr (boosterspice in Ringworld, the Lapis Philosophae of ancient alchemists, to name but two).

Personally, I have no interest in dying nobly. I'd rather die quietly and unceremoneously in my sleep at some ripe old age in the range (90, 110). I'm not particularly interested in being a purple-hearted hero, or getting a Victoria Cross (belated) -though if I happen to die "saving" someone else, well that's too bad.

I met a guy in Brixton who was 100 and still perfectly fit and active... and still working.

[Bazz]

I met a guy in Brixton who was 100 and still perfectly fit and active... and still working.

Hopefully I'll still be working for William Hill when I'm 100

[Damien]

I met a guy in Brixton who was 100 and still perfectly fit and active... and still working.

Yeah good on you there Christian. You should check out that mirror more often

[Entr0pi3]

ROFL

[Lord Golbez]

I don't literally want to live for ever, but all the other options suck. I don't want to die before 100. I probably will and I'm totally cool with that, but if I live to 110, or better yet 119 (so I get to see 2100), that would be awesome.

[Anonymous]

NewsRadio did the best drug that makes you young forever thing evar. Hair falling out around age 800 made it unmarketable.

Anyways...what's the fun of being alive and over 100? Other than being able to claim that you're only actually 4 years old in binary.

[Damien]

Btw, I wouldn't want to be hit by a tram if the alternate were a random old woman that was probably hoping to be put out of her own misery getting hit by it.

[Bazz]

The old lady was a bad example, the child makes much more sense
I made it look wrong, it's not about dying a hero, it was more the point that you have to die at some point so dying stopping someone else dying seems a good way to go. Better then dying in your sleep imo, I'd like my last action to be something useful, not something trivial like brushing my teeth. It's the LAST THING you ever do, I know it will probably just be something normal, but to hope that it's just something normal seems a bit unimaginative.

[cybersuh]

I'd rather be dead before I get too old, I mean what's the point of just existing unable to do anything? Plus I don't really find life too enjoyable anyways, I find it pretty boring.

[Chi]

I'd like my last action to be something useful

Fair enough. I'd like the majority of my life to be lived doing something useful (whatever that is), rather than a swansong. After it has happened, I'm really not going to be caring about how I died, tbh, much as I'm not going to care about what happens to any peas I didn't spend before it happened

I'd rather be dead before I get too old

What is too old though? I agree with you that I don't much fancy the idea of living a crippled life, but this isn't always age-related.

[Entr0pi3]

I'd like the majority of my life to be lived doing something useful

I'm really not going to be caring about how I died

+ you'll be dead, so I somehow doubt you'll be able to care about anything at all
But in case I'm proven wrong on that last point (not complaining! the idea of "something" after death is pleasant, no matter how doubtful), I think I'd indeed be too busy contemplating my new situation (and the possibilities it opens) to linger much about my past life.

I'm not going to care about what happens to any peas I didn't spend before it happened

I personally don't care that much about my peas at the mo, but there are other factors to consider, I think - like family, friends, etc.
I care about these, and I know some of them could put my peas to good use, so...
I like the idea my unspent peas could be put to good use by anyone, anyway. Just like perfectly functional organs preferably shouldn't got to waste, IMO.

I'd rather be dead before I get too old

What is too old though?

As long as I can learn and tell stories(and share info in general), whatever the medium, I won't consider myself too old.

[Lord Golbez]

I'd like the majority of my life to be lived doing something useful

also, however, I think I'm off to a late start on that.

[Anonymous]

There are useful things to do?

The RDM was of the school of thought that everything everyone does is..well...basically just crap, but some of it is more entertaining than the rest.

The RDM wants to produce some entertaining crap.

[Entr0pi3]

What's the name of that school of thought? Faecism?

[WaWard]

If I'm in perfect health, and I still get to retire, forever. If I have to work forever, and have shitty health, still forever, but it's going to suck.

[Anonymous]

Some sort of nihilism?

[Entr0pi3]

Nihilism, cynism, whatever, been there, done that, yawn. Boring shit indeed.

