this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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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.
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[โ€“] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 53 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Being asked your birthdate in order to view a game on Steam, and the year dropdown not going back far enough.

[โ€“] DdCno1 7 points 1 week ago

Or not being able to play a board game, because it says "ages 9 - 99" on the box.

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[โ€“] Octospider@lemm.ee 35 points 1 week ago

Depends on the type of immorality. Do you continue to age? If no, what age do you stop? Eventually the universe will die. So what happens to you then?

It might be fun for a while. Maybe even a long while. But that fun will be gone in an instant compared to the trillions and trillions of years you will float in a dark dying universe of nothing.

[โ€“] shoulderoforion@fedia.io 31 points 1 week ago (3 children)

immortality doesn't guarantee perpetual health, you're alive, but so broken and sick you wish you could die, but you can't

[โ€“] 50MYT@aussie.zone 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah this answer.

Imagine being immortal and you get stuck somewhere.

Like in a giant land slide.

[โ€“] Ioughttamow@fedia.io 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Alive, but stuck in nutty putty cave for eternity

[โ€“] superkret@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago

Not eternity, just a few billion years until earth is vaporized by the sun going supernova.
Then you're free - to drift through empty space forever.

[โ€“] dgriffith@aussie.zone 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"I have no mouth and I must scream" could end up being a plausible way to spend eternity.

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[โ€“] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That old person feeling of no longer being with "it", and what's "it" now being strange and scary probably compounds over the centuries.

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[โ€“] tetris11@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

Life will pound you into an uncaring jaded disinterested unloveable husk of a being after too many emotional scars from losing loved ones, too much of seeing humanity make the same mistakes, and too much watching the knowledge you gained turned irrelevant.

Or, life will beat into you an uncanny ability to converse and relate to others, even if fleetingly.

Watch The Man from Earth.

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[โ€“] superkret@feddit.org 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

At some point, our sun will go supernova and you will end up drifting through space.
And all your life before that point will be less than a blink of an eye compared to the time that follows:
Trillions and trillions of years until the heat death of the universe.
And even that time will be less than the blink of an eye compared to the eternity afterwards, when you drift through a black void without any stars.

[โ€“] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago

But no people around. So overall a win.

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[โ€“] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.
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[โ€“] vis4valentine@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Knowing the answer to some of history's biggest mysteries, because you were there, but being unable to speak about them because, 1, that would expose you, 2, nobody would believe you either way because nobody expects you to be THAT old.

Also, it is already frustrating seeing kids being dismissive or denying events that you yourself have lived. Imagine being thousands of years old and seeing so much shit, but those events are rarely retold, forgotten, or straight up denied by conspiracies or future governments that won't admit their fault on it.

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[โ€“] FryHyde@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 week ago

Discovering the upper limits to what the human mind can retain and just constantly forgetting all the shit you used to find important.

[โ€“] off_brand_ 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nobody is answering the prompt lol. Everyone says all of this shit all the time.

You live long enough to never feel at home. Sure the loneliness sucks or whatever, but who do you root for at the football game?

Having to buy new shoes for the rest of eternity. You know how much work I've literally just put into finding shoes that 1) don't suck and 2) aren't made with slave labor? It's impossible. Drives me insane. I'd found my own shoe company once I become immortal rich just to fix that problem alone. Maybe other stuff too we'll get there

I suppose on that note: it seems like a really bad idea to become a public figure after a while. Like you obviously don't want your immortality found out. You have to have like illuminati power before that point though, but it could happen at any time. Like if something happens and you become a news item (i.e. helping someone out and a video goes viral online). Not saying everyone is all that close to going viral, but over a sufficiently long lifespan you're effectively rolling that dice a lot.

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[โ€“] Sybilvane@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 week ago (5 children)

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.

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[โ€“] Reil 11 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Cross the wrong people and you end up not dead, but irrecoverable. Cement shoes, buried alive kind of stuff. Cross a different set of wrong people and you become a labrat. To avoid either scenario, you'll be in a constant state of "undocumented" or false-documented which will keep you in a pretty consistent state of poverty.

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[โ€“] apotheotic 11 points 1 week ago

A lot of ways to die are excruciatingly painful, but you die, so you don't live with the pain. If you end up in one of those situations and don't die (because you are immortal), I imagine the psychological impact of the pain without immediate release could be enough to completely break you, mentally.

[โ€“] Someplaceunknown@fedia.io 11 points 1 week ago

The eventual heat death of the universe would be painful

[โ€“] davel@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The Sun will eventually fry all life on Earth and boil off the water & atmosphere. Eventually the Sun will die out completely, leaving you on a cold, dark rock.

