# Is death bad for the person that dies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 24, 2024, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275 "2024-06-24T15:45:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2024, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/61 "2024-08-23T00:16:51Z")
I would actively kill the dog to save the human without a moment’s hesitation. Any other answer is repellent and deeply evil to me. YMMV of course, but you (the generic you) are dead wrong if you disagree. As to the alien, I’d have to have some idea of their “specie’s” nature and character to form a well-reasoned morally defensible opinion. Maybe I kill them from ignorant revulsion, maybe they and their kind deserve to be killed so the human(s) survive, and maybe the human(s) deserve to die that the alien may live. I can’t say _a priori_. My attitude is not simple species-ism. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2024, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/62 "2024-08-23T19:38:26Z")
At least for me, this one is easy, because I can’t swim. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2024, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/63 "2024-08-23T21:05:20Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Is human life inherently more worthy of our protection than alien life? The entire history of science fiction seems to indicate that the answer to this is “yes”. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2024, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/64 "2024-08-23T22:51:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The entire history of science fiction seems to indicate that the answer to this is “yes” In most of that science fiction the aliens are trying to kill us and we fight back. Is there any fiction where humans are belligerent towards aliens who _aren’t_ trying to Destroy All Humans ™ and this is portrayed as a _good thing_? That doesn’t seem very common to me. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2024, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/65 "2024-08-23T23:05:00Z")
There was an extensive subgenre of planets whose benighted natives needed the hand of the allknowing earthmen who could teach them the basics of capitalism and suchlike. I.e. colonialism in space. That was the entire premise of the extremely popular Hoka series by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. Their collected stories were even titled _Earthman’s Burden_. Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2024, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/66 "2024-08-23T23:28:32Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That was the entire premise of the extremely popular Hoka series by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. Their collected stories were even titled _Earthman’s Burden_. Does that count? Maybe it does; I’m not familiar with that series. The way you describe it does sound like an example of humanity being belligerent towards an alien race being portrayed positively; when I look up the series though it appears that it was intended to be humorous, with the colonized teddy bear like aliens adopting various archaic human cultures. Without reading the series it’s tough to tell how the humor is meant, but if it’s a parody of colonialism, then I’m not sure it qualifies as a _positive_ portrayal of human belligerency. That said, maybe whatever it is parodying is? Is the series called “Earth man’s Burden” because the authors thought that was a great and awesome part of the British Empire, or because they thought it was an example of the bad mindset their series lampooned? I have no idea. Even if we grant the existence of pro colonial sci Fi from the 50s, what you said was: > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The entire history of science fiction seems to indicate that the answer to this is “yes”. And that’s something I seriously question. The Worldwar series by Harry Turtledove, for example, has the US integrate members of the alien race that tried to invade Earth during world war 2, and their contributions are key to the US surpassing the invaders in the post war world. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2024, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/67 "2024-08-23T23:49:44Z")
Yes, the Hoka series was very much meant to be humorous. The point when reading it today is to be reminded that many of the major writers in the field were Kipling disciples. John W. Campbell, who influenced the entire field in the 1940s, believed that humans were the strongest, most determined, orneriest creatures in the universe. Humans would go out into the universe and use their superior brainpower and technology to dominate all aliens. The analogy to the way the English built their empire was deliberate and widespread. The American Century (_Time_’s Henry Luce phrase) would be the successor. Of course later writers rebelled against this mindset. Colonialism has become an evil that is to be condemned rather than perpetuated into the future. Alien multiculturalism wins awards. Nevertheless another slice of the field knew then and knows today that beating on invading alien monsters sells better, especially in visual media. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/68 "2024-08-23T23:56:56Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Of course later writers rebelled against this mindset. Colonialism has become an evil that is to be condemned rather than perpetuated into the future. Alien multiculturalism wins awards. So then, it’s not the _entire_ history of SciFi that argued that human life is inherently more valuable than alien life, is it? That was my whole point. SciFi fans are not all sweaty basement dwellers who think that the Imperium of Man are the good guys, but that does tend to be the stereotype. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2024, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/69 "2024-08-24T00:25:26Z")