I say:
- crap is in the eye of the beholder
- if you get your head out of your own ass and still feel surrounded with crap, maybe you ought to move into a better neighborhood
- when I make some tea and cook some biscuits, what I get in my cup and plate is neither crap nor piss, and if you do, then you've been doing something wrong

Also: if you ask trees, crap makes great fertilizer (and so do dead people, incidentally)
[spoiler]And eventually you can grow some more tea out of it, and the big cosmic cycle is complete![/spoiler]

This public service announcement was brought to you by the Tea and Biscuits Brigade

[Anonymous]

The RDM doesn't neccessarily mean that everything sucks, there are many things that he thinks are of great quality. He just means that people take things too seriously, and usually all the wrong things. There's not much point to any given human accomplishment, since they're generally very short lived, they're just around to amuse as many people as possible in some way. The RDM has a hard time taking entertainment seriously.

And Tea is not a human accomplishment. It has descended from on high.

[Entr0pi3]

Tea itself is not a human accomplishment, of course, but the human process of Making a Cup of Tea out of tea-leaves is the only way of revealing the Holy nature of Tea to the uneducated mass - and this, in itself, is an accomplishment.

Of course people take many things waaaaaay too seriously (often need to sort out their priorities, really). But as instruments devoted to revealing the Greater Goodness of the Heavenly Teapot, their lives can't be entirely meaningless
And even if a single cup of tea doesn't last long, its memory lives on, and so does the art of tea making, passed on from brief-lived humans to more brief-lived humans. And that's another accomplishment for sure. The water in the river is never the same, but the river is still there.

... And even when it won't be there anymore coz some idiot dried up the oceans or something, this won't change anything to the fact it was there at some point. And if you weren't there to enjoy it when it was, well, that's too bad - for you - just because you can't appreciate an accomplishment doesn't mean it didn't exist, nor that it was pointless. When you miss the beginning of a film, or something happens when you went to the toilets, or have to leave before the end, blame yourself (or just shrug and deal with it), not the film or the actors or the cinema.

More seriously (?), classifying stuff on a scale of boring/entertaining is fair enough to me (#1 meta-resolution for 2G7: "having lots of fun")
But there are other criteria (cf. #2 meta-resolution: "not dying").
Take pain/pleasure for instance. Making tea sure is good fun (tea game!). But there's more than just fun to a good ol' cup of tea: warm, comforting, unthirsting... even if done in a "boring" way.
I personally tend to classify actions avoiding/lessening unnecessary pain (of mine or others) as useful.

Tea and biscuits - because it's not the same as a punch in the face

Edit: also, of course entertainment is useful too. Just because it's fun doesn't mean it's useless

[Lord Golbez]

And Tea is not a human accomplishment. It has descended from on high.

This is certainly true. For the MeTEAo plummeted from on high boiling in the searing heat of entering the atmosphere to brew the perfect cuppa in an earthenware pot or as it is written:

One born of a dragonwell,
Bearing the leaf and the liquid,
Shall plummet from the heavens
Over the thirsty land.
Under the afternoon sun
It brings a promise to teagamers
with biscuits and sitdowns.

[Yuka]

[Entr0pi3]

It's posts like this that make life worth living
(inspired by the Great Cosmic Teapot, obviously )

[Anonymous]

The RDM just thinks that, well, amassed wealth and well as percieved accomplishments are pretty transient and they're not really something to base one's whole life on. The RDM thinks it's best not to base one's life on any particular thing, unless that's really what you desire most and you couldn't give a damn about the rest of it. Some people are insane packrats who just like to accumulate things, maybe for those people amassing an unspendable amount of wealth is a worthy devotion in life, but the RDM thinks that most people who end up with millions of dollars don't really get much proportional enjoyment out out of their third Rolls Royce.

On the other hand, the RDM understands that there are plenty of artists out there whose enjoyment of completing a work (or creating, painting, writing, sculpting or whatever) is enough to justify the amount of time devoted to it...but that doesn't mean whatever they made is important. Whether or not the RDM sees the painting, it's not going to have much of a bearing on his life, or the life of just about anyone else save the one who painted it and perhaps some Art grad students somewhere. It doesn't change the world, nor humanity as a whole. It is, at its crux, merely a source of amusement, both for the creator (for whom the amusement is generally much more extended and perhaps profound) and for those who see it and are affected by it in any way (even if you hate it, it still entertains you for a little while in that it stirs up your emotions, and generally speaking the kind of hatred people tend to feel towards art isn't a hatred that causes them any internal anguish, but rather gives them a feeling of self-righteousness, which can feel like a positive feeling for the one feeling it)...so the RDM can't really see human amusement as a wildly important goal.

