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

I consider myself more influential than the Velvet Underground

This thread is kinda maddening to read. All the people going no but how does it work? what'll happen to my kids? are like people who can't sit still during a time-travel film. It doesn't make sense!

Automatically connecting this question to suicide is weird. The question itself boils down to "Is life worth living?" which is sort of the most basic building block of all philosophy, art, religion and anything else. "Is life worth living?" is not the same question as "Can life ever be fun or fulfilling or offer moments of pure exquisite insight/pleasure/glory/connection?" - of course it can, for most people (even in terrible situations), for some of the time.

I hesitate to write this sentence because it is so obvious, but all the while I am happy, seeing people, going to shows, having sex, making music, I know it's true that a third of the people I meet will die of cancer and two-thirds of them will die of something else, and I will be witness to this if I don't die of cancer or something else first; the people I have sex with will die, and before they do they will become people I would not want to have sex with, and I will be unsexy to them; the children I might create through this sex will go through the same process: much joy, delight in their abilities, friendship, excitement, whatever, but ultimately defeat/compromise/infirmity/death. And so on. Lust for life doesn't get you out of this. Death is no different whined at than withstood etc.

Again, I must say that I know everybody knows this.

So there is this simple question that everything in our culture that is not strictly administrative is built upon: much of life is pleasure and much of it is suffering - what is a tolerable balance? Is any amount of suffering worth it? Does a small amount of happiness outweigh much suffering? How could happiness even be defined if there were no suffering?

There are practical examples that might give some kind of answer. People in the most miserable corners ever drawn who nevertheless wanna live, live, live. Old people gone right into the ending who don't seem to regret living or to seem to suffer much to themselves even when they seem to suffer to us.

These are pretty much the basic questions since the year dot, and there will never be answers. But I suppose everyone has an opinion on how much pain they are prepared to take for a certain amount of satisfaction, or about whether just glancing at nature or a pretty arse is sufficient compensation for being so vulnerable and minor, and lots of other interesting things to say about the value of tiny, tiny life... These are very basic ideas, I know, but it is bewildering when people say things like "Why would I think of this? I am happy/not suicidal/living it up!" Ach, I have seen this so many times. I think it would be worth discussing the perverse neurosis of this kind of person. It's a different kind of life. Inhuman!

Nothing wrong with considering the effects of death, or even of suicide.

Strange to have a question where suicide-in-all-but-name is *not supposed to have any effects*.

If you suddenly cease to exist painlessly and easily, and no one else notices or minds, and life in every other respect goes on just as before, in what sense do you exist anyway?

The question makes no sense. Saying so doesn't mean one is shying away from weighing one's own life in the balance. All the questions you ask about whether life is worth it, or happiness outweighs suffering, depend on the opposite conclusion, that death/suicide does indeed have real-world effects, on you and on others.

I don't see how any scenario in which you make a choice and have to actively engage in something with the sole purpose of ending your existence isn't about suicide, but okay.

otoh, as someone who has thought almost daily for a long while now about wanting to die - and i don't consider myself suicidal by any means - i sort of understand the difference. i voted yes, even though my twisted scenarios tend to involve someone else killing me and me being all 'thank fuck for that'.

really though i wouldn't push the button, because as soon as i was confronted with the option to 'push the button', the sugababes' 'push the button' would pop into my head and how could anyone want to cease existing knowing that song exists.

The question itself boils down to "Is life worth living?"

This phrasing of the question would be much easier for most people to grasp more directly, and I do agree that the import of the question, as asked, is nearly equivalent to this. The most obvious difference would be that this poll personalizes the question, so a more accurate equivalent would be, "Is my life worth living?" This does change the essential question and how one thinks about it.

The people who are asserting that this personalization of the question invariably drags in the question of suicide have a valid point. If the answer to the question "Is my life worth living?" is "no", this leaves one morally bound to act upon this judgement in a way that the question "Is life worth living?" does not, because having decided that all lives and all life are equally futile, one cannot personally put an end to all life, but having decided this specifically about one's self, one can end one's own life. In fact, after coming to such a conclusion, inaction in this matter suggests that one's conclusion is actually quite inconclusive.

I'm think I'm too hedonistic to push the button. I love things, people and feelings.

OTOH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cS40pePzCM

out of the last 8 days, i would have said "no" during 6 of them.

which means that i've thought about this question during my every day life a couple times since this thread started.

would you press a button to tivo-skip over the days where you would have said yes?

the events would've taken place anyway. might as well live through it.

why would you have pressed "no" then? pressing "no" means you don't want to live through it.
this would be really infuriating for market research into the development of this button!

