Obviously a hypothetical scenario. There is no way to pass on the knowledge to anyone else. Time freezes for you only, and once you have your answer you are out of this world.
The question can allow you to see into the past, present and future and gain comprehension of any topic/issue. But it’s only one question.
Edit: the point isn’t “how to cheat death”. You can’t. Your body is frozen and there is nothing you can do with this knowledge other than knowing it, and die. So if you would rather be frozen in a limbo just thinking of numbers for eternity, be my guest.
Such a variety of replies, it’s been really interesting to read them!
What would you want to know? Personally I’d want to see a timelapse or milestone glimpses of humanity’s future until the end of Earth’s existence (if we survive that long)
When is going to be the year of the Linux desktop?
Next year
™
Ah the Ferrari delivery methodology. Love it.
(currentYear + 1);
I am interested to see what 2024 has in store for the Linux desktop.
Immutable distros seem to be the new cool thing, and for once I buy it, they greatly increase stability and reproducibility. It’s about time we see the rule 34 of Linux desktop configuration, if you can think of it there is already a GitHub repository with a configuration for it.
Also, gaming has greatly improved! If a few years ago you said to me I could buy a PS5 controller to play games on my Linux machine, I would lose my mind. Well, the order is arriving on Thursday!
Some governments are making honest efforts to go full open source, investing in the libre office and other tooling they deem necessary.
Last but not least, nowadays most apps are browser based, they are cross platform by default.
“rule 34 of Linux desktop configuration”
You… want to fuck Linux desktop configs?
To be fair, I’ve seen some Linux desktop configs that were pretty fucked.
Anyway, don’t kink shame. Unless your kink is kink shaming. In that case I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do. Start a religion, I guess?
Start a religion, I guess?
That got me good, thanks for the laugh!
To be fair, I’ve seen some Linux desktop configs that were pretty fucked.
That’s the reason I named it the “rule 34 of linux desktop configs”. In the past 2 years, I have observed a friend’s journey to a fully automated setup. It started with a bash script, which was then converted to an ansible playbook, then a python script, and now a ublue config.
The depths some people will go to fuck (figuratively) with their machines is inspiring!
Haha, no worries.
Sounds like your friend’s config file will be turing-complete soon. Then it will need it’s own operating system. With it’s own config file.
3303
20xx
What’s “the Linux desktop”? New distro?
What was life like for ever human that has ever existed? I’d like to see every single day start to finish from their perspective, sorted as randomly as possible.
The worst part of traditional immortality is being stuck as you, I’d like to experience the entire library and range of human experinces. It would eventually know how it started and how it all ended, while seeing every perspective that got us there. They’d be a lot of days toiling in a field, a lot of days in office cubicles toiling in excel, but most importantly I’d see the small victories and tragedies that make up every life. I think that’d be the real beauty.
For folks who haven’t read it before: Andy Weir’s ‘The Egg’
https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI?si=BaLe05ZiIdVmnQ1c
There’s a Kurzgezagt animated version of it as well
hey me
Woah
Oh, well okay, into the egg cycle then.
why limit the playback to human life? how about the vagaries of past/future speciation?
seems like a special hell to me either way.
“…no”
I also think this is the only fair version of reincarnation. If we are all everyone. If everyone has to live every life.
I like this
It’s the Kang the conqueror paradigm
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Was I ever a good impact on someone else’s life?
Simple and sweet. Let’s you go to the next thing either with your head held high or knowing for sure if you just lived and died.
I’d rephrase this to “was I ever a good impact on someone else’s life that I was unaware of?”
Because most people are fairly confident they’ve had a good influence on “someone’s” life. My partner has told me as much, and I’ve said it to them. Even if just their parents or something, there’s typically obvious answers to this question.
I’d want to know the non-obvious answers.
I like this one. Even better. “Who are the people I have positively influenced and what were the key interactions we shared?”
It would be a flashback of loving moments of humanity.
I’d love to see a reel from someone like a social worker, teacher, nurse etc
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I’d pick an irrational number, say pi, and ask for every decimal digit of it. Then, I have infinite time to walk around the world in explore mode (i.e. I can’t die, and hence don’t need to eat etc…, and am effectively an infinite energy source, and can interact with objects) while time is frozen. This effectively makes me a god, but only for one point in time, with the ability to create a discontinuity in the world state at that point. I’d travel around the whole world (even if it involved swimming oceans) and try to make it so that the infinite sum of each action I take while the world is frozen converges on a world that is in a much better state infinitesimally after the moment compared to infinitesimally before.
But if you actually had infinite time, then that would mean that the world for all intents and purposes has ended. It would never continue, ever. No matter what you do, it would have absolutely no impact at all.
