If you could push a button and simply cease to exist, would you press it?

Nietzsche (this is an all time favorite): "According to the old story, King Midas had long hunted wise Silenus, Dionysus' companion, without catching him. When Silenus had finally fallen into his clutches, the king asked him what was the best and most desirable thing of all for mankind. The daemon stood still, stiff and motionless, until at last, forced by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and spoke these words: 'Miserable, ephemeral race, children of hazard and hardship, why do you force me to say what it would be much more fruitful for you not to hear? The best of all things is something entirely outside your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second-best thing for you — is to die soon."

wake up. get out of bed. go to trunk on the floor in the very back of the closet. lift lid of trunk and remove a small, featureless flat black cube. although not obviously visible, the cube's lid lifts up - revealing an interior as featureless as the outside, except for a button in the center of the cube's interior. regard the cube and the button with vague dissatisfaction for a couple of minutes before hissing out "not today!" and then closing the lid on the cube, putting the cube back in the trunk, turning out all the lights and head out to the kitchen to make coffee.

xpost Thomas Ligotti to thread

I know the OG specifically states that there are no repercussions, but if you dig into the alchemical texts and old mysticism there's a distinct psychic/cosmic cost to unmaking something that's far riskier and dangerous than just killing it. It's sorta like the difference between snipping off the frayed end of a thread and removing the thread from the carpet of space-time as if it was never there.

First Law of Thermodynamics vs. Yog-Sothoth FITE!

Aside, the "do over" questions upthread reminded me of this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_(novel)

(worth reading BTW)

We had a thread about mental imps!
Quieting the Imps in Your Brainz

On the obsessive thinking tip, there was an article a while ago by someone dealing w obsessive suicidal/self-harming impulses? And I think his therapist's line on that was, "Your fear of doing those things that yr brain suggests is based precisely in how HORRIFYING you find them--if the ideas weren't so repugnant to you, they wouldn't have any power." So basically whatever you fear doing, the fear is only possible b/c it's something you would never do. This is sometimes comforting.

i'm sure there's a manics song that covers this

This poll has a huge fuckin' run-time!

i felt like i was pushing said button while voting

the poll abbott made that ends in 9999 scared me and made me think of some of the same things this question makes me think of

mango drive starts playing on the shuffle: laughs at silly button

<3 mango drive - bmmm bmmm bmmm bmm... wap wap... ba-bmm bmmm bmmm bmmm

I've sometimes thought about an erasing doorway...you walk through and *poof* you're gone.

It would have to be a doorway, no button...into the portal.

If anyone's gotten around to inventing that button I would press the living fuck out of it today.

NO PHIL DON'T DO IT

The secret of the button is it causes everything to cease to exist in this universe, so there really is no effect on your friends and relatives.

I'm fine with either way.

This whole approach seems like a horrible misuse of the power of magical thinking and of making wishes. If you can wish for a magical self-destruct button, you could just as easily wish for a herd of friendly unicorns and brilliant rainbows shining out of your bum. Then you could charge people to pet the unicorns and give amazing light shows for your buddies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRgwr_4l6BE

Doesn't really matter who I could charge and how much I could get if money is not the source of problems.

Then wish for whatever fixes what's wrong.

if you watch some kind of monster, it's funny to see Lars with his millions of dollars and super-prominent band -- that all means nothing to him when his gandalfian dad tells him his music sucks.

but ultimately they did solve their problem with money! by paying a crazy amount to a therapist so they could build solidarity by firing him.

i used to love existenz

i think i mostly just loved jude law's face

that movie is good, don't doubt

that movie is k-classic

rules

existenz is ok but if you have a desire to press the button, i really suggest watching some kind of monster to put things in perspective.

lol

I am pretty much the female Falstaff, so hell no; as long as there is good food, the wine's a-flowin', and I have dudes to make eyes at I am stickin' around.

How is this question not about suicide?

oh, jump in pies

I guess I'm pretty late to this discussion.

oh man

I feel like we got a lot done here.

I think the two quotes I posted above make an interesting distinction between what this question is getting at and suicide.

Perhaps the ex post facto nature of the original question makes it inevitably about suicide but the more interesting way to phrase it is "would you rather have never been born?" (Still kinda ex post facto tho--maybe speaking of non-existence from the point of view of existence is bound to always be a bit paradoxical.)

"it would involve no physical pain to yourself, and no emotional or financial or other repercussions to the people around you"

ie. NOT suicide

In the midst of a severe depressive state, I started writing a sketch parodying It's A Wonderful Life, wherein Clarence showed George what life would've been like if he'd never been born and it was pretty much way more awesome across the board. I think that's basically the scenario the thread question is posing.

So its about whether you would grant people close to you the privilege of you having never existed or not?

OK, been putting this off for a week but hey..

It could be about how people get born with an expectation that the world is there to make an impression on, whether it's by writing a fantastic work, making kids, touring the world, earning millions or any other ambition(s)..

At some point, there is that realisation that not only has it not happened, it was an imossible task.

Or, even, that the mountains have been scaled, and all the jobs are done.

So, what to look forward to? Less health? Losing yr god looks and/or hair? All the good telly inthe past?

Stop the world I want to get off?

I don;t think i actually voted yet.

I still vote no..

This dilemma reminds me of that idea attributed to Freud that suicide is murder in 180 degrees.

There's no way to really "opt out" - you can just "opt in" in different ways.

All worldly success is temporal (just as all pain is temporal) so maybe you wouldn't even need to feel like all the mountains are scaled. There are infinite mountains. Even the Great Pyramids will eventually erode back into the Sarah.

In the midst of a severe depressive state, I started writing a sketch parodying It's A Wonderful Life, wherein Clarence showed George what life would've been like if he'd never been born and it was pretty much way more awesome across the board.

IIRC this has been done in some TV series, The Simpsons maybe?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Sarah_Palin_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg/220px-Sarah_Palin_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg

Yep.

Tale oft told:

Walking through a turkish nightspot, club vendor trying to drum up business engaging people on the street says to me "Hey, you look like one of the Beatles!" To which my gf says "ah, Paul McCartney?" and he replies, "no no no, one of the Beatles"

So, if Macca hasn't made it to unerodable fame, nobody is going to.

IIRC this has been done in some TV series, The Simpsons maybe?

I do recall this, in the seventies or something.

Married w Children