[โ€“] viking@infosec.pub 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

With no atmosphere and the sun going nova, there's a chance of the rock getting obliterated. With a nice boost you might fly off to another planet eventually. Might not be inhabited or even inhabitable, but hey.

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[โ€“] lazylion_ca@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago

The rest of humanity will eventually evolve into something you don't recognize and can never be part of.

[โ€“] Crumbgrabber@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago

Having to constantly find new hiding places for the blood chalice, and keeping up with all the latest scanning methods so you can develop countermeasures. Your secret is never truly safe.

[โ€“] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Given a long enough time frame, the vast majority of an immortal life would be spent buried beneath something or floating in the void of space. Think about it, you outlast planets and stars. When those go dark, but you don't die...nothing to do but float in space.

You might counter that with, "well yeah, but eventually I'd find other sentient life forms and/or people again.โ€ And sure, maybe, but that wouldn't last as long as you...and then you're just alone floating in space again, for the vast majority of your life. The only thing to look forward to, since you will outlast everything, is the end of time itself.

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[โ€“] tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You know how the curse of pet ownership is that you will almost certainly outlive them?

That, but with everyone you love

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[โ€“] nis@feddit.dk 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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.

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[โ€“] Speiser0@feddit.org 9 points 1 week ago

You'd procrastinate things for 100s of years, until at one point you're simply no longer able to do it. Wanted to domesticate a saber-tooth cat some day? Too bad, they're extinct now. Wanted to visit the baths in ancient Rome? Well, it is not the same Rome anymore, and all the baths' floors are cold.

[โ€“] MrFunnyMoustache@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Having to keep creating fake identities to prevent people and governments from finding out that you're immortal. That would be a massive pain in the butt, especially in a world where mass surveillance of the population is common.

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[โ€“] Speiser0@feddit.org 8 points 1 week ago

People, corporations, and other entities would over time gather more data about you. There's always some kind of information footprint that you leave behind. And you'd stand out from other humans by the way you talk (i.e. using slang from 200 years ago, and speaking about historic stuff with details that the general public is not aware of) and other traits, which makes you traceable.

[โ€“] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[โ€“] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 7 points 1 week ago

On one hand, you have eternity to come to grips with everything you've done. On the other hand, it might take eternity to come to grips with everything you've done.

Seeing all of your friends and family die, knowing you'll never stop missing them.

Having the perspective of centuries. Seeing society make the same mistakes over and over again because they forget, but you never do. It would drive me mad. Already does, considering I have the ability to, and have, read history. I just imagine living it over and over to be tedious.

[โ€“] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago

If other people are also immortal, the awkwardness of all of them eventually becoming your exes

[โ€“] pH3ra@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

The disappointment of experience winning lifetime supply of something but that would eventually turn into a lie

[โ€“] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Science fiction is going to age poorly. A lot of it is already hilariously dated. Look at most of Star Trek. They're flying at FTL speeds through space with artificial gravity, teleportation, lifelike androids, and replicator technology, but their screens absolutely suck. More and more of those inconsistencies are going to add up over the centuries and make things ridiculous after a while.

The number of new things that people enjoy dwindles with age. Just about everyone agrees that the music that was being made when they were teenagers is the epitome of the art. Are you going to be able to enjoy anything when you're 2563 years old?

The older you get, the faster time apparently moves. Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, on some days, even "The year 2000!!" still feels like it should be the future to me. I can't imagine what even a few centuries would do to this phenomenon, let alone a millennium or megaannum (I had to look that word up.)

On the upside, presuming I'm the only immortal, I'll be the only person currently alive to see if they actually finish that performance of Organ^2^/ASLSP in Halberstadt.

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Friends, family, and lovers dying before you.

[โ€“] oo1@lemmings.world 6 points 1 week ago

Having to listen to that Queen song, forever.

[โ€“] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 week ago

Nobody:

Your brain: remember that time you said the wrong word in 1374?

[โ€“] SteposVenzny 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Either humanity gradually grows to despise you for your ancient morals

or they don't ever meaningfully surpass where we're at today.

[โ€“] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

Btw if you were actually immortal, after a while you would just go into shock and enter a vegetative state from all the psychological stress.

[โ€“] Moah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Family meals that take 3 restaurants No retirement

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Being eaten by sea anemones, tuna, sharks, swordfish, sea turtles, penguins, and other jellyfish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii#Predation

[โ€“] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
[โ€“] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

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.

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[โ€“] crazyminner@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

Not being able to kill yourself.

Wage slaving never stops

Repeated surgical corrections for your ever growing earlobes

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