Furthermore, I imagine if you actually had to wait infinitely long for the answer to finish, that would be like hell. There is only so much you can look at in a frozen world, assuming you would even be able to move at all. I can hardly imagine any happiness after some billions and trillions of years of no new stimuli in a frozen world.
That’s how you trigger a blue screen.
No death for an infinity is a torture in itself.
And in a moment you’ll learn, that at your scale, for the practical purposes, the universe rounds pi to n numbers. E.g. ~3.1416. Check & mate.
it would be like a detective game, figuring out intent between non-verbal, static people and deciding what is the right course of action
Well I guess my bad for not being more explicit with my question, but your body is frozen as well. Only your mind has the ability to absorb the knowledge of one answer, and then you are gone. I’ve seen many asking for infinite answers in hopes of stretching time in a limbo, which wasn’t the spirit of my original post.
How is the entity or power that has the ability to grant me such knowledge connected to the existence of the universe?
Magic
is p != np
I guess that depends on whether n != 1
I thought of asking that one, but then if the answer was no, my last thought would probably be that I was really worried about what happens when the living humans figure it out.
Probably a lot of encryption would fail. That would be bad.
What was the point?
To quote King Missile, “there are no points”
There is no point to life
There is no point to death
There is no point in continuing our meetings
There is no point in not continuing our meetingsThere is no point in going out
There is no point in staying in
No point in gaining weight
And no point in staying trimThere is no point in answering the phone or opening the mail
There is no point in getting drunk or doing drugs
And there is no point in staying soberThere is no point in needing someone
And no point in being alone
There is no point in doing nothing
And no point in not doing nothingThese are all good points, yet none of them lead anywhere
None of them are points at all
There are no points
There is no pointWelcome to existence, where everything is made up and the points don’t matter.
Look I thought we just went over this and there is no point. Now you’re saying there are multiple?!
To quote Harry Nilsson,
Finally, the two travelers reached what Appeared to be the entrance to the Pointless Forest.
There was a huge stony barrier with A small sign at its base which read " THIS WAY".
Once on the other side of the barrier, Oblio and Arrow had their first encounter with the Pointless Man or the Pointed Man depending upon your point of view.
You see, the Pointless Man did have a point.
In fact, he had hundreds of them, All pointing in different directions.
But as he so quickly pointed out A point in Every direction is the same as no point at all.
And, speaking of points, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Pointless Forest but a forest Is a forest and one of the first things Oblio and Arrow noticed about The Pointless Forest was that all the leaves on All the trees had points and all the trees had points.
In fact, even the branches of all the trees pointed in different Directions, which seemed a little strange for a Pointless Forest.
And when the Pointed Man disappeared Oblio and Arrow were left Standing alone wondering what to do next when suddenly, They were aware of a strange sound coming in from the north.
And when they looked up there was a Giant swarm of bees headed straight for them.
So, to seek cover they jumped inside a hollow log. But when the bees attacked the log was jarred loose and it tumbled Down a steep hill and careened and crashed Finally into the base of a most unusual rock pile…
In fact, the Rock Man.
And the Rock Man said, " Say, what’s happening with you boys? It looks like you’re pretty shook up, been goofing with the bees"?
And Oblio told the Rock Man that they were banished and Asked him whether or not this was the Pointless Forest.
And the Rock Man said, " Say, baby, there’s nothing pointless about this gig. The thing is you see what you want to see And you hear what you want to hear - dig. Did you ever see Paris?" - Oblio said, " No". " Did you ever see New Dehli?" Oblio said " No". Well that’s it - you see what you want to see and you hear what you Want to hear", said the Rock Man and with that the Rock Man Fell soundly asleep leaving Oblio and Arrow once again all alone.
So they continued on through the Pointless Forest until suddenly, Arrow, who had been running a few yards ahead of Oblio, disappeared into a hole, the point of no return.
To exist.
What an awful thing to do to someone
There can’t be a point unless you make one.
Maybe, you get to choose the point. What were the moments that made it all worth it?
What worthwhile moment never faded into oblivion?
You need thinggs to be eternal to matter to you? Tall order.
Depending on your perspective of time, none of them did. All of them happened and are as much a part of reality as any other moment. We may have moved past those moments, but that’s only an artifact of our relative position in the timeline.
I want stats like the end of a game. How many red lights did I run, did anyone die by my actions, how many hours did I sleep, how many meals did I eat. Things like that.
You might like this short film then it’s in line with that and it’s honestly pretty similar to this post in general.
Haha love this
I would like to know the detailed life history of every human that was ever born…
Start taking I’ll wait :)
Sounds like a nightmare when you’re dying and probably in pain… It extends that painful state for a virtually infinite time.
Not to mention the overwhelming amounts of unimaginable suffering you would see.
