this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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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.
(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] superkret@feddit.org 21 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

At some point, our sun will go supernova and you will end up drifting through space.
And all your life before that point will be less than a blink of an eye compared to the time that follows:
Trillions and trillions of years until the heat death of the universe.
And even that time will be less than the blink of an eye compared to the eternity afterwards, when you drift through a black void without any stars.

[–] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 12 points 13 hours ago

But no people around. So overall a win.

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[–] off_brand_@beehaw.org 9 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Nobody is answering the prompt lol. Everyone says all of this shit all the time.

You live long enough to never feel at home. Sure the loneliness sucks or whatever, but who do you root for at the football game?

Having to buy new shoes for the rest of eternity. You know how much work I've literally just put into finding shoes that 1) don't suck and 2) aren't made with slave labor? It's impossible. Drives me insane. I'd found my own shoe company once I become immortal rich just to fix that problem alone. Maybe other stuff too we'll get there

I suppose on that note: it seems like a really bad idea to become a public figure after a while. Like you obviously don't want your immortality found out. You have to have like illuminati power before that point though, but it could happen at any time. Like if something happens and you become a news item (i.e. helping someone out and a video goes viral online). Not saying everyone is all that close to going viral, but over a sufficiently long lifespan you're effectively rolling that dice a lot.

[–] ReakDuck@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 hours ago

Upsides: You can create a cult where they believe in you as a god, because you will live for eternity.

[–] apotheotic@beehaw.org 9 points 13 hours ago

A lot of ways to die are excruciatingly painful, but you die, so you don't live with the pain. If you end up in one of those situations and don't die (because you are immortal), I imagine the psychological impact of the pain without immediate release could be enough to completely break you, mentally.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 23 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (2 children)

Life will pound you into an uncaring jaded disinterested unloveable husk of a being after too many emotional scars from losing loved ones, too much of seeing humanity make the same mistakes, and too much watching the knowledge you gained turned irrelevant.

Or, life will beat into you an uncanny ability to converse and relate to others, even if fleetingly.

Watch The Man from Earth.

[–] Kallioapina@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

But do not watch the sequel. It ruins the whole beautiful thing.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

Yes and No. You could argue that True Love was the factor between them

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[–] Nytixus@kbin.melroy.org 10 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

If you're injured and you survive with the scarring from said injuries. Well, good luck because you're now going to wear those and wish you had died from them. If you're incapacitated or amputated? Gotta live with that for years and years.

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[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 hours ago

i think that experiencing all the things & people i care about would be the worst of it.

either that or seeing us repeat history over and over again as a society complete with all of the indifferent cruelties it entails and studying it, but ignoring it anyways

[–] grasshopper_mouse@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Everyone else in your life that isn't immoral (if you're the only one who is) dies eventually, so every time you make a friend or start a family, you do so knowing that you will have to watch them all die someday.

[–] LouNeko@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Wow you're a real smart one, nobody has ever thought about that. Read the Question in the title again.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 34 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (4 children)

Basically all of the time you’re alive will be after the heat death of the universe, where you will be floating in space, with nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to experience. Complete darkness, complete silence, in a complete vacuum, for eternity. Every other particle in the universe is forever out of your reach. You know that you will have nothing forever. You will never see, hear, or touch anything again, for all of time, which will never end. The trillions of years that preceded your float through the void fade into a distant memory as you outlive twice as much time, four times as much, a trillion-trillion times as much, and infinitely more.

[–] mobiuscoffee@lemmy.ml 10 points 19 hours ago

I wrote a story that features such an entity and what was interesting about it to me was how even the slightest glimmer of life beyond their void would lead to an all-consuming desire to experience "living" again.

[–] pH3ra@lemmy.ml 7 points 19 hours ago

So just my normal day?

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[–] FryHyde@lemmy.zip 14 points 17 hours ago

Discovering the upper limits to what the human mind can retain and just constantly forgetting all the shit you used to find important.

[–] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 26 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

That old person feeling of no longer being with "it", and what's "it" now being strange and scary probably compounds over the centuries.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 9 hours ago

I'm not sure about this. Ever heard the phrase "the past is a foreign country"? Living through time would be like immersing yourself into a new country every couple of decades. You could even lessen the blow (and would probably have to in order to remain anonymous) by frequently moving around the world. People tend to give newcomers a certain amount of slack and with the enormous amount of knowledge and experience you would gain over time, you can easily and quickly immerse yourself in any new environment and adapt to whatever is "it" now.

