this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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I'll start off with one, Being upset about a breakup that happened hundreds of years ago.

Edit 1:

  • Heath death of the universe, Death of the sun, etc, does not count. I feel like focusing on this is an overused point.

Edit 2:

  • Loneliness does not count. I feel like we all know immortality means you'll miss people and lose them.
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Getting trapped under something for a few thousand years.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

People, corporations, and other entities would over time gather more data about you. There's always some kind of information footprint that you leave behind. And you'd stand out from other humans by the way you talk (i.e. using slang from 200 years ago, and speaking about historic stuff with details that the general public is not aware of) and other traits, which makes you traceable.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The rest of humanity will eventually evolve into something you don't recognize and can never be part of.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Neanderthals wanted to live forever and now we have bigfoot.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago

You'd procrastinate things for 100s of years, until at one point you're simply no longer able to do it. Wanted to domesticate a saber-tooth cat some day? Too bad, they're extinct now. Wanted to visit the baths in ancient Rome? Well, it is not the same Rome anymore, and all the baths' floors are cold.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 hours ago

Herpes is forever.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 hours ago

Sooner or later, you will get trapped somewhere forever. Over the course of an infinite lifespan, the odds that a building collapses on you or a tunnel caves in on you basically become 100%. Someday, you will fall into the hole that you will stay in until the sun explodes, and then you will drift in the void until the heat death of the universe.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago

You'll be perpetually behind the times. People tend to get set in their ways even by their 30s. You'll constantly lag behind the trends, language, and tastes of the younger generation...

If you were the first to be immortal, you may not have the best version of immortality and it may render you incompatible with better, future types of immortality. Like magical regeneration that prevents you from getting a personality upload to a cyberbrain that is a million times faster and smarter than the squishy biological brain.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Having potentially thousands of years of embarassing moments of social awkwardness to think about. And, over the aeons, being relieved when the people you know and love die because they won't remember the things you're so ashamed of.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

Nobody:

Your brain: remember that time you said the wrong word in 1374?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Science fiction is going to age poorly. A lot of it is already hilariously dated. Look at most of Star Trek. They're flying at FTL speeds through space with artificial gravity, teleportation, lifelike androids, and replicator technology, but their screens absolutely suck. More and more of those inconsistencies are going to add up over the centuries and make things ridiculous after a while.

The number of new things that people enjoy dwindles with age. Just about everyone agrees that the music that was being made when they were teenagers is the epitome of the art. Are you going to be able to enjoy anything when you're 2563 years old?

The older you get, the faster time apparently moves. Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, on some days, even "The year 2000!!" still feels like it should be the future to me. I can't imagine what even a few centuries would do to this phenomenon, let alone a millennium or megaannum (I had to look that word up.)

On the upside, presuming I'm the only immortal, I'll be the only person currently alive to see if they actually finish that performance of Organ^2^/ASLSP in Halberstadt.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Scifi aging poorly is honestly a plus. I love sci-fi that contains incidental retro-futurism. Super high tech but everyone uses tape cassettes and coin operated everything? Sign me up. High tech but for some reason the style choices are all 20 years old?. Yes please.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I had a really nice washing machine. Then it broke. The manufacturer was dissolved 25 years ago.

I had a really nice cast iron pan. Then it fractured. Modern cast iron pans aren't smooth.

I had a really nice car. Then a part broke. Replacement parts haven't been available for 50 years.

I had a really nice flip phone. It was made by Nokia so it still works. People think it's weird that I use a flip phone.

I had a really nice peace and quiet. Then someone invented ambulances. Now I cower in the corner of my bedroom hiding from manmade horrors beyond my comprehension.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

People are commenting 'fates worse than death' and 'being made into a labrat by the 1%', but really, if you have infinite time to just do stuff and you can't be killed -- And you don't somehow squirrel your way into a position of power then what are you even doing with your time and immortality, oomfie?

The loneliness part is also questionable. I know OP said it's overly done, but I also think it's just wrong. If you're an adult you've had people in your life die before. It sucks. You miss them. But then you move on. And you meet other people. You'll still go ":(" when you think about the person and such... But life goes on.

And that's just life. It doesn't get any worse if you extend it longer -- If anything it gets better. You might have lost your beloved today, but you have another dozen lifetimes to heal your wounds and meet someone else and fall in love again and (...)

So here's some lower-stakes, frustrating inconveniences of being immortal:

  • Your favourite fashion? It's not just out of fashion. It's so out of fashion it is now considered 'historical costuming'. You can no longer find any articles like it at all. Because the only people even trying to recreate the techniques are costuming nerds and theater people who always exaggerate stuff
  • You got a song stuck in your head. It is either from before recording was invented, or any recordings of it that existed are too old to be reliably listenable. You have a song stuck in your head.
  • You used to really enjoy a job you did. That entire career path is now obsolete. As per the first paragraph of my post, if you're immortal you have probably snuck your way into the upper echelons of society at some point during your infinite time... But like. You're bored. You loved being a Court Jester, now there are no Court Jesters.
  • Actually tedium just in general. Sooner or later you'll run out of new things to try, because you'll have done everything that even remotely caught your eye already. So what the fuck will you do with your time? You'll eventually just get depressed and not do anything.
[–] [email protected] 14 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Losing all of the skills you gain. No matter how good you get at something, after a few centuries you'll have lost your edge. You can also only practice so many things concurrently without giving something up. At some point, years down the line, you might try to ride a bike again and completely fail to do it, or try to sing and fail to hit all the notes that came easily before, or do gymnastics but the muscles you need are underused. It doesn't matter that you spent years mastering every skill, your abilities will degrade over time. You'll never really be able to feel sure about your own abilities except for whatever you've done most recently.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 13 hours ago

