Death is rather difficult to define precisely. If you define it as “the cessation of consciousness,” then you die every night. Every sleep cycle has some portions of minimal brain activity. There’s nobody home for these periods.

Yes, you recognize the fact, but you haven’t internalized its implications. You can only have a universal present in a universe of shared time. Ultimately, “the present” is something applicable to and that exists within the mind of a single observer.

One of the hallmarks of science is that different people can independently measure something and confirm its existence. If no two observers can ever agree on what constitutes “the present,” then how can “the present” be said to exist at all? It’s a fundamentally unscientific concept.

You’re still imagining that there is some fixed universe playing out at constant time, and that we all just experience the echoes of this present in different orders. This isn’t what relativity says. Clocks traveling near the speed of light don’t just appear to slow down, they actually slow down.

Different regions of the universe don’t even experience the same flow rate of time. Someone living on a mountaintop experiences time faster than someone at sea level. And yet you cling to this fantasy of their being some universal “present.” You cannot have a universal present in a universe composed of different flow rates of time!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity

The present does not exist. From the previous link:

It can be argued that special relativity eliminates the concept of absolute simultaneity and a universal present: according to the relativity of simultaneity, observers in different frames of reference can have different measurements of whether a given pair of events happened at the same time or at different times, with there being no physical basis for preferring one frame’s judgments over those of another. However, there are events that may be non-simultaneous in all frames of reference: when one event is within the light cone of another—its causal past or causal future—then observers in all frames of reference show that one event preceded the other. The causal past and causal future are consistent within all frames of reference, but any other time is “elsewhere”, and within it there is no present, past, or future. There is no physical basis for a set of events that represents the present.

Many philosophers have argued that relativity implies eternalism.[6] Philosopher of science Dean Rickles says that, "the consensus among philosophers seems to be that special and general relativity are incompatible with presentism.

If two observers will disagree on which events happened in “the present,” then “the present” cannot exist as a real universal entity. “The present” only makes any physical sense in classical, pre-20th century Newtonian mechanics.

This is why the block universe or eternalism makes more sense.

And yet, you’ve concocted this fantasy that you call “the present,” as if such a thing could exist in a relativistic universe…

You assume the past and present no longer exist. You have no proof of this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)

If you sold your soul to the Devil to obtain something, wouldn’t you be afraid of losing that thing?

One headcanon explanation I have for this is:

Not all, but some sci fi universes make a central component of their setting the existence of a myriad of alien species (Star Trek, Star Wars, any setting with interacting with countless other species.) When we see species that humans are regularly interacting with, we are only seeing a small subset of the species that exist in that setting. It’s just an unfortunate fact of biology that species find it easier to interact with beings that are most like themselves. The Federation mostly consists of humanoid aliens. We do occasionally see really exotic life forms find their way into Star Fleet, but they’re the exception, not the rule. In my canon, they try to make contact, diplomacy, and exchange with every species they can. But they are inevitably more successful with humanoid aliens than non-humanoid ones. It’s just a lot easier to make meaningful communication with beings more similar to yourself.

How much money do they actually spend on the development of Firefox? That’s a figure I haven’t been able to find. However, in 2023, they had $1.5 billion in assets.

The only justification for a high-paying CEO is if they need to coordinate some large scale fundraising effort - schmoozing with other rich fucks to gain further donations, and plotting elaborate strategies to get more donations.

They have $1.5 billion in assets. How much more do they really need? Need someone to manage Mozilla’s assets? Make me the CEO. I’ll do it for you. In fact, I’ll do it for free. That will be my contribution to the Firefox project. I’ll stick that $1.5 billion in simple bond and index funds and withdraw at a very conservative 2% rate. And that will provide $30 million a year to spend on developers to improve Firefox and other projects. And we can just keep doing that forever. I’ll purposefully withdraw funds at a rate lower than the market averages, so the real value of the endowment grows over time. And that will allow us to slowly expand the scope of operations and start new projects. And while I won’t spend any time or effort to schmooze and jet set across the country to kiss the ass of some billionaire, if one wants to throw some money in the pot, we’ll have a donation button on the website.

I just end all my public speeches with “and Carthage must be destroyed.”

I mean, others are free to enjoy them as well. It’s just the case that CEOs’ fascination with sail is part of a deep Freudian subconscious desire to become physically one with the ocean. Other people can enjoy sailing for other reasons.

Holy shit, here comes an s!

The proper Biblical way to deal with CEOs is to chain them to a big boulder and throw them into the ocean.

Why do you think they all like yachts? They yearn for the Sea. In their hearts, they know it is where they belong.

We used to make fun of Chinese social media censorship. Soon sharing images of Nintendo’s Luigi will be as censored as sharing images of Winnie the Pooh in China.

In terms of yourself, it already effectively is legal. When was the last time someone was prosecuted for attempting suicide?

I also took my husband’s name when I got married. I personally am not a big fan of hyphenated names. For those that like them, fair enough, but they’re not for me. To me, the problem with hyphenated names is that while they seem a way to avoid the “whose name do we give the kids” problem, they just kick the problem down the road a generation. If you have a hyphenated name, and you marry someone who also has one, are you both going to start using a 4-part surname? How about the generations after that, are they going to use an 8, 16, or 32-part name?

Of course not. At some point, now or in the future, someone is going to have their surname dropped. It either happens when you get married, or it happens when your children or grandchildren themselves get married and have to decide which names to drop. Rather than putting that burden on your kids or grandkids, I think it’s better to make those hard decisions yourself. Better to just come up with a shared name for both partners and move forward together.

Ah don’t be such a pessimist.

They’ve also seen the fires of Hell!

Well, it made sense that Reagan was elected in the 1980s. That was the age of the camcorder, the first portable personal miniature TV production studio. With anyone being able to be a TV studio, it was only natural that actors would become presidential candidates!

I would be content seeing him sent to one of RFK Jr’s wellness camps.

Except, like any religion, the rules were ultimately self-contradictory and open to any convenient interpretation.