Ask HN: Would you want to know when and how you die?

Posted by JohnDSDev 9 hours ago

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If you had a time machine, and the only thing you could use it for was to go see yourself in the future die would you use it or not? Why or why not?

Comments

Comment by chistev 1 hour ago

I don't see how this would work. If I see that I would die at the age of, say, 75, does that mean living recklessly before then means I won't die? That it's my fate to die exactly at 75? That I can stop taking care of myself?

Being aware of that date would change behavior whether you want to or not, and would those actions of mine not have consequences?

Comment by Gooblebrai 55 minutes ago

These are the philosophical takes I love as answers to these hypothetical scenarios

Comment by abhijat 2 hours ago

Absolutely not, it would ruin life as it is. Maybe it would drive some decisions, but probably badly and panic driven.

Comment by rationalist 7 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashforward_(novel)

Comment by kylecazar 9 hours ago

Definitely not. I've learned to live comfortably with the fact that I'll die one day (and really understand/internalize it). Knowing exactly when could potentially disturb the peace that I've found.

Comment by bxk76 7 hours ago

Death is only interesting if confronting it causes prime directive shift: how to survive?(which people recite subconciously on loop) changes to, why to survive?

Comment by tim-tday 9 hours ago

You can use actuarial math and get pretty damned close. Like within five years with 80% confidence. Not as much romance in that as there is in a Time Machine.

Comment by gmreads 2 hours ago

I am very curious how one might do that? What would be the input parameters ? (Zero knowledge about actuarial math)

Comment by KomoD 8 hours ago

No, not really. It sounds stressful.

Comment by soulbadguy 8 hours ago

Is the information actionable ?

Comment by dlcarrier 6 hours ago

Even if you couldn't prevent your death, knowing when it happens makes timing and planning a lot of other things much easier.

Comment by JohnDSDev 8 hours ago

No, in this scenario no matter what the death would happen exactly as you see.

Comment by mikewarot 8 hours ago

I'd be shown myself being murdered by the operator of the time machine, after asking far too many questions about its theory of operation.

Nope

Comment by dlcarrier 6 hours ago

My book club read The Measure, by Nikki Erlick, where one day all adults received a string in a box, with the length of the string perfectly correlating with their total lifespan, and children received them too, as they grew into adults. The box and string were indestructible.

Several members of the book club were going through a memento mori existential crisis, and all I cared about was that no one had done anything interesting with the indestructible materials. Imagine what humanity could accomplish with billions of indestructible boxes and strings.

Comment by JohnDSDev 8 hours ago

Ah, lol. Before you edited it I thought you meant you were going to see yourself commit suicide. (I assumed you were the one operating the time machine)

Comment by moomoo11 4 hours ago

there are infinite possibilities.

might as well see this one play out because it’s unique