this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 43 points 6 days ago (12 children)

This is the main reason why, if you come across a genie in a lamp, you should probably not wish for immortality. You're gonna be hellafuckin bored for a loooooooong time.

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 17 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I don't want to imagine the level of procrastination I would have if I were immortal.

[–] EldenLord@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago

I would wish for a life that ends when I want it to. Like the numenoreans had in LoTR

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Just one trillion years will do

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[–] CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

From what I have read on the internet so far, it's probably best to not wish for anything at all. Just throw it in the deepest ocean to do us all a favour.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

Fuck that, I will mess with shit.

"I want all humans to be able to change sex, race or species at will."

"Give every human being the ability to experience what someone else has experienced by pressing a small button on the top of our heads."

"Make volcanoes erupt food. Just endless, nutritious food for everyone."

"Babies are hatched from eggs. I dunno man, seems like it would be silly."

"No more mosquitoes. Replace them with tiny little airplanes that sometimes circle around you and you have to swat them down like king kong."

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I suppose you could wish for all genies to be instantly annihilated. Maybe toss the GOP in there for good measure.

[–] Calabast@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

"Your wish shall be granted."

genie destroys the universe

[–] stelelor@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 days ago

"Eh, worth it."

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[–] Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Want to live forever? Tough. Cos even if you could stop your body from growing old and dying, the planet is going to get too warm and nothing will be able to live on it. Then the sun will expand and destroy the planet. But even if you could leave the planet, theres no where close by to get too that wont have the same problems later on. But even if you could get to another solar system, same thing happens again. But then eventually the universe runs out of hydrogen and its fucked. Or the universe gets spread too thin, and its fucked. Or some fucking quantum field takes a shit, and creates a bubble of true vacuum that expands at the speed of light and everything's fucked.

Im fucked, youre fucked, the earth is fucked, the solar system is fucked, the galaxy is fucked, the local cluster is fucked, its all just fucked. One way or another. At some point nothing exists except an endless absence of anything. Not even nothing will exist...

And people say there are no good arguments for weekly drug fuelled sex orgies...

[–] pyrflie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Slaanesh endorsed this message.

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[–] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

This always blows my mind to think that we are here and we are experiencing this life and in the grand scheme of things its so fleeting, but that it all came from somewhere and its all going to die eventually. Could it really be true that there will just be nothing for eternity after this? Or are we not just a random chance in a previous eternity. Can we ever really know or is it all just our best guess?

Its humbling but also makes me feel even more like life is important and should be taken seriously.

[–] Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You know, I often find myself coming at from the other direction. Trying not to take life too seriously, because after all in the end, nothing really matters. It matter now, of course. You and I sharing a conversation, matters. Well, as much as a conversion on a social media platform can without one or both of us showing our arseholes. But in the end, the very end, when theres no one left for us to have influenced. We... do that blade runner thing in the rain.

When I was a boy I used to stay at my grandmothers a lot. And it was there that I had my first taste of existential dread. She had this painting of a ship, an old schooner or something(I dont actually know the names of types of ships, so we'll just go with that). It was this ship and it was in the middle of the ocean at night and riding the waves of a storm. And for whatever reason I saw, not only myself in this image, but also the world as a whole. I couldnt really understand what my brain was telling me, but it freaked me out. Seeing this ship in this framed moment of being alone in an endless nothing, and battered by elements with no hope or land in sight. And if the ship sank, no one would ever know it was ever there. It would be lost to time. Our world is that ship. Its alone in the dark, and surrounded on all sides by terrors both known and unknown. And at any moment, it could be dragged down to the depths and never seen again and all that we ever were or ever could be would be lost.

When got a bit older, and I found myself plagued by thoughts of embarrassment, as teenagers at want to do, I would remember that ship. And whatever it was that I wanted to do, I would do because as much as being in the storm terrified me, not steering into it and fighting for every moment would terrify me more. One day I will be at the bottom of that abyss, but right before that, Ill be on a bed. Ill be surrounded by family or I wont, and it will just be a loan nurse whose is tired of constantly fixing my pillows and hearing stories of when I was young, and you didnt need sun block factor 5000. And it will be that quiet moment that regret will get deafeningly loud. And while regret is just unavoidable, the absolute last thing I want to hear myself say is "I wish I had said something.". Ill have a million "I wish I hadnt done that.", and they will all be valid. But at least Ill know that it was the wrong thing, instead of always wondering what could have been. I think that if I took life more seriously, I might not have done anywhere near the amount of things that I did. And while they werent all winners, they were all brilliant moments of life. And as cringe as it can some times be to look back, it was always fun. Although, I probably could have done without seeing a middle aged man jumping out of a wardrobe in crotchless batman outfit... Id say never go home with strange older women in Brighton, but that would really undercut everything else I just said lol.

