A Wild Lurker Appears! Hyoi's Random Banter #232

[Peelee]

Hopefully.

Speaking as someone who has outlived their parents and also has a child, I can absolutely attest to the truth of this. Some things are horrible. Some things are beyond horrible.

Also, on an entirely unrelated note that has no bearing on a parent outliving a child whatsoever, all y'all should totally watch Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father! Ideally without googling anything about it because it made national news at the time and events that happen will very likely be revealed very quickly.

[Rater202]

Sandman is the rare kind of story where Death is presented very positively but at the same time the immortal characters very like living forever.

I don't understand why that's not more common.

Death is natural... But so is not wanting to die.

Wanting to be young and healthy forever so you can enjoy living forever isn't wrong and, honestly, 90 of the downsides of immortality are things that would happen or could happen to you eventually.

Your odds of getting buried alive in a freak spelunking accident are directly proportionate to how often you go spelunking. You living forever doesn't guarantee it the way some people think it does, but it does mean that you'll survive if it does happen. Either you'll be rescued when the people start digging out the survivors and/or bodies or you'll eventually be able to wiggle enough to get your limb free and dig yourself out.

And outliving your loved ones? Parents, grandparents, great grandparents, pets, friends? I've lived through it all. It never stops hurting but, eventually, the pain dulls enough that you can deal.

I don't understand why someone would ever want to die, not if things like old age, sickness, and horribly painful quality of life-destroying injuries are taken off the table and I'm not sure how someone who has the potential to live forever deciding "nah, I'm done" is any different from suicide, but...

[Bartmanhomer]

If I was a D&D/Pathfinder character, I will be a Wizard to put Bestow Curse on evil characters.

[factotum]

This was more what I meant by Heat Death being a problem. Sure, you're eternal, but you're in a universe where the least black hope has died and all that remains are spheres of iron (assuming the proton is eternal).

AFAIK, scientists believe protons aren't eternal, but they have a half-life so long that we haven't actually ever seen one decay--it's at least 10^34 years, and with the universe being a mere 1.4 x 10^10 years old at this point, there won't be many that have decayed in the entire universe. If this is correct, the eventual heat death of the universe won't have any solid matter in it at all.

[Peelee]

AFAIK, scientists believe protons aren't eternal, but they have a half-life so long that we haven't actually ever seen one decay--it's at least 10^34 years, and with the universe being a mere 1.4 x 10^10 years old at this point

When the difference is 10²⁴ years, that 1.4x might as well be a rounding error.

[Cazero]

When the difference is 10²⁴ years, that 1.4x might as well be a rounding error.

You mean 10³⁴ years. The 10¹⁰ is also a rounding error.

[Anonymouswizard]

Isn't this kind of thing how you get become all those annoying extradimensional entities that keep going around consuming realities?

Sounds better than anybody else being it.

AFAIK, scientists believe protons aren't eternal, but they have a half-life so long that we haven't actually ever seen one decay--it's at least 10^34 years, and with the universe being a mere 1.4 x 10^10 years old at this point, there won't be many that have decayed in the entire universe. If this is correct, the eventual heat death of the universe won't have any solid matter in it at all.

Eh, I was just stating the assumption I was using, mainly to avoid 'what is the proton decaying into'. But yeah, going with the assumption they do decay our immortal is trapped in a matterless universe where their own body has likely decayed into something else.

[Rater202]

Eh, I was just stating the assumption I was using, mainly to avoid 'what is the proton decaying into'. But yeah, going with the assumption they do decay our immortal is trapped in a matterless universe where their own body has likely decayed into something else.

If their body is able to decay into something else, they probably aren't immortal and thus won't live that long.

True Immortality is "you stay young and healthy forever and cannot be harmed in any way." Your body decaying is harm.

[Anonymouswizard]

If their body is able to decay into something else, they probably aren't immortal and thus won't live that long.