Having to listen to that Queen song, forever.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Forgetfulness. Think how forgetful people get after having lived a normal lifespan, now go for a few thousand+ years and you’ve probably forgotten whole centuries of your life. This is actually the premise of a solo journaling game Thousand Year Old Vampire, you have to cross out and forget memories as you progress through the game, just forgetting whole parts of your life.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

There's a Doctor Who episode with that idea in it too, the Doctor saves a girl in Viking times but brings her back forever, and when he meets her in mediaeval times she has a whole library of books that are just her memories that she's written down over the years.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Cross the wrong people and you end up not dead, but irrecoverable. Cement shoes, buried alive kind of stuff. Cross a different set of wrong people and you become a labrat. To avoid either scenario, you'll be in a constant state of "undocumented" or false-documented which will keep you in a pretty consistent state of poverty.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

There's a book I heard about where the main character is immortal. Nevertheless at one point he pisses off some mafia dudes, and they nail him inside a barrel full of urine and throw him in the sea.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago

Just a random thought, but it would take a lot of work (or institutional access to some portable toilets) to be able to her enough piss to fill an entire barrel

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago

If it's just you being immortal, loss of all family, and friends, and loss of new friends, rinse repeat forever. Eventualdieyoull watch society collapse and regrow (possibly), and the planet will die. Immortality is forever after all. Then you're left alone on a deserted dead planet. Electronics you have will eventually break and fade away to time. The sun will grow and die off, and it'll burn because you're immortal but still stuck on a planet that'll get enveloped, eventually. Living forever would be terrible unless it was forever until you died of something physical, just not age and illness.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

All the people trying to dissect you for science.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Cancer. So much goddamn cancer. It doesn't matter what kind of immortality you have, you WILL get cancer. Repeatedly. Over and over. Forever.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

That really depends on the type of immortality you get. Brain upload to a cyborg body doesn't get cancer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

Immortality means you could, just keep ripping it out 🀣

[–] [email protected] 9 points 17 hours ago

Wage slaving never stops

[–] [email protected] 8 points 17 hours ago

The disappointment of experience winning lifetime supply of something but that would eventually turn into a lie

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Btw if you were actually immortal, after a while you would just go into shock and enter a vegetative state from all the psychological stress.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 15 hours ago

How can you be sure?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago

And after a while you’d come out of that state

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

As OP mentioned, a lot of replies focus on loss, that friends will inevitably die and objects will break........ we already face that reality with regular life! That's hardly a downside of immortality itself.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

All the comments assume everybody else isn't also immortal. I forget the title and author but there's an old sci fi story (or novel?) about a future where everybody lives for centuries, and they've found that the brain only retains a certain amount of experience. They have long careers, get tired of doing whatever, re-educate and do something else, or even have multiple families they eventually forget about. A couple of the characters are surprised to find out they used to be married like a century earlier. To me that seems vaguely like reincarnation, and I kind of don't hate the idea. I really don't see any downside to that scenario, or even just going on forever.

People are focused on having regrets and negatives that last forever. But buck up li'l camper, you can learn to move on from stuff. And I say this as a dad whose daughter had cancer at age 10 (she survived). It was hell and I wouldn't want to live through that whole period again, but I don't consider it a reason not to want to live forever. The trick is to learn how to cope with these things and not let them outweigh the good experiences you have.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

That could be it - many elements are familiar, although the title isn't at all, but I have read a lot of Fredrik Pohl. The plot synopsis also doesn't mention the characters finding out they had been married before. Maybe that's a small detail that just stands out more in my mind.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

A scifi short story I read was set in a somewhat idyllic future.

Robots did everything. Everyone was given housing, food etc. Health was covered and people lived virtually forever. Nobody worked, and you could travel and do anything you wanted.

The most prized thing, that everyone was desperate for, was having an original thought.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago

Reminds me another story about an idyllic world where almost nobody worked and everything was provided. At one point a crew showed up to repair a house, and everybody gathered around to watch, marveling at their work clothes and tools. One guy yearned to use tools so he started making little craft items at home, and trading them to people for worthless little tiddly wink tokens they used for friendly bets on sports. Then his neighbors started doing the same thing and they got a little economy going, using the tokens as currency, until the government got wind of it and squashed the whole thing because commerce was illegal.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Family meals that take 3 restaurants No retirement

[–] [email protected] 4 points 18 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I think they're saying this:

Family meals would comprise of three restaurants worth of people since they're all immortal

Separately, you can never retire since you will never hit retirement age

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

If you're immortal, you get to see your family expand to the points that organizing a single family meal requires 3 restaurants to house everyone.

Since you (presumably, otherwise it's a shitty immortality) don't get old, you don't get to retire

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Retirement is a function of money/wealth, not age.

If you're immortal, you'd (not you specifically, just whoever in general) have to be a complete tool to go through hundreds/thousands of years without generating at least enough wealth to retire at some point.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

If we're talking magical immortality, as in you can't die, at all. Then the fact that however much enjoyment and experiences you get while the universe still exist, it will be followed by an infinite stretch of nothing after the heat death of the universe.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (3 children)

At some point, our sun will go supernova and you will end up drifting through space.
And all your life before that point will be less than a blink of an eye compared to the time that follows:
Trillions and trillions of years until the heat death of the universe.
And even that time will be less than the blink of an eye compared to the eternity afterwards, when you drift through a black void without any stars.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

Doesn't this also take into account the universe never does a snap back into itself?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

But can I take my Steam Deck with me?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

If you have epilepsy or Parkinson's or MS, you're just going to likely get worse forever.

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