# Is life "too short"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 3, 2014, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785 "2014-01-03T11:54:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/61 "2014-01-04T02:45:50Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Really? Us atheists have believed that for quite a while, really, and it hasn’t negatively affected the world. In fact, I’d argue that it’s the folks who _do_believe in hell and afterlife virgins and suchlike that have negatively affected the world. But at the moment atheists’ lifespans end normally without it being up to themselves to kill themselves. Wanting to kill yourself can mean that you’re not very considerate of the feelings of the people who love you. Atheists believe that it is the only life we’ve got so we might as well make the most of it… but what if things go bad. e.g. they’ve been bullied. I think the people in the Columbine shooting were atheists. I’m not saying that murder-suicides would definitely increase much. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/62 "2014-01-04T03:42:15Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > If we didn’t live long enough it would be harder for science and literature, etc, to be created since it takes a few years for a human to be educated enough to contribute to that. > If life was a lot longer I think it would be less likely for marriages to be life-long - well unless they were arranged marriages and people just put up with them. > Also like I said, the reigns of tyrants would often be longer if lifespans were longer. > If lifespans were a lot longer than suicide would be more widespread and like I mentioned that could result in more murder-suicides. > So the length of the lifespan would affect things. Why would murder-suicides be more prevalent if we had ultra long or infinite lives? Like, i could understand after a while decided to see what death was like for ourselves, but would people really try to take others with them too? ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/63 "2014-01-04T03:59:55Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Why would murder-suicides be more prevalent if we had ultra long or infinite lives? Like, i could understand after a while decided to see what death was like for ourselves, but would people really try to take others with them too? Like Mangetout implied, he would commit suicide if he ran “out of things to do, lose the will to continue or the world becomes intolerable to live in.” I think being seriously suicidal is an anti-social frame of mind - in most cases there are people who want the suicidal person to live and killing yourself would hurt their feelings. By killing themselves they are “playing God” and they might believe that other people also deserve to die. After all they don’t seem to love the world much. If they felt they were a burden then they would be unlikely to murder others but if they are angry then they might. I just think there may be problems in a world where the only way out is suicide. There are already examples of murder-suicides (Columbine shootings) but I can’t really prove they’d be more widespread. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/64 "2014-01-04T04:04:39Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I just think there may be problems in a world where the only way out is suicide. So what would happen, then, with no way out - actual immortality? Would we break down as a species and go nuts after a few thousand years…or would we take advantage of things more? ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/65 "2014-01-04T04:13:37Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > So what would happen, then, with no way out - actual immortality? No but maybe living for a million years would be the limit for most. > [@](#): > > Would we break down as a species and go nuts after a few thousand years…or would we take advantage of things more? Maybe many would watch every TV show and movie there is… each day in their life might seem less important since it is so abundant. Unless they were suffering (including out of boredom) - then it would be significant. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/66 "2014-01-04T04:18:05Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > No but maybe living for a million years would be the limit for most. > Maybe many would watch every TV show and movie there is… each day in their life might seem less important since it is so abundant. Unless they were suffering (including out of boredom) - then it would be significant. Interesting thoughts. Thank you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/67 "2014-01-04T04:25:21Z")
Time flies when you’re having fun but to be merciful to people who are suffering a lot life shouldn’t be too long. People who are suffering aren’t necessarily able to end it even if they want to - e.g. being tortured in a country with a bad human rights record. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/68 "2014-01-04T04:30:06Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I think the people in the Columbine shooting were atheists. And Hitler was a Christian who killed a lot of people then himself. And Osama Bin Laden’s followers killed a lot of people, then themselves. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Do we really have to hash this old argument out again here? In any case, we’re not talking about suicides because you’ve been bullied or are having a bad life or whatever; I wouldn’t expect those would change in the face of dramatically extended lifespans. We’re talking about choosing when to end extremely long lives – a situation with no current analog. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/69 "2014-01-04T04:46:17Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If you are spending your 90s drooling and in a fog, life has gone on too long. Hey, speak for yourself. Most of the people I know who spent the 90s drooling and in a fog still have plenty of life left in them. ---
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/70 "2014-01-04T05:08:59Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I just think there may be problems in a world where the only way out is suicide. There are already examples of murder-suicides (Columbine shootings) but I can’t really prove they’d be more widespread. This might possibly be a somewhat valid point, but there are too many variables. If we were ‘almost immortal’ from the start, society would likely have evolved in a manner that is conducive to being that way. Meaning: I’m sure people would have come up with creative ways to nullify the whole boredom suicide problem. On the other hand, if we were to all of a sudden become immortal today, then yeah there might be problems until we got used to it. I really feel like there is zero correlation between the Columbine shooting and potential murder-suicides in a different world. Like others have basically said, this would be an unprecedented issue. There is absolutely no way we could know how it might turn out. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/71 "2014-01-04T05:25:04Z")
I guess the main issue I’ve been mentioning is that a lifespan of decades is merciful when extreme cruelty exists. It could cause people to suffer for millions of years (e.g. imprisoned political opponents to a dictatorship)… On the other hand is suffering for decades that much subjectively different than suffering for millions of years? I suspect it is because with a normal lifespan they could somewhat meaningful count down the days/years that their pain will end. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/72 "2014-01-04T05:39:22Z")
BTW if this was in the future and people were uploaded into a computer, suffering could be deliberately extended even more… people’s “clockspeeds” could be increased and people could be made to never get used to pain. The computers could be hidden so that they virtually never get rescued. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/73 "2014-01-04T05:52:30Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The thing about an indefinite lifespan is that our brains wouldn’t be able to remember it. At some point you’d have to forget as much as you remember. So you might live forever but you’d be like Peter Pan, constantly forgetting your past. > > And as you age and change and shed your past over the centuries at what point are you still you? And if you can’t change or grow or learn then what’s the point of doing the same things over and over? Living long enough would reveal that you were _never_ you, it is a kind of illusion. So don’t worry about it. Life’s too short for most people to notice this however. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/74 "2014-01-04T20:47:46Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > Then what? Would you kill yourself? I guess - if it ever actually came to that, and I couldn’t simply reinvent myself or happily repeat something I had already done and enjoyed - which I think I could (one of the things people sometimes omit to consider when they say immortality would get boring is the possibility of things that people might want to do more than once, or might want to repeat an unlimited number of times). IMO, ending your own life voluntarily when you’ve had completely sufficient is a far lesser evil than having your life end against your will, before you feel you’re done. ---
**Author:** ![citizenzen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@citizenzen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/citizenzen)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/75 "2014-01-04T23:15:50Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I think life is a good length. I think we often teach the exact opposite of what we should teach. Life isn’t short. For most of us life lasts a [relatively] long time. And the mistakes that one makes in their youth—grasping at opportunities they think they must take [YOLO]—can have repercussions that last the rest of one’s life. Perhaps it’s just a quirk of personal perspective, but life to me feels like it lasts a very long time. At the age of 53, I am grateful that I get to enter my more advanced years whole, in good health, good shape, relatively sane and somewhat intelligent and finically stable. Trading in any of that for brief fling of excitement seems to me to the the height of foolishness. Live for the long run. There is still plenty of opportunity to enjoy oneself. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/76 "2014-01-05T00:34:15Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > OK. So it’s live for “as long as you feel like it.” Yup, is that a problem, philosophically? (The point being that, right now, I ‘feel like’ 100 years might not be enough) > [@](#): > > Indeed. You don’t understand my argument at all. > > For if you did, you’d realize that “20 year old dying of disease” is meaningless in a world where you’d “live as long as you felt like it.” Could say the same thing to a 2075 year old. That hardly makes it clearer. Your argument appears to be that 1000 is not more than 80, as long as 1000 is not enough. In any case, that comment was talking about _this world_. Would you be comfortable telling a dying 20YO “Yeah, well, 80 years wouldn’t be enough for you either” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/77 "2014-01-05T00:54:32Z")
Either that, or I can’t possibly assert that something is ‘too short’ unless I have a very precise notion of how long I would like it to be, which is weird. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/78 "2014-01-05T01:13:15Z")
I usually lament the shortness of my life when I reflect upon history. As when e celebrated the centenary of powered fligh (2003). My regret is like this:’ Man-the first hundred years were amazing-too bad I can’t see the next 100!" I regret that I will not live to see: -manned trips to Mars -a world rail transit system -fusion power All of this stuff will come about…but after I leave this world (unfortunately):mad: ---
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/79 "2014-01-05T04:16:36Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I usually lament the shortness of my life when I reflect upon history. As when e celebrated the centenary of powered fligh (2003). My regret is like this:’ > > Man-the first hundred years were amazing-too bad I can’t see the next 100!" > > I regret that I will not live to see: > > -manned trips to Mars > > -a world rail transit system > > -fusion power > > All of this stuff will come about…but after I leave this world (unfortunately):mad: There’s a manned mission to Mars scheduled for 2024. It’s called the Mars One. [http://www.mars-one.com](http://www.mars-one.com) ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785/80 "2014-01-05T04:41:11Z")
They told you life is long Be thankful when it’s done Don’t ask for more You should be grateful But I tell you life is short Be thankful because before you know It will be over Cause life is sweet And life is also very short Your life is sweet - [Natalie Merchant](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQbt1IDX_j0) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-life-too-short/677785.md?page=5)