Jelly Beans show you how much you waste your time!

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by Lee Enfield, Aug 29, 2013.

  1. Lee Enfield

    Lee Enfield Lieutenant Red Shirt

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  2. Metryq

    Metryq Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    There is a somewhat more distressing (to me) example of human life span in Carl Sagan's COSMOS television series. He is standing in the New York public library next to a bookcase his own height. He then explains that if he read one book a week and lived an average lifetime, he could read from where he was standing -- and paced a few bookcases down -- "to about here."

    That is probably my fate -- I will die with a book in my hands (and a cat sleeping on my lap).
     
  3. Gov Kodos

    Gov Kodos Admiral Admiral

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    Gov Kodos on Mohammed's Radio, WZVN Boston
    We all die and if there is any worth to at all we might be a footnote in someone's history who themselves will eventually be lost in time.
     
  4. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    From the moment you're born, you're already dying. If you are "lucky," it will be very slow, and as pain free as possible. Most of us are not, and will not be "lucky."
     
  5. ALF

    ALF Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The video was really interesting; this thread is depressing. Lighten up, guys.
     
  6. Pondwater

    Pondwater Vice Admiral Admiral

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    That was neat. Although, some of those activities can be done simultaneously.
     
  7. tomalak301

    tomalak301 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    That's really disturbing, even though it's true. They say live life to the fullest and to make every day a good day, yet every day you're one step closer to death. However, in terms of your lucky comment, I think some of it can be "skill". It's how you treat yourself, are you active, what you eat, etc. you take good care of yourself and you can be one of the "Lucky" ones, as you put it.
     
  8. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It's more luck than skill. You can be quite skilled, and still be saddled with an endless stream of emotional, and physical, health problems. You could be born into a family where you are trapped by circumstances that are beyond your control. A situation where the decisions you make can end or significantly degrade the quality and quantity of someone else's life, and no matter what choice you make, you still lose in the end.

    There is no pleasant, or optimistic, quote to keep it away; sometimes you are born in shit, and that is where you'll die, having seen the land, and people, and life of your dreams all above you, and never achieving it. Right there in front of you, in your field of vision, and always just outside your reach. Then you die and it doesn't matter as your dreams die with you, and the people who observe it all from the outside no longer have to care, because you're gone now, and they have their own lives to live before they, too, succumb.
     
  9. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

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    That and the deal with Hypatia really bummed me out. That I could not physically read every book...
     
  10. Miss Chicken

    Miss Chicken Little three legged cat with attitude Admiral

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    Whenever I get distressed by how few years I have left (I am now 55 years old) I only have to think about my school friend, Susan, who died when she was 11 years old. Already I have lived 5 times as long as she did, do why should I complain when I have been so much more fortunate than she?
     
  11. Edit_XYZ

    Edit_XYZ Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    All the human beings that ever existed comprise only a very small fraction of the possible templates for human beings.
    Indeed, the very fact we exist at all means we have beaten the odds. And not only exist, but exist as conscious beings, aware of our existence and of the universe.

    The best way to capitalise on this is to work towards a happy life; what this means, many philosophers already explained - Bertrand Russell comes to mind.

    Life expectancy increased gradually for ~200 years.
    Who knows, perhaps we'll be among the first to enjoy a life expectancy lengthened by a few decades thanks to medicine - the chances of this happening may not be of the ~'it's practically certain' type, but they're not trivial, either.