Life really is terrifying. Which is why you really just have to shit yourself and jump in to get most out of it.

[–] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

That was a great read and an interesting take. (You should write, if you don't already, it was very engaging)

To be fair i guess i don't take life too seriously because i know that ultimately none of it matters, but equally this short time i get to spend here is my opportunity to experience as much as possible and i don't want to miss any of it so i have to take my life seriously and the lives of those my actions impact. Feeling anger and happiness, fear and love, pain and pleasure are all things to be taken seriously because they are all part of the ride.

If i relax too much i will miss out. It may not matter ultimately but right now in this moment it does. So i should make the most of it. But remember to be able to let go of my grudges, and enjoy the ride. And try to pass that on to others. Remind those that are so wound and tangled up that they can just let go and things will get better.

For me the meaning of life is just to live it and feel as much as possible.

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[–] 4grams@awful.systems 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Honestly, this factoid is the closest thing to a real Total Perspective Vortex that I’ve ever felt.

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[–] habs@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 1 week ago (7 children)

What happens after the 10^106 years of black holes?

[–] humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 29 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The black holes evaporate eventually.

After that, depends on who you ask. Most physicists would say something like “as close to nothing as possible”. Penrose would say at a certain point when nothing can interact with anything else, distance loses meaning, which makes the universe and a singularity equivalent, so then things restart.

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Not sure about the "restart" bit.

[–] humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

If it’s mathematically equivalent to the starting conditions of our universe, why would it behave differently?

[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

I don't think you can argue that it's mathematically equivalent. Just because space and time become so spread that they are effectively meaningless is not the same as them having not meaningfully existed and then existing. Neither can you really say that since any baryons that have not decayed are so far apart none of them interact that they behave like the concentration of all matter in the known universe. At those scales of time I'm not even sure that there are any left.

It's like arguing that one tiny piece of something in one place is the same as all the matter and all of space and time being in one place: it's I guess analogous but not equivalent. I will of course caveat and say that my undergrad physics degree did not cover end of the universe timelines lol. Kurzgesagt does have a video though.

The cyclical universe approach as I understand it is predicated on an eventual big crunch which I don't think is being argued anymore.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 6 days ago
[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 6 points 6 days ago

Nothing really. And since nothing is happening and nothing ever changes time itself becomes meaningless.

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[–] janewaydidnothingwrong@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Wont there also be balls of iron-56 just chilling?

[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

We live in but a bright second, yet are determined to fill it with darkness unending.

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 8 points 6 days ago (13 children)

I just had a moment of what is everything

I don't know how to explain it but from nothing to something to nothing again but no why

[–] ynthrepic@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago (10 children)

The 'why' is us.

Without consciousness in the universe, there might as well not be a universe.

[–] theywanttocontrolyou@lemmy.world 26 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Typically something a consciousness would say.

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The cosmos can't ponder itself so excuse us for being self centered lol

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Like living in a slow motion explosion on a spec of dust

[–] joan@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

and what comes after that guys

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

No, really, this is a fantastic question we should all ask more.

Because on the outside, in terms of space and the physical universe, it will undergo phase transitions, it will experience a long, slow cooling into rarified energy... but those terms "long" and "rarified" are just from our human reference frame. Roger Penrose's work demonstrated how even a vast, infinite expanding space with tiny particles zooming through it, from other reference frames behaves exactly like the big bang. IE: as the universe cools and expands, it's still infinitely dense and exploding outward from a different perspective of time and space. It's perpetual.

That's one thing. The other thing is this... time passing is meaningless if nobody is there to observe it. You will be dead for an infinite amount of time, you won't notice a moment of it. But every passing moment you're dead, the universe is rolling dice. It's always rolling dice.

Eventually, even if it takes so incredibly long that we don't have numbers to express it (we actually do) then something is bound to happen again. Eventually these "somethings" will be just right to create a kind of universe, complex information systems, and maybe even a consciousness that can experience it.

It sounds kind of fantastic and overly fanciful, but I am basing this on the evidence that it happened at least once before that we know of.

[–] niktemadur@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Yet all this energy and electromagnetic phenomena
from our very limited vantage point and experiments
feels like it bathes everything as it decays gradually
in slow motion, one rung at a time, towards entropy,
zooming down an exponential thermodynamic curve
that aims and trends towards zero, beyond our view,
beyond the horizon, touching infinity itself.
And here's the craziest part: the space itself where
this is all taking place, is accelerating its' expansion.

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