The other goal mentioned, avoidance of pain or other negative stimuli is, perhaps, more worthwhile, but it certainly is impossible to accomplish given a long enough timeline. It kind of goes hand in hand with the aforementioned goal, yet stands as a pessimistic way of looking at it. Instead of actively seeking the positive feelings it is actively avoiding the negative. In the end, there's not much of a difference.

If you bring religion into the conversation then there are a whole lot more goals, since you have the added element of eternity brought into the mix, but honestly, the RDM doesn't have the patience to type up a big long thing about religion.

[Entr0pi3]

Just because things[*] are transient doesn't make them worthless[**]. The journey is the whole point, not the destination. In other words: life is a process, and an end in itself.
Judging things by what's left after they're over makes as much sense as judging a book by skipping directly to the last word of the last sentence of the last chapter: none (or very little, at least). It's making the same mistake as a biologist who'd think they could understand life only by dissecting corpses (spoilAer: you can't)
Things exist in time, and are meant to be appreciated in context. This is where "worth" and "meaning" lie.
By deliberately focusing on the "but what's left after?", "ultimately, what are the long-term consequences?" (everybody dies, including the Universe, spoilAer. That's what the rise of entropy is all about, btw), you miss the whole point.
If you can't make sense out of things, the fault lies in you. Meaning exists only in sentient minds. And so does meaninglessness. The void is in your skull, not the world outside.

[*] stuff, actions, people, tea leaves, whatever
[**] quite the contrary: one could argue the fact they won't be there forever makes them all the more important while they last.

Anyway...
An enjoyable life, a painful life, no life at all... which one do you prefer? Whoever thinks there's no difference should do everyone a favor and quit the game already. Whoever is still there after reading that sentence but still insists it doesn't make any difference is a fucking hypocrite, and/or a coward who can't back up their opinion with action.
The bottom line is whoever is still there thinks/hopes/believes there must be things worth living for (no matter how relatively unimportant), even if they might not know for sure what these things are yet, and may well never find out. Fair enough.

On importance... What's importance to you? (cf. above)
Things don't have to change the world to be important. I don't know where you got that stupid idea. Maybe you should play less games that ultimately always focus on saving the world?
It's all a matter of scale, really. SpoilAer: in the great scheme of things, a single human being is small. Consequently, relative importance must be judged at an appropriate scale: a life time, a small network of relationships, etc. Get rid of your useless Big Picture glasses that can't properly make out details for a moment, have look in you microscope, and at that scale I swear you can see things that are goddam important, and some that ain't.
Now that's where meaning and usefulness lies. Differences. Also, language. For things to have a meaning, you need a proper language where words can actually discriminate between stuff, you know.
By deciding important = "some eternal things that has an impact on everything else", you render the word important (and, ultimately, any kind of thought or action) useless and meaningless, because you can't use it any more to describe anything that actually exists in the real world.
Good job nihilism. People too stupid and/or close-minded to adjust the focus of their mind to reality, and then complain everything looks blurred.
Reality check: I say just whack them repeatedly in the head with a shovel until they admit you please stopping is important at least to them

[Lord Golbez]

By deciding important = "some eternal things that has an impact on everything else", you render the word important (and, ultimately, any kind of thought or action) useless and meaningless, because you can't use it any more to describe anything that actually exists in the real world.

That really depends on what you believe.

[Entr0pi3]

A world where [s]Tea[/s] God is the only important thing and anything else is unimportant/useless is still pretty boring, if you ask me (especially if it's a God no one round here has ever met). My world is more fun, coz, it contains, you know, details and nuances.

...Also, for those who believe in the Christian God, the Creation is supposedly important in his eye, isn't it? And every part of it has an important role to play, right? So saying that what the most important thing evAer think is important is unimportant would be pretty stupid, uh?