[–] LavenderDay3544@lemmy.world 15 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

And this is why elder vampires are so vengeful.

[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 18 hours ago

I absolutely love the scene in "Interview with the Vampire" where Lestat is found hiding away in a room, distraught by all the creations of modern civilization.

[–] tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

You know how the curse of pet ownership is that you will almost certainly outlive them?

That, but with everyone you love

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 10 hours ago

I would only accept this kind of deal with the Devil if I had the power to turn people I care about into fellow immortals, which comes with its own pitfalls I'm well aware of (imagine holding a grudge for thousands of years), but still.

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[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 8 points 18 hours ago

On one hand, you have eternity to come to grips with everything you've done. On the other hand, it might take eternity to come to grips with everything you've done.

Seeing all of your friends and family die, knowing you'll never stop missing them.

Having the perspective of centuries. Seeing society make the same mistakes over and over again because they forget, but you never do. It would drive me mad. Already does, considering I have the ability to, and have, read history. I just imagine living it over and over to be tedious.

[–] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

I don’t think you’d remember a break up from hundreds of years ago, let alone be upset about it.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 10 hours ago

Probably, but it depends on the person. I stopped caring about some relationships that ended after a year, but I'm still thinking about others decades later.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 3 points 15 hours ago

Vampires are always like this in stories. I feel like reality might be more like ergo proxy. Where what is a relationship that tastes 10 or 200 years compared to thousands?

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[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 61 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Being asked your birthdate in order to view a game on Steam, and the year dropdown not going back far enough.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 points 9 hours ago

Or not being able to play a board game, because it says "ages 9 - 99" on the box.

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[–] 0_0j@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

LoL investing and compounding! I literally have all the time in the world.

[–] Octospider@lemm.ee 47 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Depends on the type of immorality. Do you continue to age? If no, what age do you stop? Eventually the universe will die. So what happens to you then?

It might be fun for a while. Maybe even a long while. But that fun will be gone in an instant compared to the trillions and trillions of years you will float in a dark dying universe of nothing.

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[–] shoulderoforion@fedia.io 40 points 1 day ago (8 children)

immortality doesn't guarantee perpetual health, you're alive, but so broken and sick you wish you could die, but you can't

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[–] Sparky@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 14 hours ago

Idk id be super depressed if I was able to experience my family, friends, family's children, and so on die.

[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)
[–] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 16 points 22 hours ago (7 children)

Given a long enough time frame, the vast majority of an immortal life would be spent buried beneath something or floating in the void of space. Think about it, you outlast planets and stars. When those go dark, but you don't die...nothing to do but float in space.

You might counter that with, "well yeah, but eventually I'd find other sentient life forms and/or people again.” And sure, maybe, but that wouldn't last as long as you...and then you're just alone floating in space again, for the vast majority of your life. The only thing to look forward to, since you will outlast everything, is the end of time itself.

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[–] vis4valentine@lemmy.ml 21 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Knowing the answer to some of history's biggest mysteries, because you were there, but being unable to speak about them because, 1, that would expose you, 2, nobody would believe you either way because nobody expects you to be THAT old.

Also, it is already frustrating seeing kids being dismissive or denying events that you yourself have lived. Imagine being thousands of years old and seeing so much shit, but those events are rarely retold, forgotten, or straight up denied by conspiracies or future governments that won't admit their fault on it.

[–] Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 hours ago

Knowing my memory I'd forget it all very soon after it happened and need a history book to help me recall any of it and the stuff left out or distorted would end up warping that recollection enough that it'd be so unreliable I may as well believe the historians. I can scarcely remember the previous day as it is.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

If other people are also immortal, the awkwardness of all of them eventually becoming your exes

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[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 14 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Without getting into the heat death of the universe and all that, I can think of something that happens much, much sooner. I'm only middle aged and I already don't like where the world is going. Can you imagine being centuries, or eons past the era you identified with? Can you imagine how insufferable young people and old people alike would seem when you have centuries worth of life experience and wisdom? Can you imagine a horde of little edge lords on the internet confidently yet incorrectly telling you about the signing of the Declaration of Independence, when you were there when it was signed?

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