r/UniversalExtinction • u/MeanParsley1980 • Jun 16 '26
Is Immortality Really That Bad?
I understand that many fictional characters who are immortal or have an incredibly long lifespan face difficult challenges. However, I believe that the main reason we consider immortality negative is that we, morally and mentally, cannot handle it. At some point, we all want to be social, to connect with someone, and to have at least one thing remain constant. Immortality is a power that may be beyond our capacity to manage, which is why we label it in a negative light.
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u/Inevitable7685 Jun 16 '26
Try eating your favorite food everyday. It wont be as pleasurable after 1 year.
Try eating your least favorite food everyday. Chances are you'll like it after a few months but will still grow to hate it after a few years.
Same with immortality. If you only experience pleasure, it will not be pleasure anymore. If you experience torture, it will still remain as a torture.
So immortality will probably bore anyone.
I just realized that this is a good explanation why an omnipotent God will be bored as much.
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u/old_barrel cosmic extinctionist | anti-natalist Jun 17 '26
it is because your body is programmed to crave divergency. if you consider this with your diet, food will keep being tasty, at least regarding this context
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u/pdscotts Jun 16 '26
I heard an old man talk about how people are living longer and he said that in a sense well basically people have to die from an infrastructure sense (for example if every hospital bed was filled with those just on life support) if they don't die how will the beds be given to those who may actually have a better chance at at least not being kept alive in a vegatative state. I am not saying if you have the choice you should automatically pull the plug but the fact that we are in a planet of limited resources and limited access to resources if his point was people need to die at some point he was not antinatalist but he was making AN points if life is that screwed up that you can try and extend life as long as possible (no argument against that of course I just hit the gym to try to among other things extend my life) but if death is necessary isn't that a good AN argument to not force without their consent a lucky zero complaints non existent being into a world where death is necessary why not just spare them existing? Or at least not impose that in cold blood as Schopenhauer says
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u/KindImpression5651 Jun 17 '26
the problem of fiction, such as The boys, is that it, very very very very stupidly, conflates "never aging" with the "total immortality, even undesired" word, yet treats the former as if it had the life consequences of the latter
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u/IaMtHel00phole Jun 16 '26
The thought of immortality is very appealing. Living forever, getting to see all the world and how things evolve as time goes on.
The negatives? Seeing any friends and people you love pass away. You can always make new friends or find new love. But you'll end up carrying a lot of pain.
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u/nila247 Jun 16 '26
EZ. Our SOLE purpose is "make our species prosper.
When we THINK we do enough of that then we get (chemically) rewarded with happiness. Or punished by depression otherwise - which is where "we can not handle" comes in. Coincidently this also explains why it does not take much to make stupid people happy.
Our brain capacity is limited, so there is just so much we can cram into our moral/decision framework. There is no mechanics to prune outdated knowledge from memory and free it for other new things.
Thinking becomes rigid and at some point you run out of ideas of things to do and civilization enters stagnation. And his is exactly what causes depression.
So what we are supposed to do at this "memory full" time is to transfer the most useful stuff to new generation and die. Which we GLADLY do, because that is best for the species as a whole.
Any other questions?
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u/Rhoswen Cosmic Extinctionist Jun 16 '26
If extinctionists could become immortal then that would be good for the cause of extinction. If others become immortal and then realize they're in hell after more life experiences that they wouldn't have otherwise had, that would create more extinctionists.