Suppose someone offered you the option to remain in good health for the rest of your life, never age past the appearance of a healthy 50 year old, with the only drawback being you will have to die on your 80th birthday. Would you take it?
Sounds nice to me, but knowing myself it’s probably not a good idea for me to know the exact day I will die, and with advances in modern technology I might get a lot more years than that, and I may have unfinished business at 80.
You bet! Thats too good of a deal to pass up. Knowing when you croak is an extremly valuable piece of info, and the good health thing is a bonus!
No brainer.
How is Rap like Porn? Both are better with the sound turned off.
So magic fairy comes down and says - take your chances like everyone else, or take my magical deal until you are 80?
I’d take my chances with everyone else. Several people have lived past 100 on both sides of my family, though, which affects my decision.
I think I’d agree to the 80. Think of all the risky situations you’d have no fear to put yourself into.
Plus, the key here for me is a healty 80. A lot of people in my family have made it into their eighties and nineties, but there quality of life sucked. I don’t want to sit in bed and watch Oprah in a state of perpetual daze for the sake of tacking on an an extra fifteen years. So yeah, I’d take the garunteed good health with death at 80 almost for sure.
I agree with Orange Skinner about quality of life. I’d take the deal. I’d even take the deal all the way down to age 60. Retirement planning would be a breeze.
Knowing when the end is coming takes part of the thrill of living away. I would probably take a lot of things for granted that I normally don’t now.
I’d probably go with the 80 healthy years-deal. Sure, knowing when I’m going to die would be a lot less thrilling, but I just couldn’t pass up all those guaranteed healthy years. I’m genetically prone to diabetes, high cholesterol and various heart conditions through one side of my family so it’s probable that when I get older I may have to be somewhat careful with my diet etc; so I’d take it, and comfortably live the rest of my life with that knowledge.
It depends on how old you are when you make the deal. For an extreme example, someone that is 77 years old would be a fool to take the deal, since their life expectancy is to live to be over 90. My dad is going to be 90 next month and I found a site that tells you what your life expectancy is, after you answer a few questions. His life expectancy is over 100. Mine is 89, so I’m not interested either.
Screw you all, I’ll die now!! That way I win. Cause, ya see… um.
Yeah.
I’d probably go for the deal. The perfect health is what closes the deal for me, since the quality of life tends to get lower as you age and your health deteriorates.
The deal, without a doubt. A healthy life, even upto 65 is more than I can hope for, seeing the medical history in my family, and the way I live my life…
Besides, why would I wanna live beyond 80 anyway? Up to a healthy 80 years, I would have seen and done everything I could possibly want… I’d die happily at 80 after that!
Soooo, ummmm… where may I find this fairy, exactly?!
I’d go for it. Hell, I don’t have PERFECT health now, and I’m only 40. But I’d need for my wife to take the deal, too. That way, we’d be boinking all the way to the end!
I’d take the deal. Looking at an 87-year old family friend suffering in the middle to end stages of Alzheimers, I’d be willing to avoid that. Besides, with my family history of cardiovascular disease on both sides, reaching 75 is not a done deal (although my paternal grandfather outlived 2 wives and survived to 87, while my mom’s grandmother is 90). Now 50 I might have a problem with.
I probably wouldn’t, partly because all four of my grandparents were reasonably healthy well past eighty so I figure my odds are good, and partly because it would be too weird knowing exactly when you were going to die. It does sound tempting, though.
When my mother died it damn near killed my father as well. But he gradually recovered from the shock, lived 10 more healthy years and died quickly and peacefully, just a few weeks shy of his 80th birthday.
If, when my mother died, anyone had offered my father 10 more healthy years and a quick, peaceful death (even though he would narrowly miss his 80th birthday), he and everyone else in the family would have taken the deal in a heartbeat.