Good grief, that was a sardonic comment on science fiction never meant to be taken as literally true for every work ever written. Period. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2024, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/70 "2024-08-24T09:08:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > because I can’t swim. I find this remarkable. It probably requires a different topic, as it is very divergent. I have known how to swim since I have known how to walk. It is so natural to me, I consider it no different than, say, climbing a steep mountain. There are different muscles involved, different breathing techniques, but I do not see us humans as too different from amphibians. For the record, I am 50 years old, and have been swimming since I was about 2 - early starter, but we had a swimming pool and I was taught what to do if I fell in… don’t drown, find the steps. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2024, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/71 "2024-08-24T12:15:39Z")
What’s so remarkable? You had a swimming pool. Most people don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2024, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/72 "2024-08-24T16:13:28Z")
I didn’t say I didn’t know how to swim. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2024, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/73 "2024-08-24T16:58:22Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > What’s so remarkable? You had a swimming pool. Most people don’t. Nothing remarkable. I was lucky to be born into the middle class. My parents were teachers, so I had my own private pool (my father fucking hated the cash-sucking thing) and access to an olympic size pool, double depth at one end for water-polo, and a separate 10m diving pool at the school. More than most people get, but pure chance I got born there. (My older brother’s first swimming teacher flipped her lid on day one of swimming training at school when he ran straight to the deep end, did a bomb, then stayed underwater for around 3 minutes. This was _not allowed_ at all. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2024, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/74 "2024-08-24T16:59:53Z")
My mistake, then. My apologies @Czarcasm. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > At least for me, this one is easy, because I can’t swim ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2024, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/75 "2024-08-24T17:50:13Z")
Not being able to swim is [far more common than you seem to think it is](https://www.local3news.com/nearly-half-of-adults-cant-swim-well-enough-to-save-themselves/article_a5a95609-695c-5955-84e9-1b186d16b035.html). > The organization has released a survey that found that while 80 percent of adults claim they could swim, 44 percent of them also admit they would fail a basic test. > > “Less than half of Americans can actually do all of the five skills that can potentially save your life in the water," Howe said. The big takeaway is that 20% of American said that they couldn’t swim at all, some 50-60 million. Being able to swim is not inherently privileged, but it was in some places, at some times, in some groups, in just my lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/76 "2024-08-25T18:29:22Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Being able to swim is not inherently privileged I am without a doubt, privileged. My family had a swimming pool; I had free access to two olympic size pools plus a 3m and 5m diving board at our local pool and at the school where my parents taught. There was a 10m diving board nearby. One of my earliest swimming memories (I unfortunately missed the occasion where my brother - age 4, at the time lept into the deep end on his first ever school swimming lesson… his teacher was less than amused) but this led to our teachers and parents taking a fairly lasize-faire attitude to my family swimming competance. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/77 "2024-08-27T17:19:44Z")
Somewhat back on topic – > [@scudsucker](#): > > Death is just an end. It is not good or bad. It is the end. It’s the end for the individual consciousness. Individual death is not an end but a continuation. Life does not exist without death; they’re essential parts of each other. What makes soils and waters fertile is all the living things which have died in them and/or whose remains have been incorporated into them. You can’t be alive unless death exists. You can’t be alive unless you’re going to die. So in that sense, if being alive is good for a human, then their death has to be also. The timing and nature of that death is another matter, of course. I’ve certainly known people who were ready to go; but some deaths are genuinely terrible. The death of everything, of course, would be a different matter. But even when/if that occurs: life will still have existed. If I were to wake up out of nothingness only long enough to experience a sunset or the sight of a tree or a cat on my lap – and were somehow able to comprehend that even though I’d just awakened – that would be worth it. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > The Universe is a vast cold uncaring void with a bare smidgen of gas, dust, and radiation wandering around in it. Capital-L Life as seen on Earth is equally directionless and pointless. Individual organisms, be they bacteria, amoeba, dogs, whales, or humans, are equally immaterial and temporary. So what? We’re here now. Pat that dog. I’ve never understood the argument that things have to be permanent to matter. Anything that’s permanent would have to be dead. Life itself is made up of change; no living thing can be permanent. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/78 "2024-08-27T18:08:32Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Life itself is made up of change; no living thing can be permanent. Isn’t this the driver behind all philosophy and religion and personal behavior? We all know we are going to die, therefore… For most of history the three dots after therefore have been filled in with “there must be an afterlife.” And if there must be an afterlife I/you must act accordingly. Because if there is not going to be an afterlife, then why must you act in any particular way at all? Life without afterlife is therefore anarchy, mindless hooliganism, casual evil. Come join my religion and be saved from such a fate. Which all too often leads to forcing you to believe or hideous persecution if you don’t. Formal evil. The answer to such thinking has been put forward by many varieties of atheism. Life is what you put into it while you are alive, simply because there is nothing after except the memories of other people. These two views cannot be reconciled because a fundamental contradiction underlies human life. As @LSLGuy notes, humanity is less than a speck in a 13 billion year old university, yet a person’s inability to inhabit that universe from anything other than a 24/7 perspective inside one’s own brain makes them the most important being inside that universe. Most religions’ afterlives have at their core the underlying presumption that that loneliness and isolation will be broken down so that you are now part of the all. Atheism states that the loneliness and isolation of life will be solved by not caring, any more than a person cares during the blackness of a good night’s sleep. You can read that as saying that death is not bad for the person who dies either way. Or you can read that as saying that one is asking the wrong question. Death is an unanswerable. Worry about life instead. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/79 "2024-08-27T18:19:16Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > So what? > > We’re here now. Pat that dog. Which was exactly my point for the part of my post you didn’t quote. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I’ve never understood the argument that things have to be permanent to matter. Anything that’s permanent would have to be dead. Life itself is made up of change; no living thing can be permanent. I agree with you and would not make that argument either. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/80 "2024-08-27T20:14:21Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Because if there is not going to be an afterlife, then why must you act in any particular way at all? Because most humans actually give a shit about someone and/or something besides themselves. And because most humans realize that if there’s too much “anarchy, mindless hooliganism, casual evil” they themselves are very likely to be the victims of it; and that if they themselves behave that way others are more likely to behave that way to them. Because that “most” is in there, there is a lot of that shit. I haven’t noticed that there’s any less of it in people who don’t believe in an afterlife than in those who do. Or in societies that heavily emphasize an afterlife than in those which don’t. It may actually work in reverse: people who believe that good people will be rewarded in an afterlife sometimes feel no need to see that they’re treated decently in the current one. People are starving, freezing, being treated like shit at the bottom of a caste system or due to their poverty? If they’re actually good people, God will reward them in heaven/their next life, no need to do anything about it now! > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Atheism states that the loneliness and isolation of life will be solved by not caring, any more than a person cares during the blackness of a good night’s sleep. That’s only after you die. For many atheists, it’s solved during one’s life by caring a great deal. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Which was exactly my point for the part of my post you didn’t quote. Below is the whole of that post. I can see how you may have meant to say it; but I didn’t read it as saying that. However, as apparently we’re in agreement: we’re in agreement! > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Agreed. Setting aside alien intelligent life which IMO probably exists but is currently unprovable … > > The Universe is a vast cold uncaring void with a bare smidgen of gas, dust, and radiation wandering around in it. Capital-L Life as seen on Earth is equally directionless and pointless. Individual organisms, be they bacteria, amoeba, dogs, whales, or humans, are equally immaterial and temporary. > > If there is any meaning whatsoever, it is what we each in our conscious mind create in relation to another conscious minds. And all that dies with us. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275.md?page=5)