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What are some downsides to immortality that most don't think of? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

Time gets shorter. I've already experienced this going from my teens to my twenties and into my thirties. I can remember entire weeks of my childhood. By the time I was in my mid twenties, days and weeks blurred together. Now it's like months go by and I don't even notice.

People talk about it more as they get older. Eventually when you enter your 80s and 90s, it's like entire decades can come and go. So imagine when you're immortal. If you've been alive for 100,000 years, that's longer than writing has been around. Entire civilizations will have come and went.

But from your perspective, it's all a blur. Entire genealogies were experienced, yet those people barely registered in your mind. If you had a favorite food, maybe the recipe disappears when you went four centuries without eating it. Jokes and fashions you're familiar with are completely alien to everyone else. Are you even capable of noticing when things change at that point?

There's also the question of how human are you? Everything and everyone would seem inconsequential. Would you even be able to socialize with others, or would you be completely sociopathic? That's if you don't hurt anyone and get tossed in a jail cell. What happens if you spend a few centuries in prison? Fight in multiple wars? Would you even feel the slightest discomfort when you kill someone?