True Immortality is "you stay young and healthy forever and cannot be harmed in any way." Your body decaying is harm.

Stop bringing your magic into this discussion of being ageless during heat death!

Also, while that might be the strict definition of immortalit it's not the common one, which is 'doesn't die' rather than 'can't die'. Because English is weird, we roleplayers forget that most people use bard to mean 'poet' and not 'mobile music and miniature human creator' (that's generally the definition applied to 'Rick star").

[Rater202]

Stop bringing your magic into this discussion of being ageless during heat death!

Also, while that might be the strict definition of immortalit it's not the common one, which is 'doesn't die' rather than 'can't die'. Because English is weird, we roleplayers forget that most people use bard to mean 'poet' and not 'mobile music and miniature human creator' (that's generally the definition applied to 'Rick star").

I mean, genuine immortality(as opposed to "biological" or "clinical" immortality) is impossible by our current understanding of science.

You'd need to overturn entropy before genuine immortality was a scientific possibility, at which point the HEat Death ceases to be an issue.

So if Immortality is on the table, w need magic.

Or at least comic book science.

So if we want to drop "Magic" from the equation then my preferred form of immortality, the comic book science one, involves me being hopped up on at least 9 kinds of super power granting drugs and permanently bonded symbiotically to a horrible eldritch monstrosity made from the shadow of a Primordial Elder God who predates the Big Bang, who that is capable of surviving indefinitely in vacuum. I think I'm good on the "heat death" front.

Just spend eternity lucid dreaming while I sleep in the extra-dimensional chest cavity of an God-Murdering Eldritch Space Dragon.

[Peelee]

Rewatching Law & Order: UK now that I can easily stream it. Forgot that the first season had recycled episodes from the American one where the legalese overlapped well enough. Anyway, the subtitles greatly amused me; apparently French is relegated to merely "foreign language".

[Fyraltari]

Rewatching Law & Order: UK now that I can easily stream it. Forgot that the first season had recycled episodes from the American one where the legalese overlapped well enough. Anyway, the subtitles greatly amused me; apparently French is relegated to merely "foreign language".

Typical, really.

[Peelee]

Typical, really.

Indeed. Futurama handled French much better.

[Tvtyrant]

Indeed. Futurama handled French much better.

Although honestly this is the most realistic experience for dealing with French :P

[factotum]

When the difference is 10²⁴ years, that 1.4x might as well be a rounding error.

You just know that if I'd said the universe was 10^10 years old, somebody would have come along and corrected me, so seems I can't win either way!

[Anonymouswizard]

Rewatching Law & Order: UK now that I can easily stream it. Forgot that the first season had recycled episodes from the American one where the legalese overlapped well enough. Anyway, the subtitles greatly amused me; apparently French is relegated to merely "foreign language".

As it should be

I've heard two things about that series. The first is that it has problematically long series. The second is that the American portion of the creators originally assumed that they could recycle more directly, only to find significant differences between the legal systems that required rewriting to accommodate.

[Peelee]

As it should be

I love the dichotomy between the British and French reactions to how the subtitle for French in a British show as handled.

I've heard two things about that series. The first is that it has problematically long series.

"Deirdre And Margaret ran for 16 years on the BBC, they showed almost 30 episodes!"

Yes, I can understand how the British would be in for a bit of culture shock with L&O.

The second is that the American portion of the creators originally assumed that they could recycle more directly, only to find significant differences between the legal systems that required rewriting to accommodate.

That would actually surprise me quite a bit. They couldn't even recycle a good number of episodes in different states, I can't imagine they expected seamless integration into a different country. But I am not familiar with that and could easily be wrong.

[Fyraltari]

Although honestly this is the most realistic experience for dealing with French :P

Hold the **** up? Is that Old French? Did the people behind this show really just up and went to get some goddamm Old French for it? What the hell, I'm actually impressed.

Also are the characters normally speaking Norse, or what?

As it should be

Like I said,

Typical, really.