[Lord Golbez]

Well, I didn't mean God was the only important thing, but if you believe in God, then generally you believe more things are eternal than just God.

[Entr0pi3]

But important != eternal
That's why they are two separate words, ain't I right?

And obviously, the Creation isn't all about Judgment Day - if it was, God could just skip directly to the end and save us the hassle, uh?
According to Christianity, I'd say if something is, at some point, it means that God thought it was worthy of being, which automatically makes it important, no matter how small or transient.

[Lord Golbez]

Yeah, well I suppose, but I feel that important things will at least have some eternal impression, but then perhaps that's more of a belief of it's eternal, because it's important than it's important because it's eternal.

[Entr0pi3]

But who are you to know the actual repercussions of things? How can you say for sure that an action is without lasting consequences? Can you read all the chains of causality?
Seemingly unimportant actions sometimes have echoes that ripple a long way. And strikingly important events are rarely the consequence of a single action.

Maybe you could judge the importance of individual things by removing them one by one and see how "destiny" changes. But you can't.

This is why I think importance should be judged (by us, human beings, with our limited knowledge of things) in the context of a moment, not in infinite time.

[Lord Golbez]

Huh? How am I saying that I know the repercussion of things? If an action has a lasting consequences, then one could say it has an "eternal impression," right?

[Anonymous]

...The RDM thinks he was misinterpreted somewhere along the lines. The RDM did not mean to say that the only way things could be important was to have an eternal effect on everything. That's assbackwards. The RDM did mean to express that nothing a human can do, short of blowing it all up, can have an eternal effect on everything, not that that really matters. Generally speaking, the point of doing any given thing is to generate a positive (or avoid a negative) effect for onesself. Most practice of religion falls into this category, and often involves the willing (or semi-willing) forfiet of free will in order to avoid negative/gain positive eternal (or at least long-lasting) consequences.

That said, in order for one to have any sort of effect beyond one's own existance (which the RDM never meant to say was not worth living. Such a conclusion is entirely up to whomever is doing the living in most circumstances) one needs to have an effect on the existances of others. It is extraordinarily rare that this effect is anything beyond transient and superficial, but that rarity is relative to the total amount of times people have an effect on one another (which is incalculable), and still tends to happen multiple times per lifetime. Therein lies the hope for a "legacy" that people seem so fond of dreaming about, but such a legacy is still transient for two reasons:

1. Everyone whom one has had an effect on will eventually be dead

2. Once you are dead, what the fuck does it matter to you if people remember you? You're dead.

The RDM thinks he's gotten so wrapped up in explaining things that he's clouded his own point even for himself, so he'll try to bring it back around a little...

Amassing wealth doesn't matter, painting pictures doesn't matter, cooking the world's greatest pie doesn't matter beyond what it matters to the one who does it, and a select few beyond that. Nothing is of any consequence beyond that because there are no consequences beyond that, so fuck angst, stress and taking yourself seriously. There's no point.

[Lord Golbez]

The RDM needs to have a cup of tea and realize that a cup of tea is pretty fcuking important. Then the RDM should have some of the world's greatest pie and realize that's pretty important too.

[Anonymous]

The RDM had tea this morning, and it was very good. The RDM would be much obliged if you would find him a piece of the world's greatest pie, but he can certainly live without it, as can everyone else.

[Bazz]

Did you know that apparently the reason Asians* can't handle their drink is because X many thousands of years ago Europeans and Asians learnt to sterilise their water in two different ways. Europeans used the method of fermentation whilst in Asian they used the method of boiling water before drinking it. Hence Europeans went the path of drinking sweet sweet alcohol whilst the Asians drank their lame warm water. Obviously the evolutionary development of a mammal** is too slow for Europeans to have changed to handle their drink better in that relatively short time, but the time for certain stomach/digestive tract living organisms is much shorter and they learnt to sort the booze out for us, enabling us (europeans) to drink booze without getting completely fucked instantly and thus being killed by a tiger (with the knock on effect of the organisms dying too).
I almost never drink hot drinks (only if the rules of teatime insist on it tbh), not just because I find the taste bitter and shit ( I feel you have to drink it for a long time for the caffeine benefits to get accusotmed to its taste before fooling yourself into thinking it tastes nice) but more importantly because hot drinks, and specifically tea, are the anti-beer and thus go against everything I stand for.
I dislike hot drinks much, I love cold alcoholic bevvies lots. This is the natural order of things, fighting against it is like fighting the wind with a kite, foolish.