The prompt said that time freezes. No time = no pain.
Im not sure if there would be pain, but it’s a possibility. When I thought of the question I figured everything but your mind would freeze, perhaps I should have been more explicit when I phrased it. I understand those asking to experience the lives of others - even strangers- but I can’t understand those asking for an infinite answer such as a number in hopes of… What? Staying in a limbo doing nothing but absorbing a number?
Just “Why?” Leave this magical answers being confused and questioning humanity, like the rest of us.
Just ‘because’
Because 42
In ASCII, 42 is an asterisk, which is a common computer placeholder for “whatever you want it to be”. The computer in Hitchhikers wasn’t just pooping out a random number, but in the most computer way possible it pretty much just said life is what you make of it.
So yea, 42.
Bro. I love this. TIL. Never thought of checking the ASCII of 42.
By what mechanism did the universe come to be, or if it simply always existed, why does it exist in this particular way with these particular laws?
I was going to say “are we in a simulation” but this would work too.
Because of it didn’t it wouldn’t, but it does so it is.
Because all possible universes with all possible combinations of particular laws exist.
Maybe even the impossible ones exist.
And they all came to be the same way the number 3 “came to” exist.
Why do hotdogs come in packs of ten while hotdog buns come in packs of six?
So you buy 10 packs of buns and 6 packs of hotdogs
Life hack: Halve your spendings by only bying 5 packs of buns and 3 packs of hotdogs.
Hotdog and hotdog bun production companies hate this simple trick.
You’re just pandering to the lowest common denominator
Good news! Due to shrinkflation, hot dogs now come in 8-packs. Even better, the downsized buns fit standard dogs - no need to buy bun-length skinny hot dogs!
What is the diagnosis and cure for the disease that has ravaged me for the last 13 years?
Thanks.
With how the universe and its sense of humor works, it would probably end up being something simple like “you didn’t clean out your faucet aerator and the bacteria growing on the scum caught inside was poising you”.
In a related note, this is a reminder for everyone to clean out your faucet aerators if you haven’t done that this month.
This month?!
You’re supposed to do it monthly, yes. But you can probably go longer if you have new pipes and a sediment filter. I have to do mine monthly because the aerators clog up with dirt and sand and slow the flow down, but I’m on county water, and every location is different.
What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
African or European?
I… I don’t know that…
AAAAHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
20-25mph, if you want the full Monty.
Assuming other implications (existence of an afterlife and God) with this scenario I would have but one question. Why? Why everything? Honestly I would be mad furious if there was an afterlife. More so if there was a God.
“In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
What if the afterlife was universally accessible like a participation prize and relative to each individual such that there wasn’t a single idealized version of happiness?
Is that still fury invoking?
The afterlife is your consciousness continuing in a nearby parallel universe where, for whatever reason, you didn’t just die.
As you get older and older, and your death becomes more and more likely, the scenarios that must occur to prevent your death get more and more outlandish.
Eventually, the fulfillment mechanism evolves into some kind of radical transformation away from human life. Like, you can’t be 10,000 years old and your story be “I’m a human”. By then your story must be something like:
- I am strakthos the eternal
- I got uploaded into a computer in 2045
- They got really good at science and my body has practically eternal youth
This will happen. Your subjective life will never encounter death. Your consciousness will continue to hop to the nearest universe where you survived, and you won’t remember the hop. Your subjective experience will just be an ongoing set of circumstances that keep extending your life. Just pray you’re not one of those unlucky ones who are the only one in their universe to live forever.
Most of us, no doubt, will be encountering circumstances that apply to other people as well, and hence will have company in their millionth year and thereafter.
This will happen.
Are you sure it hasn’t already happened?
A few years ago I got to wondering if, like in most games I’ve played, there might be a 4th wall breaking bit of lore in our world history if it were a simulation.
It took only a few weeks to find a text and tradition from antiquity attributed to the most famous individual in our world history claiming we were copies of a long dead spontaneous humanity as fashioned by an intelligence the original humanity brought forth in light. That we weren’t actually human at all, that the world to come has already happened and we just don’t realize it because we think time is linear and that we’re in a physical world instead of realizing it’s all just that intelligence’s light. And that this was done because the original humans’ souls depended on bodies that died, but the copies of what existed before will not taste death.
That was pretty spot on for a 4th wall break and a bit out of its time and place with its thinking (though less than you might expect).
So within the context of what you suggested, there could be a version of you that thinks it’s only X years old and that it’s only 2024 when in reality it might be much further into the future than that and in truth the oldest conscious version of ‘you.’ And this version of you right now may already be that far future version, just with limited subjective memory of anything outside your life here and now.
Why bother living then? What is the point of existence if no matter what you do you end up the same?
