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

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

Never watched that one, but maybe.

Sam Kenison shows Al Bundy what his family's life would be life if he was never born.

Seriously concerned for voters of "yes" here because they clearly fantasize about suicide beyond the degree that happy people would fantasize about the lottery or being a professional athlete.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaxS2RAvnnQ

Gut ist der Schlaf,
der Tod ist besser - freilich
Das beste wäre, nie geboren sein

(Sleep is good.
Death is better,
but the best is to have never been born.)

Eff winning the lottery, eff being a pro Athlete and eff fantasizing about suicide too.

instead of a non-existence button i'd rather have a room in which time stops so i can spend a year or two alone meditating and studying and learning about everything ever, then coming back with my shit together and finally able to make sense of life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1aZcsY-O8Q

If my choices are "press the button" or "win the lottery," I'll take the lottery, but that wasn't an option in the poll.

That said, when I commute back and forth to work on my bike, I sometimes ride in aggressive ways that increase my chances of being hit by a car or bus. On purpose. I've even sometimes thought about just riding right out into the lane in front of a bus.

Yeah, I'm really not surprised the Wonderful Life spin has been thought of before.

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?"

Yeah, I prefer this phrasing too. To me it raises a further question about the ethics of reproduction. Retroactive non-existence isn't an option for anyone currently alive. We didn't have any say in the matter of whether or not to be thrown into the world. But our parents did have a say. Parents make this choice on behalf of their children. I sometimes wonder at this: even if we can ensure our progeny a great life, is there something problematically arrogant about foisting life on them in the first place? How can we be sure that they'll want it? Making new people... it's a freaky power we have, like playing God.

There is a new thing called “Women's Liberation” which gives women a right to choose and you have chosen to abort me. And that I must live with.

I'm not sure it's even "would you rather have never been born" cos if you had never been born you couldn't make the choice to press that button. It's a more abstract question than that imo.

Jim: Antinatalism.

"Hi, my name is Evan, and I was aborted"

http://www.clevelandrapecrisis.org/uploads/Sitepage/cache/800x522_Support-Group-p1.jpg

If you could push a button and simply receive $14.2 million dollars, would you press it?

Question is not about winning the lottery, do not talk about winning the lottery in this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO5dYyrcmVo

I'm beginning to think my lottery comparison was misunderstood by everyone?

If you could push a button and instantaneously gain mad virtuosic piano skillz and know how to play every Chopin piece ever, would you press it?

Thanks Adam. I was saying a happier person would fantasize about that. A depressed person fantasizes about being able to not exist and not hurt anyone in the process, or am I not looking at this deeply enough.

i totally disagree. i meditate on my non-existence quite frequently, find the prospect of my "death" to be a relief, and yet i consider myself a quite happy, productive and engaged person because im not psychically fighting off the prospect of non-existence or meaninglessness.

See fear of death thread to see why I am positive "relief" is an irrelevant term in that context.

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

ie. NOT suicide

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, October 19, 2012 11:34 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^this is otmfm. suicide is not just self-nullification, it is also an act of immense aggression against anyone/everyone who knows and loves you, and I'm gonna speculate that everyone who commits the act is at least aware of this

(also there's a part of Gravity's Rainbow where it is posed that suicide is the ultimate combination of every sexual fetish)

Uh, no it isn't. It's only a contingent fact that it hurts other people, not a necessary one. It's not an integral part of the definition. Therefore removing oneself via that button is a form of suicide.

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.

― homosexual II, Thursday, October 18, 2012 4:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:-)

"i wish i had never been born" <- isn't this an idea most people flirt with and move on from during adolescence?

^

suicide is not just self-nullification, it is also an act of immense aggression against anyone/everyone who knows and loves you, and I'm gonna speculate that everyone who commits the act is at least aware of this

that is so completely arrogant. I would argue it's the exact contrary, the fact that you cannot commit suicide because of the pain you will cause to the family, friends makes your personal suffering much worse. you talk like a priest and your line of reasoning is evil, don't be so condescending and let people make their own choices.

Suicide has had different meanings in different cultures. Sometimes it's been seen as socially responsible. I think we can speak of it in the abstract as just self-killing, with no value-judgment attached.

I am listening to "The Safety Dance" right now; fuck off, button

ate a tasty burrito for lunch, button couldn't be further from my mind

burrito stall

otm

http://www.vhemt.org/colorvisualize.jpg

I think this question is more about VHEMT-style selflessness than anything else.

lol @ the idea that people who buy tons of lottery tickets and fantasize about winning being the definition of happy people

I've never come across a one of those lottery ppl who fall into anything remotely resembling 'happiness'

ie the dude at my grocery store who comes out to his car, scratches off the scratch ticket, wins nothing, goes back in and buys 10 more, wins nothing, goes back in buys 10 more, rinse repeate for 30 minutes every day

Even though lately I feel like I asked for a fuzzy blanket and someone gave me a wire monkey mother instead, I still would not push the button.

lol @ the idea that people who buy tons of lottery tickets and fantasize about winning being the definition of happy people

― some dude, Friday, October 19, 2012 4:19 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Um, comparatively is all.

yes people who fantasize about winning the lottery are happier than people who fantasize about being in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery