Big Big Question

If you had your choice, would you rather be trapped in a sinking ship and running out of air, or be in a drifting spaceship running out of air? And why? The chance that rescue will come in the time you have remaining is slim. Does it make a difference whether water is rushing in in the undersea scenario, and if so, what difference?

This question inspired by the song “Last Breath Aboard“. (self-link, provided for context. pls delete the link if that’s a bad thing to do.)

Even though we all know that the world is not going to end when CERN fires up the Large Hadron Collider on 9/10/08 at 700 GMT, what are your plans for your time between now and then? Is there anything you feel like you need to do before the world ends science begins?

(For the record, I read that they’ll just be accelerating some particles on 9/10- actual collisions will begin in the following weeks.)

If you’re a newspaper reader, are the obits a part of the paper you read daily? Occassionally? Never?

If you read them, why?

If you don’t read them, why not? Does it simply not occur to you to bother, or do you actively avoid them?

And, given that Netcraft has confirmed the imminent death of the printed newspaper, will reading the obits go the way of the rest of print media? Will online obits have the same feel? How do you suppose the change in how people get their news will affect this niche issue in the years to come?

You discover you have a disease which will eventually kill you if it is left untreated. It could take weeks or years. There are a few treatment options available.

The cost of the treatment is not a factor – you have great health insurance.

The treatments offered to you may have serious side effects, but they could alleviate your symptoms and make you feel a lot better.

While treating your disease is not a guarantee, there is a very good chance it could cure the disease, or significantly extend your lifespan. (This extension of your lifespan would not involve a decrease in the quality of your life.)

If you choose not to treat the disease (not for any moral or religious reasons – simply because you don’t care if you live or die) is it suicide? Please elaborate on your answer.

(I’m not sick, it’s just a discussion I was having with someone.)

OK, you’re a mad scientist…scorned by your peers, theories discredited, a disgrace to your field.

Time to take revenge! How do you destroy your enemies, threaten the world, and generally inflict terror in the masses?

Contact with E.T.’s? An Old Testament sign from God? A woman president? Proof of what created the universe? Something else? What what you like to see happen before you discard your mortal coil?

Say you were spending one night in a haunted inn that is located at the center of an ancient English stone circle. Supposing that ghosts, spirits, and so on exist, what would you do, say, or bring to provoke an encounter?

Recently, I watched a (much discussed) “60 Minutes” episode about a potential cancer cure. I know that sort of news story pops up all the time. Like most, this is probably much ado about nothing. But let’s pretend its true. Five years from now, we’re able to cure all cancer.

My initial thought is “That would be great.” Would it? Naturally, it would be great for anyone with cancer (and that persons loved ones), but surely the outcome wouldn’t be as simple as cancer is cured, happily ever after, hooray.

Would a cancer cure impact the population is a major (harmful?) way? What would it mean for insurance companies? Cigarette companies? Unemployment rates? Etc.

I can think of two “what if” scenarios with which you can frame answers, and either is acceptable:

1. The cure is mostly used in 1st World Countries. Cancer is wiped out in the US, England, Germany, etc. But poorer nations can’t afford it.

2. The cure is inexpensive (or the expense is somehow mitigated — say with massive foreign aid) and the entire world is rid of cancer.

If you want, you can spin this question even further. What if medical science achieved its goals and disease was wiped out altogether? This IS what scientists are trying to do, and it’s remotely possible that with advances in genetic research, nanotechnology and other fields, a day will come when no one dies of a disease. Let’s assume that people can still die of old age (I know you could frame that as a disease, but I’m trying to keep this from being about immortal beings). Unless you got into a car accident or something, you’d be guaranteed a 120-year life. How would this change the world?

Okay, so let’s say that reincarnation as other species is real. What/who do you think you were in a past life, or think you were meant to be in this life?

For example, I think I was meant to be a penguin. I rarely get cold – it can be 30 degrees out and I’ll be driving down the road with my window down. When I was young, my mom thought I hated taking baths, but it’s not the bath I hated; I hated getting out and dried off! I could live in the shower, much like Kramer in one episode of Seinfeld.

So how about you?

In various contexts, where is line drawn between unconstrained discussion of death and the (recently) dead — including criticism of the deceased and metacriticism of the discussion — and a social expectation of respect for the dead, for the gravity of death as a shared experience?

Where do you think the line should be drawn? Why does the line shift from context to context — what defines the social mores of those different contexts that causes (or permits) the line to shift?

(Inspired by the latest in a long historical string of Metatalk conversations about obitutary thread etiquette.)

Your close family member is in a coma. The doctors say 3 weeks or 3 months, you decide. What would you do?

How will humans die out? How long from now? Will it be caused by man (nuclear or bio warfare), nature big (asteroid hitting Earth), nature small (plague) or something else?

What would the circumstance(s) have to be in order to make torture an acceptable solution? An example…would it be OK to torture one person if it was known that specific person had a specific piece of information that, if it were known by the interrogators, would save a thousand lives?

I’m in no way looking for an excuse for torture to be acceptable in any general way. I’m wondering what chain of events or complicated scenario would be improved with the use of torture.

(based on a post on MetaFilter)

Describe your choice of conditional immortality. The assumption here is that you can be killed, but you’ll live forever if no one manages to pull it off. You can have special powers, but you also have some sort of vulnerability.

Inspired by klangklangston’s MetaTalk comments describing his plan “to be a zombie reanimated by a hive of bees, which I could shoot from my hands” and “keep my body living forever as a hollowed husk of entomological evil.”

I was thinking of lying on my headstone. Maybe something like “Lived May 28,
1437 – October 12, 2048. Inventor of time travel and discoverer of the third
anti-gravitic effect”.

First question: can I do this legally?

Second question: what are some good things I can lie about?

(Suggested by Kickstart.)