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.
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 snail in a metal ball full of salt.
EDOT: Typo, snail <-> small
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 😭
It would be an obsession of mine, if I was cursed with the inability to die under any level of duress.
I’m not saying it’s common, but punishment by live burial is a thing, and billions of years is an awful lot of human history.
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.
Repeated surgical corrections for your ever growing earlobes
All the comments assume everybody else isn’t also immortal. I forget the title and author but there’s an old sci fi story (or novel?) about a future where everybody lives for centuries, and they’ve found that the brain only retains a certain amount of experience. They have long careers, get tired of doing whatever, re-educate and do something else, or even have multiple families they eventually forget about. A couple of the characters are surprised to find out they used to be married like a century earlier. To me that seems vaguely like reincarnation, and I kind of don’t hate the idea. I really don’t see any downside to that scenario, or even just going on forever.
People are focused on having regrets and negatives that last forever. But buck up li’l camper, you can learn to move on from stuff. And I say this as a dad whose daughter had cancer at age 10 (she survived). It was hell and I wouldn’t want to live through that whole period again, but I don’t consider it a reason not to want to live forever. The trick is to learn how to cope with these things and not let them outweigh the good experiences you have.
A scifi short story I read was set in a somewhat idyllic future.
Robots did everything. Everyone was given housing, food etc. Health was covered and people lived virtually forever. Nobody worked, and you could travel and do anything you wanted.
The most prized thing, that everyone was desperate for, was having an original thought.
Reminds me another story about an idyllic world where almost nobody worked and everything was provided. At one point a crew showed up to repair a house, and everybody gathered around to watch, marveling at their work clothes and tools. One guy yearned to use tools so he started making little craft items at home, and trading them to people for worthless little tiddly wink tokens they used for friendly bets on sports. Then his neighbors started doing the same thing and they got a little economy going, using the tokens as currency, until the government got wind of it and squashed the whole thing because commerce was illegal.
Is it: “the age of pussyfoot” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_the_Pussyfoot
That could be it - many elements are familiar, although the title isn’t at all, but I have read a lot of Fredrik Pohl. The plot synopsis also doesn’t mention the characters finding out they had been married before. Maybe that’s a small detail that just stands out more in my mind.
Swear I’ve read that. Anyone?
Isn’t the movie Hancock a bit in this direction?
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.
People are commenting ‘fates worse than death’ and ‘being made into a labrat by the 1%’, but really, if you have infinite time to just do stuff and you can’t be killed – And you don’t somehow squirrel your way into a position of power then what are you even doing with your time and immortality, oomfie?
The loneliness part is also questionable. I know OP said it’s overly done, but I also think it’s just wrong. If you’re an adult you’ve had people in your life die before. It sucks. You miss them. But then you move on. And you meet other people. You’ll still go “:(” when you think about the person and such… But life goes on.
And that’s just life. It doesn’t get any worse if you extend it longer – If anything it gets better. You might have lost your beloved today, but you have another dozen lifetimes to heal your wounds and meet someone else and fall in love again and (…)
So here’s some lower-stakes, frustrating inconveniences of being immortal:
- Your favourite fashion? It’s not just out of fashion. It’s so out of fashion it is now considered ‘historical costuming’. You can no longer find any articles like it at all. Because the only people even trying to recreate the techniques are costuming nerds and theater people who always exaggerate stuff
- You got a song stuck in your head. It is either from before recording was invented, or any recordings of it that existed are too old to be reliably listenable. You have a song stuck in your head.
- You used to really enjoy a job you did. That entire career path is now obsolete. As per the first paragraph of my post, if you’re immortal you have probably snuck your way into the upper echelons of society at some point during your infinite time… But like. You’re bored. You loved being a Court Jester, now there are no Court Jesters.
- Actually tedium just in general. Sooner or later you’ll run out of new things to try, because you’ll have done everything that even remotely caught your eye already. So what the fuck will you do with your time? You’ll eventually just get depressed and not do anything.