With regard to the whole "how to die" issue, I think it's been taken out of context largely. The idea of "I'll be dead, so I don't care" only works from the completely self centred view that the whole of the world only exists as a creation of your own mind. If you accept the "fact" that you are only part of the world and that after you die it will continue to exist, containing all your friends and family, then the idea of it being irrelevent whether you die doing good or doing nothing doesn't hold too much water.
[spoiler=I dunno where I was going with this bit... alcohol ftw]

Consider this example:
You are sitting in a nuclear power station about to melt down. You have already suffered a fatal dose of radiation poisoning and will die no matter what happens next. In front of you is a delicious cup of tea and a selection of lovely biscuits (substitute a cold beer and S&V McCoys/Fat joint and icecream/whatever's your poison) at the other end of the room is a button which if pressed will contain the meltdown*** and save the lives of the many people in range of the powerstation who will die after meltdown. Do you drink the tea and eat the biscuits or walk to the end of the room and press the button? The tea is attached to the table somehow so you can't do both
It's slightly over dramatic, but I expected the idea of saving one life to be understood so blah. Regardless what else you do in life, if you save a life on the way out then that's good eh? Better then dying drinking tea and thinking "fuck everyone else".[/spoiler]

*Not the English meaning of persons from the indian sub contient but the American meaning of people from the "far east".
**If you believe in evolution, a kind god could just have easily created booze loving stomach dwelling organisms
***let's not go into the feasibility of this button existing, I don't know how that works but it's not the point.

[Anonymous]

Is it?

Who be the judge of it if eveyone is dead and you're not religious?

[Bazz]

Is it?

Who be the judge of it if eveyone is dead and you're not religious?

No one would be the judge of it. But the whole point was that the world will continue to exist and so the standards of good and bad still exist (if everyone dies that's bad).

[Calbrena]

And Tea is not a human accomplishment. It has descended from on high.

This is certainly true. For the MeTEAo plummeted from on high boiling in the searing heat of entering the atmosphere to brew the perfect cuppa in an earthenware pot or as it is written:

One born of a dragonwell,
Bearing the leaf and the liquid,
Shall plummet from the heavens
Over the thirsty land.
Under the afternoon sun
It brings a promise to teagamers
with biscuits and sitdowns.

Best post I've read in weeks

[Anonymous]

The RDM would argue that all of the people being dead wouldn't be a terribly bad thing in the grand scheme of things. We're fucking much more up than we're improving.

[Damien]

I met a guy in Brixton who was 100 and still perfectly fit and active... and still working.

Hopefully I'll still be working for William Hill when I'm 100

Fucked that one up already.

[Fei Ayanami]

Hopefully we'll still be digging old threads at 100.

[Calbrena]

I met a guy in Brixton who was 100 and still perfectly fit and active... and still working.

Hopefully I'll still be working for William Hill when I'm 100

Fucked that one up already.

Do you really think teachers earn enough to be able to stop working once they reach retirement age? That's cute.

William Hill is probably an ok place to work at when 65+. Much nicer than working as a supply teacher anyway.

[Lord Golbez]

For sure. My dad's still working and he's 68. What's a supply teacher.

[Bazz]

I met a guy in Brixton who was 100 and still perfectly fit and active... and still working.

Hopefully I'll still be working for William Hill when I'm 100

Fucked that one up already.

Do you really think teachers earn enough to be able to stop working once they reach retirement age? That's cute.

William Hill is probably an ok place to work at when 65+. Much nicer than working as a supply teacher anyway.

Teachers have a good pension scheme!
The money's not bad if you're in London. I think the trick is to try to get promoted so by the time you're 65 you don't actually have to teach anymore, you just tell other people to teach.

Working as a supply teacher looks a lot less fun than being in the same school all the time. Hopefully I'll never have to do it.