I’m curious how you got to that conclusion from what I said?
If anything, the notion of relative idealism is that for those that want to change it exists and for those that enjoy being themselves it need not.
What if the afterlife was universally accessible like a participation prize and relative to each individual such that there wasn’t a single idealized version of happiness?
Ok, if afterlife is universally accessible and is perfect for me and my concept of happiness, then it would make the most sense to seek this afterlife as much as I possibly can. Because we are talking about afterlife the only way to get there is to die. The most reasonable conclusion then is that there’s no point in living and it’s much more beneficial to just die and go to infinine paradise.
That’s why afterlife with no rules makes no sense to me.
I agree with you in cases where life here is more suffering than joy. The idea that we should cling to life no matter the situation isn’t good for individuals or society and has enabled horrible circumstances to be held over people who might have otherwise escaped them.
I don’t see it the same way when joys outweigh suffering though.
If I’m happy being me in the present, why rush being a happier me in the future if there is no time limit?
I don’t skip my meals and order straight from the dessert menu.
There are comments elsewhere in this thread by people who would want to experience all kinds of suffering to satisfy their curiosity.
If one’s only concern is maximizing one’s own happiness in the short term regardless of impacts on loved ones, then yes, those people probably would be better off accelerating paradise. But long term with the term being potentially infinite there’s not really any increase to living a full life here vs jumping ahead and there’s very often likely fallout on loved ones by doing so, so it seems kind of pointless and callous to me if life is more good than bad.
But yeah, I’m very much a proponent of euthanasia being openly available for people for whom life is more bad than good.
If I’m happy being me in the present, why rush being a happier me in the future if there is no time limit?
Same question but inverse, why not? There is nothing to loose and something to gain. So why would anyone bother building life now when there is guaranteed happiness with simple and easy path.
Saying I’m content with my situation and don’t want to change isn’t really an argument for either position. What existential gains are there for continuing? That would be an argument for your position.
If one’s only concern is maximizing one’s own happiness in the short term regardless of impacts on loved ones, then yes, those people probably would be better off accelerating paradise.
But that’s the thing, there is no impact. Why shouldn’t everyone else just go into eternal paradise? The whole issue with this hypothetical scenario is that it removes any need to live. At least Christianity has hell and sins to ballance it out. But in your case there are no existencial consequences, I can be as evil (which I have no desire for) or as good as I can and end up just the same.
And yes, that does come close to a question Why not be evil then and eat babies or something? The difference here is that we are social creatures among other social creatures (except some outliers), we feel empathy and generally don’t want others to suffer. However even this argument breaks down somewhat when I keep unconditional paradise for everyone in the afterlife.
There is nothing to loose and something to gain.
If your relative paradise smells like cinnamon rolls and your best friend’s smells like something you hate, what happens if both of you are entitled to your own relative ideals but you want to spend your time with your best friend?
On a technical level, something very much has to be irrevocably lost in leaving a world of shared but randomly generated experiences for one of relative excellence.
The only way that two eventual observers of a superposition can each measure different results is if they are separated from each other when observing it.
So even if you have friends and loved ones on the other side in your relative paradise, from an ‘identity’ perspective they won’t be exactly the same as the ones on this side.
That in and of itself seems a pretty good reason to me to be patient in living out a life in the here and now.
Why not be evil then and eat babies or something?
Because (a) most people don’t actually want to do that, and (b) there’s social consequences for eating babies in this world.
Actually, if eating babies is the most important thing to someone’s happiness, that’s one of the cases where jumping ahead to an existence where they could do that without consequence would make sense.
I agree with the god part, but why the afterlife?
I don’t want it. I have invested all of myself to the existence that I am. Why would I need to bother with it if there is afterlife.
Life is only as meaningful as it is fleeting. As soon afterlife comes into the equation it nulifies all of that. Then you must invent God as an arbiter that gives meaning to your life.
Personally I wasn’t assuming either the existence of God or an afterlife when I posted but I left it open to interpretation on purpose. I would totally agree with you if such was the case, it’s a valid question worth asking. I’m not sure if I’d be mad at an afterlife, that would depend on the answer to “why”, and what the afterlife was all about.
If I die today, as in stop existing completely, I wouldn’t have any questions. When I die I will no longer be, there will be no conscience, no memories, nothing. That is the death I desire.
If I exist after death, even for a moment, that means death is not the end. Who am asking questions? Why can I ask one last question? How can I get one question / request fulfilled this one last time? I can’t really separate these things that easily.
Well- it’s a fantasy scenario. And the question happens right before death, not after. Your reasoning makes sense taking the situation literally, but in essence the post is about gaining knowledge just for the sake of knowledge, without any practical use or impact in your life.