Feeling bad for the immortals who were professional garden hermits.
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.
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.
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.
So just my normal day?
Or you get to experience another big bang. That would be worth the wait.
Then you could call yourself Galactus
Losing all of the skills you gain. No matter how good you get at something, after a few centuries you’ll have lost your edge. You can also only practice so many things concurrently without giving something up. At some point, years down the line, you might try to ride a bike again and completely fail to do it, or try to sing and fail to hit all the notes that came easily before, or do gymnastics but the muscles you need are underused. It doesn’t matter that you spent years mastering every skill, your abilities will degrade over time. You’ll never really be able to feel sure about your own abilities except for whatever you’ve done most recently.
You don’t know the expression, “it’s like riding a bike”?
If you haven’t ridden a bike in 20 years, go try it. But now 2000 years.
But the famous thing about learning to ride a bike is that you don’t forget, even after decades. I’ve just looked it up to double-check and all I got was articles about why you never forget. It’s like saying you’ll forget how to walk up stairs or something.
Famous sayings so not equal reality.
I mean, you could look it up yourself if you doubt it so.
I had a really nice washing machine. Then it broke. The manufacturer was dissolved 25 years ago.
I had a really nice cast iron pan. Then it fractured. Modern cast iron pans aren’t smooth.
I had a really nice car. Then a part broke. Replacement parts haven’t been available for 50 years.
I had a really nice flip phone. It was made by Nokia so it still works. People think it’s weird that I use a flip phone.
I had a really nice peace and quiet. Then someone invented ambulances. Now I cower in the corner of my bedroom hiding from manmade horrors beyond my comprehension.
Cancer. So much goddamn cancer. It doesn’t matter what kind of immortality you have, you WILL get cancer. Repeatedly. Over and over. Forever.
That really depends on the type of immortality you get. Brain upload to a cyborg body doesn’t get cancer.
Immortality means you could, just keep ripping it out 🤣
Cut the head off to heal
deleted by creator
Having potentially thousands of years of embarassing moments of social awkwardness to think about. And, over the aeons, being relieved when the people you know and love die because they won’t remember the things you’re so ashamed of.
Nobody:
Your brain: remember that time you said the wrong word in 1374?
If we’re talking magical immortality, as in you can’t die, at all. Then the fact that however much enjoyment and experiences you get while the universe still exist, it will be followed by an infinite stretch of nothing after the heat death of the universe.
Then again, you have billions of years to come up with a solution to this problem.
Then there are options:
- You find a solution. Great!
- You do not find a solution, but spend whatever time is left in the universe working on it, and then spend infinite time in darkness. Not great.
Kind of a gamble :D
I think the estimates are much, much longer until that happens.
Family meals that take 3 restaurants No retirement
Rephrase?
I think they’re saying this:
Family meals would comprise of three restaurants worth of people since they’re all immortal
Separately, you can never retire since you will never hit retirement age
If you’re immortal, you get to see your family expand to the points that organizing a single family meal requires 3 restaurants to house everyone.
Since you (presumably, otherwise it’s a shitty immortality) don’t get old, you don’t get to retire
Retirement is a function of money/wealth, not age.
If you’re immortal, you’d (not you specifically, just whoever in general) have to be a complete tool to go through hundreds/thousands of years without generating at least enough wealth to retire at some point.
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?
Forgetfulness. Think how forgetful people get after having lived a normal lifespan, now go for a few thousand+ years and you’ve probably forgotten whole centuries of your life. This is actually the premise of a solo journaling game Thousand Year Old Vampire, you have to cross out and forget memories as you progress through the game, just forgetting whole parts of your life.
There’s a Doctor Who episode with that idea in it too, the Doctor saves a girl in Viking times but brings her back forever, and when he meets her in mediaeval times she has a whole library of books that are just her memories that she’s written down over the years.
What episode?
Actually it was a two-parter, S09E5&6 (of the reboot), called The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived.
Here’s a clip of the relevant bit!