I’ll start off with one, Being upset about a breakup that happened hundreds of years ago.
Edit 1:
- Heath death of the universe, Death of the sun, etc, does not count. I feel like focusing on this is an overused point.
Edit 2:
- Loneliness does not count. I feel like we all know immortality means you’ll miss people and lose them.
I think you’re undervaluing loneliness. Loneliness isn’t just missing some one. Loneliness means there’s no point in connecting with people because they will just die. Loneliness means that no one knows the depth of your condition because it isn’t available to them. It means that as they change and face new obstacles, you’ll be oblivious to all of that. You’ll not only see them die, you’ll see the vitality deep out of their pores as they age. All the while you’ll never know what that means personally or feel that slow slipping.
Also, super weird that your example is a breakup and people dying is something not worth registering.
I kinda disagree with you. Why would it be different from now? We know that people will die.
I’ve had good friends pass away at different times, and it hurts but eventually, I move on.
My only exception, with the knowledge I have today, is that I wouldn’t have any kids. That attachment is straight up reptilian brain and that would be way too hard. Otherwise, it would be okay.
It’s the difference between knowing you’ll grow and graduate together with your classmates vs knowing you’re only going to see them for that one month before you move away.
outlasting humanity and all its trappings
Either “Boredom: After some time you have seen basically everything.” or “Can’t keep up: The world changes so fast, and I’m, stuck in a mindset I acquired in 1543”.
And: Bureaucratic nightmare. “We have you on file as being born in 1924, but you don’t really look like a centennial. Can I see your passport instead of that of your great-grandfather, please?”
I cannot connect to the boredom one at all. Are there books, video games, stone tablets, cool rocks to look at? Outta here with that boredom nonsense.
Repeated surgical corrections for your ever growing earlobes
If everyone gets to be immortal, imagine never being able to get rid of dictators. Putin’s 600th won election.
People in the future wouldn’t be allowed to have children, Earth will be filled to the brim with very old people and very few new ideas.
I suppose it depends on the rules of this specfic immortality. As someone who lives with chronic pain that literally never feels physically comfortable in any position, immortality sounds like a cruel joke. Not that I’m suicidal or eager to die, but the fact that it would progressively get worse and worse without any sort of end is… horrorific.
If it’s the realistic kind where you just don’t age, the statistical certainty that you’ll eventually die in an accident, or to war or murder. Your odds of getting to the heat death of the universe without making backups is pretty slim.
If it’s the kind where you’re indestructible, you’re highly likely to encounter someone who tries to bury you alive in a subduction zone eventually, because humans are like that, and then you get to spend eternity slowly moving into the scorching mantle.
At least I won’t be a small in a metal ball full of salt.
Is this a quote from something? I’m OOTL.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/immortal-snail
One of the solutions was to put it in a giant metal ball and throw it into the sun or something. The salt was just out of spite.
Ah. And you typoed.
Oof, that was a hard one. Autocorrect strikes again.
I would hope to get realllly good in avoding people who’d put me in a subduction zone 😭
The death of the sun will then eventually set you free into the gravity well of the sun where you’ll live burning hot untill heat death of the universe. What to do after that is anyone’s guess
Well, depends. The Earth is actually right near the edge of where the sun will expand to, so there’s a chance the scorched glob that used to be Earth will stay in orbit. Either way, it will still be hot for a while, and you’re ultimately stuck in something solid - be it a dead planet or a white dwarf.
There is such a thing as merciful death; it would not be good to be cut off from it.
How much more annoying the (much) younger generations would be.
Yeah, they always gloss over how you’d have a very noticeable accent within a couple hundred years, and would straight up be using a second language within a thousand.
As if peoples accents and vocabularies don’t grow and change over time?
Having to keep creating fake identities to prevent people and governments from finding out that you’re immortal. That would be a massive pain in the butt, especially in a world where mass surveillance of the population is common.
This would just be an occasional nuisance I reckon. You’d get pretty good at it. Just like all the other mundane things we have to do in our mortal lives.
What I meant is that it would get more and more difficult with more mass surveillance. Think about it, in 1950 it would take relatively little effort to fake an identity by inserting fake documents into a few physical cabinets. In 2000, cyber security was so weak that hacking to some government agency to modify their databases would be relatively simple. Now it would require advanced social engineering, and is extremely risky, and on top of that, they have a lot of mass surveillance.
If we assume everything will have a biometric database, you’ll have to find ways to change your fingerprints and face every few decades.
Over an long enough duration, you are guaranteed to be caught.
Unless you have a lot of money to rely on I don’t even know if it’s reliably possible right now. You’re basically in the same situation as an undocumented immigrant.
And the more times you do it, it’s like playing a Russian roulette over and over again, you’ll eventually be caught.
Does yer dick still work when you’re like 150?
Yes, in the oncoming capitalist hellscape, even white dudes named Richard will need to work
Based on your question, you might dig the book “Boat of a Million Years.” The author put quite a bit of thought into just that.
Either humanity gradually grows to despise you for your ancient morals
or they don’t ever meaningfully surpass where we’re at today.
As we get older, our perception of time speeds up. An immortal would easily lose track of time after just two human lifetimes, causing an immortal to suffer from dementia-like symptoms where they expect one date but find themselves habitually late. And since time doesn’t mean the same thing as us to an immortal, they would eventually become disconnected from the world around them and be unable to reintegrate. They wouldn’t be able to maintain friendships, relationships, mortgages, payments, etc. They would be surrounded by people but forever alone.
The rest of humanity will eventually evolve into something you don’t recognize and can never be part of.
My thought. In 500M years, you would be like the slime that crawled out of the oceans to the dominant life.
Neanderthals wanted to live forever and now we have bigfoot.
Being asked your birthdate in order to view a game on Steam, and the year dropdown not going back far enough.
Worse still, no manual entry of the birth date, so it takes ages to scroll down and select the year.
Date pickers that assume you have a 5 digit birth year.
I once entered an extremely far back yet technically plausible birthday there and steam just wouldn’t accept it. I remember thinking “what if Kane Tanaka wanted to check out this steam game, you just wouldn’t let her?” (RIP by the way, she was the last oldest person whose name I learned. They change too often)
Or not being able to play a board game, because it says “ages 9 - 99” on the box.
