this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025

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Do you feel sad about the fact that you'll probably die within 100 years (or less) and you (well... that's most of us tbh) can't do much to leave a significant positive legacy? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 day ago by DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you feel sad about the fact that you'll probably die within 100 years (or less)

A quote from Richard Dawkins:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?

[–] Sergio@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I love playing lil hypothetical games like that.

There is a hypothetical set of actions that, if I had taken them last year, would have made me a million dollars. So I just lost a million dollars.

If I took the knowledge in a current human biology textbook and rearranged it in just the right way, I'd come up with the secret to immorality. So I have a chance at immortality but will fail at it.

I could go up to any person and, in theory, have just the right conversation with them to get them to do pretty much anything I wanted. But I don't know that conversation to have. I have lost control of the world, of which I could have been master.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I could go up to any person and, in theory, have just the right conversation with them to get them to do pretty much anything I wanted.

Omg I get triggered by these hypotheticals.

There's a hypothetical timeline where, say, if a time traveler went back to my childhood, they could brainwash me with the alt-right pipeline.

Like... okay that's maybe enough hypotheticals... Very uncanny to think about.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

You've heard of Quantum Immortality... but have you heard of Quantum Silver Tongued Devil?

Quantum Hostage Negotiator?

Quantum Worst Possible Yet Most Persuasive Advice Ever Giver?

I've always found this kind of stuff mostly nonsensical.

... what about building a nano (pico? much much smaller?) scale device that takes advantage of the Casimir effect to say, generate ... actually random numbers, not pseudo random numbers?

Much more practical.