[Cazero]

Hold the **** up? Is that Old French? Did the people behind this show really just up and went to get some goddamm Old French for it? What the hell, I'm actually impressed.

I got a Bourgeois Gentilhomme feel from it, where the characters pronounce every silent letter to show they know how to write and thus are "high society". It's funny but gets tiring very fast.
(Fortunately the play has other funny things in it.)

[Fyraltari]

I got a Bourgeois Gentilhomme feel from it, where the characters pronounce every silent letter to show they know how to write and thus are "high society". It's funny but gets tiring very fast.
(Fortunately the play has other funny things in it.)

"... vos connostre" certainly isn't Modern French and we have way more silent letters than we used to.

[asda fasda]

As far as imortality goes Heighlander was presenting this great, living through the eons alweys finding new freinds and giving farewels to old ones, traveling to places that you can mąkę a diference

[Anonymouswizard]

I love the dichotomy between the British and French reactions to how the subtitle for French in a British show as handled.

To be fair, they give as good as they get.

The difference in our relationships with the IS and France is the use of belts.

"Deirdre And Margaret ran for 16 years on the BBC, they showed almost 30 episodes!"

Yes, I can understand how the British would be in for a bit of culture shock with L&O.

To be fair, despite having never seen it I still get shocked at the fact that the US Life on Mars had as many episodes in one series as the good version has in two (plus an extra episode). Like, it's not uncommon for a drama here to go for six or twelve episodes and stop, Ultraviolet only has six episodes because the writer thought that was how many intelligent plots he could get out of vampires.

Actually, as much as people joke about it, short series have two major advantages. Those being consistent quality and the ability for one person to write the entire thing.

That would actually surprise me quite a bit. They couldn't even recycle a good number of episodes in different states, I can't imagine they expected seamless integration into a different country. But I am not familiar with that and could easily be wrong.

It's apparently a specific element that's missing that I don't understand in the slightest, not being particularly well versed in the law of either country.

[Rater202]

Mom turned 50 today.

Grandma gave my mom a huge box full of assorted candies(sweets, not chocolates)

...My mother is diabetic.

Mom and I both joked that Grandma is trying to kill her.

[Bartmanhomer]

I summon an eldarin and a azata today. We have a wonderful chat about Arborea.

[Rater202]

If a Random Omnipotent Being guaranteed that you could spend all of eternity doing whatever you want, for both leisure and productive work, with whoever you want, while remaining young and healthy the entire time—no heatdeath, no sun exploding, no outliving whatever friends and family you've brought with you—but you have to leave Earth forever(you can still make contact iver the internet but cannot physically go there) would you take that deal?

[Rawhide]

If a Random Omnipotent Being guaranteed that you could spend all of eternity doing whatever you want, for both leisure and productive work, with whoever you want, while remaining young and healthy the entire time—no heatdeath, no sun exploding, no outliving whatever friends and family you've brought with you—but you have to leave Earth forever(you can still make contact iver the internet but cannot physically go there) would you take that deal?

Where's the downside?

[Rater202]

Where's the downside?

You'll outlive anyone you didn't bring with you.

[Rawhide]

You'll outlive anyone you didn't bring with you.

I mean, that's a given in any immortality scenario. It's actually a positive that you can bring people with you (they have the option to decline, I hope).

[enderlord99]

If a Random Omnipotent Being guaranteed that you could spend all of eternity doing whatever you want, for both leisure and productive work, with whoever you want, while remaining young and healthy the entire time—no heatdeath, no sun exploding, no outliving whatever friends and family you've brought with you—but you have to leave Earth forever(you can still make contact iver the internet but cannot physically go there) would you take that deal?

Of course.

[Anonymouswizard]

'If I could live with people I like forever, have regular internet contact with Earth, and basically have no wants, why wouldn't I...

Have on, it's this Arcadia? Why didn't I notice that the random omnipotent being had a beard of roses? And why am I now the video doorbell?