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.
I don’t want to ruin your idea, I think it’s kinda neat. But I think that you may be monkey pawing yourself.
A tremendous amount people have suffered so much, that I’d probably not want the experience in its current form. The horrors of the holocaust, unit 731, and a lot of wars springs to mind, from just the last century.
IDK how you could modify the question, but “no violent deaths” could be a starting point.
I don’t think there is a short clear way to avoid potential centuries of suffering. Living in pain could be worse than a violent death.
Imagine a life time as a comatose patient who is still conscious and can hear but not respond?
Years of nearly starving to death. Years of physical abuse? Slowly dying in a hospital from cancer / some other slow painful death.
Hiker trapped alone on a mountain.
In short no thanks.
Honestly, those are all selling points. I’d love to understand how a coma patient thinks a few months in, a few years in and a few decades in. What it’s like to die in war in the year, 700, 1700 & 2700. To die as a newborn and then eventually see how those very parents are affected. So long as it is randomized and I’m statistically likely to see something radically different tommorow, I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of the human experince.
No. It’s not a selling point and you don’t want it. I have a condition that puts every part of my body in pain continuously. It’s been 4 years and I’ve forgotten the sensation of painlessness. Many people with my condition kill themselves, not only because the pain alone is intolerable, but because every step of the way somebody will tell them they are being lazy or faking it.
I feel for you and I’m sorry you also are going through it. I don’t blame you for taking umbridge with this all. But I also live in constant pain as well, after a dog attack a few years ago I can’t walk for more than an hour at a time, laying sitting and standing all hurt and even with pain meds, I can only get to a dull ache. I can’t work and the life I had before is gone, it was such shit trying to prove to skeptical condescending doctors saying just to do stretches and it will get better, but… Here I am still waiting.
So while I feel where you are coming from with this time of chronic pain, I am ready to deal with this and other life debilitating conditions if I also get to feel like it was to run again, to climb, to see through the eyes of an athlete. To be able to walk normally and enjoy events again. I’d take my own pain and yours again to feel human again.
Also, I’m sorry to say but I think the vast majority of people would be boring. We all have 1 or 2 interesting things happen to us in our lives but the humdrum of taking a shit and sleeping for 8 hours would get old fast
the humdrum of taking a shit and sleeping for 8 hours would get old fast
Ageed I’m only halfway watching this poor sod’s life, and it’s soo boring. I’m not going to watch more of this.
Maybe we could add a remote control and a library interface? Like choose whom to follow and then you can use ffw and a stop function?
ah you mean just like Adam Sandler’s timeless masterpiece, “The Magic Remote Control”?
Was that the one where he enlarges Jennifer Anniston’s boobs?
Nah, that was just my dream
I loved when Adam Sandler said “It’s Sandlering time” and totally Sandlered all over those guys
Honestly, imagine watching Schindler’s List, Come and See, and Jean Dielman a billion times over. And then imagine that those films are each several decades in length.
I’d modify the question to specify that each life is presented as a unique and compelling motion picture, each between an hour and four hours in length, of the sort that would be likely to win either critical acclaim or box office success (or both) at some point in the late 20th to early 21st century - and that I get to watch them in an unending variety of well-staffed and enthusiastically-attended movie theaters, with interesting companions who I can discuss the movie with for as long as I want to afterwards, with endless credit to spend at the concessions, and with no bodily needs like discomfort or fatigue.
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
Bro this is already what’s up. We’re all the same stardust!
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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.
is p != np
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.
I guess that depends on whether n != 1
How is the entity or power that has the ability to grant me such knowledge connected to the existence of the universe?
Magic
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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.
Nihilism is based, and if you ever feel down because there’s no point, just watch Gurren Lagann and embrace the potential for a better tomorrow through nihilism
There can’t be a point unless you make one.
To exist.
What an awful thing to do to someone
Maybe, you get to choose the point. What were the moments that made it all worth it?
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You need thinggs to be eternal to matter to you? Tall order.
Petting my cat
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
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.
I would like to know the detailed life history of every human that was ever born…
Start taking I’ll wait :)
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Not to mention the overwhelming amounts of unimaginable suffering you would see.
And joy, but I’d say being suddenly ommiciant to all the life of humanity but completely impotent sounds awful
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?
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!
So, I figured it out. Why hot dogs come in packages of ten and hot dog buns come in packages of eight. See, the thing is, life doesn’t always work out according to plan. So be happy with what you’ve got, because you can always get a hot dog.
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.”
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.
Did she ever love me?
If you need to ask, then probably not. If she really did, you wouldn’t have to ask, you’d know.
Nah. The thing about this is that people who are insincere don’t know how to act sincere. People who are sincere also don’t know how to act sincere.
Aargh fuck
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.