Well, apologies for such a patronizing greeting card sentiment, but even if we theoretically didn't notice that any of you button-pushers were gone I can safely say that our lives would be emptier without most if not all of you

All I can say is that I am unendingly grateful for the theoretical tens of billions of button-pushers, who have quietly but decisively removed themselves from my world and my thoughts. You guys even picked up your litter before you left; I'm very impressed!

would you press a button to tivo-skip over the days where you would have said yes?

Isn't that an Adam Sandler movie?

life is an adam sandler movie sometimes

would use the hell out of a fast-forward button.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRCq41S0i3M

Jim: "OK Dwight, if you could press a button..."

Dwight: "can i ask to have something clarified about the button?

'and no emotional or financial or other repercussions to the people around you.' -- how precisely is this magic effected?

is it numbness? all others who have any relation to you at all register your sudden disappearance but find they just don't feel anything one way or another (this seems tyrannical and monstrous to me btw)

is it forgetting? their minds and institutional records are wiped, any debts are written off as an accounting mistake, memories of you come up blank, etc. you become a hole, but one so complete there's no pain to be felt.

is it rewriting history? ie the 'it's a wonderful life' option. the clock is rewound. i suppose this is the most attractive option if you want to hit it."

Jim: "...its about if you'd essentially kill yourself knowing you wouldn't hurt yourself or loved ones..."

life is an adam sandler movie sometimes

this was the best adam sandler movie premise

The do-over button fantasy is kind of like Billy Madison...

Yeah i think it's more or less a rewriting history button, so it would imply multiple universes.

The Twilight Zone ending is that you push it and cease to exist.....in THIS universe! Bwa ha ha ha

unfortunately you are then sent to the universe composed solely of spiky things

I have been convinced since day one that the button just makes you respawn somewhere else, as a sort of hidden bonus the universe gives you for being so polite. Of course, now that you know the secret you can't cash the prize anymore.

sometimes being in work or the prospect of it makes me want to press the button. maybe i shd amend my answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA2ktUcWX7Q

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WL3-c8SHcLY/TKRugk-WDTI/AAAAAAAAAGg/PRIcxOlDp3k/s1600/337168.full.gif

http://i47.tinypic.com/2h7jfjd.png

Are you saying his big mouth keeps on existing?

If Romney gets elected this button will be in high demand.

would be funny if the button was really just a reset button and initiated an eternal recurrence of the life you decided to erase.

Maybe there was a similar button on that alarm clock from Groundhog Day

WDYLL after pressing the button:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUi1PdYn5nk

o shit, posted that then saw evan's post, never mind

Would you push a Groundhog Day button? May be a cool poll.

i totally would if I could opt out once i got to some predestined number

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

(worth reading BTW)

― Elvis Telecom, Monday, October 15, 2012 2:25 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Took Elvis' suggestion and boy was that a good book.

wondering if the storm is part and parcel of this poll

Just reading 'The Lazy Man's Life' by Thaddeus Golas, who wrote the hippie classic 'Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment' and liked this tripping anecdote which seems vaguely appropriate to quote:

In an early experience [with acid], I was sitting cross-legged, and thought, "Well, here I am, ready to go," but was stopped short when I realised I might permanently go, leaving an ungoverned, lunatic brain or a messy dead body behind. Then I thought, "Okay, suppose you know for sure that this whole level of reality is an illusion, and that it will all vanish when you leave. Would you go?" After long seconds, I decided, "Yes. Yes, I would go." Instantly the whole room turned radiant, as though lit from within. "That's it," I though. "Be ready to leave." It's like those dull summer vacations when everything interesting starts to happen just when it is time to go home. Be ready to die and leave at any time. Do not hold on.

[Also a bit later he gets held up with a gun:

One of the bikers pointed a gun at my forehead and said, "How does it feel to be looking down the barrel of a .44?"

Since I was high on LSD, I thought, "Far out! My horoscope says I'm going to live to 84, but here I go." Aloud, I said, "I dig you, brother."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Ah, now i see why this poll is closing when it does. In the event of a Romney presidency....

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

landslide

that's amazingly high (the 44)

can lurkers FP themselves?

nah, if they don't post the button never appears. quality tactic, like finding those hiding spots in goldeneye imo

hoping button appears if Election Day thread isnt locked tonight

'hoping button' appears after obama wins imo

http://bluecollarphilosophy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Obama-Button-196x196.png