Pretend the Devil exists. He appears to you and gives you a choice: live another 100 years perfectly healthy but miserable the entire time, or die in 10 years but every moment of that time will be both the greatest moment of your life up until that point and greater than the moment that preceded it. Which do you choose?
Note: the Devil is not interested in your soul. There are no afterlife implications whatsoever. If you refuse to choose he will choose for you.
Depends on the nature of the misery. Am I miserable because I’ve destroyed my family’s financial future/killed a loved one/something equally horrific? And what does “greatest moment of my life” mean, in concrete terms? Is it some sort of delusional self-satisfaction, or is it measurable (financial gain, contribution to human knowledge, etc.)?
I’ll take the 10. Mainly because it would mean I wouldn’t have to spend another moment of my life at this job.
I have already lived nearly 50 mostly miserable years. I want out now!
It would vary individually. Whatever would make your life miserable or sublime.
What the hell? People are actually picking the 100 years of misery option?
ding
I can see a valid argument for that option; namely, that my premature death might very well make a number of other people miserable, and thus picking the 100-years option reduces the total amount of misery in the world. I don’t have any kids and I sometimes suspect I’m deeply selfish at heart, so I went for 10 years, but I can certainly see why someone would go for the other choice.
Also, it would be kind of cool to see what the world is like in 2111. Even if I wouldn’t enjoy it.
Yeah, life is a lot of trouble and work. Sure there are bright spots, but I’d get off the bus any day.
The reason I might choose the 100 years is I’d want to stay as long as possible to see new technological advances and space travel and a cloned dinosaur.
100 miserable years, even if I’m miserable I can accomplish a whole lot of things unless by miserable you mean I become a serial killer and get arrested and sentenced to life in prison or something.
Interesting timing.
A friend’s sister died on Tuesday. A couple of months ago, her doctor basically said “You’re going to die soon. Eat, drink and be merry.”
I think that’s a much better outlook than “If you go on a diet now and cut out all food that has flavor, you might live another month longer.”
with the 100 miserable years, that might be enough time to trick the Devil and get more happy years out of the deal.
Also the cloned dinosaur thing.
Better burn out than fade away.
Life’s barely worth it as it is.
10 years for me here. But always, in my humble opinion, to be happy than miserable.
Short and happy.
I’ve never understood that bromide that life in itself is a gift and thus should be treasured no matter what. Gifts can be pleasant, wonderful things, but not always. When you get that toy telescope you always wanted as a kid, and the thing shows itself to be a cheap, worthless piece of crap, why should you treasure it? Just because someone gave it to you? Did you ask them for a piece of crap? Or did you just say it would be nice to have a functional telescope?
If you can still have fun with that broken telescope, then you are the ideal human being…one we should all emulate. But if that broken telescope just continues to become more and more craptastic no matter what you do, then you are not a fool for wanting to throw it away. And also resenting the giver for giving you such a raw deal.
I don’t think life is something one should live just for the sake of it. Hope of joy must be possible for it to be worthwhile. If the Devil says that he’s gonna make your life as miserable as possible and that the trade-off is that you’ll just get to put more notches on the wall, then I say no. That’s putting the quality of your life in someone else’s hands…an individual who by definition is supernaturally evil. You’d be a slave to the worse slavemaster ever. Why the hell would anyone go for that?
Put me down for 10 happy years, thanks.
My gran lived to be 104, had 13 kids, no running water, and no electric till the 60’s, her husband was a subsistence farmer. If she lived that long, with all those hardships it really makes me wonder how long I might live. I live in ease compared to that.
In fact, one of my greatest fears is that I’ll live to be over 100 yrs. Watch everyone I love die, watch the ever changing world around me get further and further from my understanding. And how the hell am I supposed to prepare for a retirement that could end up lasting over 35yrs? Even if I’d started saving for it at 20, I’d never have enough, assuming things don’t suddenly arc towards dropping prices instead of rising prices, for everything.
But my biggest fear is that I will live to a time when they can expand life expectancy further still.
:::Shiver::: No thank you, give me 10 good years instead.
You know, ten years is a plenty long time.
We’ve been promised flying cars since at least 1905. I’m tired of betting on the future.