I hate starting our a thread with a link to a Cracked post, but here's their 5 reasons immortality wold be worse than death. Obviously, the topic lends itself to a debate on the pros and cons of immortality vs death, but I want to try to take this a different way. Everyone would like to go out in a blaze of glory, saving dozens of babies, puppies and kittens from a burning building, but realistically we are all going to "meet our maker" so-to-speak in less-spectacular ways. Some by natural causes, a lot by doing something stupid/dangerous, and a few die in the process of doing something for the sake of something greater. FOCUS: What causes, people, or other reasons/entities would you be willing to die for?
Re: Give me liberty or give me death! This is a tough question for me personally, but I wanted to find out what y'all think. This is continuing our semi-new tradition of doing some serious threads from time to time, so the above FOCUS is not tongue-in-cheek; this is a legitimate question. This is probably less politically controversial than our last sober thread, but I'll suspend the standing no politics rule again for this thread. I am not suspending the "don't be an asshole" rule or the "stay on topic and reasonable" rule, though.
Radical Islamism counts, right? I can almost hear the sound of a thousand FBI 'Carnivore' packet sniffers spidering their way towards my IP address. In all seriousness, though? Fuck grand causes, noble dreams and vague ideological structures. I'd want to go out saving my brother, my brother's son, or my friends. Most of the time I see people 'dying for a cause', I tend to think "somewhere an old rich guy is profiting from your sacrifice". And yes, I am in many ways a cynical asshole with limited understanding of sacrificing myself for the greater good, and if any of the military folk on the board want to call me out, fair enough. All that said? I like and love individual people, not abstract concepts. If I'm going to die for something, I'd want it to be someone I loved.
I'm 80% sure this is the third or even fourth time we've done this topic. I'm 100% sure it's the second.
Pretty much the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is the belief that what I'm doing now is preparing me for a job that will save lives. I'm also a month or two away from starting as a volunteering EMT in a neighborhood with a reputation for its high volume of shootings/stabbings—so hopefully that will give me a chance to do a bit of good while I'm still in school. I found my calling and it's to save lives—that's a goal that has tangible and measurable results, that I can look back on later in life to vindicate my time on earth. Whether that's in the form of international security (the field I'm hoping to work in soon), national emergency response preparedness, or in-the-gutters EMS, doesn't really matter to me. Obviously I'll take all the precautions and risk management that I can, but if it puts me in harm's way at some point, then so be it. But, I think the cliche question of "would you die for your ideals" is stupid. At best, it's delusional and at worst it's narcissistic and reckless. Everyone loves a martyr but that's not how real life works—you can't go after a long-term goal or ideal with the thought that "this will kill me" because if you are then you are mentally unstable. We think giving our lives is the ultimate sacrifice and we think we're somehow more noble if we say we would do it, when in fact most of us can't really process what it's like to be dead and most of us have an innate survival instinct that would lead us to betray our most basic morals if we were in a life-or-death situation. Meanwhile, very few of us would be willing to make smaller, more realistic sacrifices toward that ideal. Some better questions to ask might be: What reasons would you be willing to expose yourself to infectious diseases like Hepatitis, malaria, etc. for? What ideals would you work toward that, rather than kill you, might leave you crippled, mutilated, or deformed? "Dying for the cause" seems laughable because we talk about it as some grand gesture when meanwhile most of us wouldn't be willing to dedicate/sacrifice five or ten years of our lives toward that cause even if we had the chance to live a long and healthy life afterwards.
If I was pretty sure that the actions leading to my death were actions that'd greatly benefit humanity, I'd be pissed that I didn't come up with a plan where I get to retire filthy rich and happy, but there'd be worse ways to go. If my death led to a cure for a terrible disease, or led to an awesome combination of global freedom/peace/end to famine/rise in intelligence, or led to humanity finding a way to outlive the earth and the sun, then I'd be somewhat happier. I'd still be annoyed about not having the last scores of years of my life having wayyyy too much fun with wayyyy too much money, though.
I'd like to think that I've come to terms with the fact that there is a huge possibility of me dying unceremoniously by someone elses hand, and that it won't be glorious, or even that the person responsible for my death would even think twice. Thing is, I see it as the reality of the line of work I have chosen, rather than that I would be sacrificing my life for some cause. So as for the focus, sure, I can think of some things I would give my life for (I say now sitting in the comfort of my own home), but the concept is quite unrealistic - in reality I could only see myself fighting or doing something for a certain reason (knowing that there is a chance I would die) and trying to stay alive as long as possible in order to keep doing it. Though that is just me overanalysing. I guess the answer to that question is simply I am willing to die in order to keep doing my chosen line of work.
I would die for my children in a heart beat. I swore an oath that I would die for my country as well, and I meant it. (Although being Air force, I would probably looking for a marine if guns blazing time came around.) My girl, a few other members of my family, and you officially have the fairly short list of things BigPerson is willing to die for. Yes I am a selfish ass, but at least I am honest about it.
In theory, I would die to protect my family. But if the situation arose, I feel like staying among the living would be a better way of protecting my family. I'm pretty sure my death won't automatically keep my family alive. A killer isn't going to stop with one person and nature is unpredictable. The most likely scenario that I can think of is organ donation. I would be first in line to give one of my siblings a kidney, and there is a chance I could die from such a thing. It would be worth it to keep them alive. I also believe I would go up against a drug dealer if they got someone in my family addicted. I would hope that death would be a worse-case scenario, but if I can cause such a person pain, it will be worth it.
My heart beats for my daughter. Though I'm still in the early years of being a parent, without her there is simply nothing for me anymore. I would die to defend my home if we were invaded, but not AS an invader.