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> is the worst job in the world Is it though? You either succeed, or nothing is ever your problem again.

• cubefox 1y ago
  It is. Death is bad because we don't want to die, not (just) because it tends to hurt.
  • hinkley 1y ago
    Getting blown up by enough high explosives to detonate a nuclear device is not painful at all. You’ll be about as dead as the Deepwater Horizon people.
  • flowerthoughts 1y ago
    It's absolutelty an irreversible hysteresis. That's more about not wanting to have fear for dying. After the actual dying, you (probably) don't have a desire to be alive, so the only real problem is the fear leading up to it.
    • gjm11 1y ago
      This is wrong. I would prefer not to die soon, not only because it would be unpleasant but also because my death would be inconvenient for my employer, distressing for my friends and family, bad for charities I donate to, etc. And also because there are various things I would like to do that, if I get hit by a car tomorrow, I will never get to do. (The last sentence is debatable. You might say that my preferences just evaporate and stop mattering at all when I die. I wouldn't agree, but I don't have a knock-down counterargument.)
      • edzillion 1y ago
        You listed: > my death would be inconvenient for my employer _first?!_ I believe you have your priorities wrong. Most regret not spending enough time with their loved ones. You only get one life after all.
        • cryptonector 1y ago
          > You only get one life after all. Prove it :)
        • gjm11 1y ago
          I wasn't listing those things in order of priority.
      • cubefox 1y ago
        > (The last sentence is debatable. You might say that my preferences just evaporate and stop mattering at all when I die. I wouldn't agree, but I don't have a knock-down counterargument.) Your current preferences matter now. You currently don't want to die tomorrow in your sleep, therefore dying tomorrow in your sleep is already bad now. Independently of other things you want to do tomorrow or next week.
        • gjm11 1y ago
          That is also my opinion. I would also say that because I have a persistent preference for not dying if I needn't, dying tomorrow in my sleep is bad then too even though I will be asleep/dead at the time and therefore any preferences I have won't be actively motivating me at that point. And -- this is I think clearly more debatable -- that if I prefer now that I eat a slice of chocolate cake tomorrow, then to that extent it's a bad thing if tomorrow I don't eat any chocolate cake, even if tomorrow I prefer not to have any. Not a bad thing on balance; if I make a choice tomorrow, then tomorrow's preferences are rightly more important than today's in most circumstances. But, still, the fact that today I preferred chocolate-cake-tomorrow makes no-chocolate-cake-tomorrow a worse thing than if I hadn't had that preference yesterday. And, similarly, if today I prefer that tomorrow I eat chocolate cake, or kiss my wife, or conquer Spain, and I die tonight, then one reason why that's bad is that those preferences don't get satisfied, even though by the time they fail to get satisfied the person who had those preferences is gone. But, again, a reasonable person could disagree with most of that.
  • _Algernon_ 1y ago
    Everyone will die at some point anyways and instant nuclear obliteration seems like the better way to go compared to slowly vegetating away in a hospital bed or the infinite number of painful ways to die.
    • hoppp 1y ago
      Its not just about how, but when. I prefer to die a vegetable at 80 than die from a nuclear blast at 40. All those years can be spent existing happily
      • sgjohnson 1y ago
        > I prefer to die a vegetable at 80 than die from a nuclear blast at 40. All those years can be spent existing happily Eh, I’m the exact opposite. I don’t want to spend a single day as a vegetable.
        • cubefox 1y ago
          I bet you change your opinion once you approach 40.