Ask Lemmy

Burying someone alive. Or trapping their feet in cement shoes and throwing them into the ocean.

This question implies death is the worst that could happen to you.

Personally, I don't see it that way. There's a lot more hurtful things than death.

Death is one occurrence, with no pain in the death itself, and "only" secondary pain in those left behind.

There's a lot more hurtful and lasting pain you can inflict, physically and psychologically, and without a definite endpoint.

It'll still be rape.

Kidnapping, I say, in a world where killing a death is simply not a concept, being kidnapped for any reason could lead to millennia of torment

Not putting your shopping carts back.

Assuming that immortality only applies to humans, environmental destruction would be a big one.

People care more about pollution and climate change when they know they'll be around to face the consequences.

Unauthorised pregnancy. If no one can die, every new birth is effectively stealing from the limited pool of resources. Too many births, everyone starves, no one can die to ease the burden on the limited resources. Endless suffering for all.

Any sex related crime.

This one gets more complicated the longer I think about it.

My first pass was to imagine humans just as we are aside from the ability to die. Many things about how humans are don't make sense without death though. Pain, for example likely evolved to cause organisms to avoid stimuli that could lead to their death. Fear largely derives from the anticipation of pain. Would true immortals have either? I imagine the psychology of such creatures would be vastly different from our own.

There's also the question of what form the immortality takes. If it's possible to destroy someone's physical body, but their soul can immediately manifest a new one, and pain doesn't exist, then doing so is just an inconvenience. If bodies are impervious to any damage or alteration, a large category of crimes vanishes.

It would probably come down to some sort of long-term imposition on the freedom of others, but it's really hard to guess what that would look like.

Unforgiveable implies that there can be no mistake about the negative side effects for even the dumbest among us before committing the act. Torture is about as intentionally cruel as it gets.

Some other suggestions here are frequently used under the umbrella of torture, for example, by the IDF.

Stealing from musk.

Permanent mutilation

If death weren't a thing, I suppose that that pitching someone into lava or something like that would be pretty bad then.

Torture. The main thing about torture is to make sure they don't die while suffering the pain.

Burying people alive