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

Today it might simply consist of a button to make all my co-workers simply cease to exist...

great thread btw

it appears WCC is through with it now, but it is impossible to wall off this discussion from consideration of suicide. the scenario is about suicide + magic

I would love a button to make my coworkers turn into gin and tonics.

Alfred, I would gay marry you in an instant if you had that button.

You guys I pressed the button ;_;

based on the number of responses in this thread, it seems like this question pushed a lot of people's buttons

I really hope this button makes a fart sound when you press it.

that's every button

if you shaved an hour off sleep, that's like living an extra day or three each month, and an hour is probably manageable without any health problems. But if you don't do it, it's like hitting the suicide button for a day every month. No magic! Just accounting!

well i take it back. accounting is a form of black magic

"that was easy!"

an hour is probably manageable without any health problems

the health problems may just emerge more slowly

why even bother with the caveats of no pain to yourself, or to others?

there are plenty of ways to kill yourself that are painless, that hardly needs a magic get-out. and as long as you don't have any beliefs in the soul that persists no matter your wishes (or if you do, assume that this magic button makes god himself forget, for good measure), the pain it causes to others would be a null issue to you the you who no longer and never existed.

i will say that this exact scenario/thought has definitely occupied my mind in long dark moments of my life. there were times when i would absolutely press it. now i absolutely wouldn't.

how would you ever reset a bad day, sleep is like a magical button you push when youre not in the zone

the worse my day, the less likely that I'll be able to sleep at the end of it

the thing forks's count-your-blessings screed doesn't take into account is "people who have suffered losses which they feel they cannot bear": I have a couple of these; some people don't, may their days be long. My days are filled with joy & I love my life & I'm going to live to an abominably old age like everybody else in my family, but I also carry grief from which I will never be free and that descends on me like a cloud. I'd guess I've spent as much time in therapy as anybody I know & I'm a healthy motherfucker generally speaking but this magic button means an unimaginable kind of relief, so its appeal seems obvious, although since nonexistence is literally incomprehensible imo concepts like "relief" don't really articulate with it

I should say though that the best current reason to push the button when it finally gets invented is that it will troll the hell out of this thread

this is reminding me of a Raymond Smullyan story

... and the realization that i was tempted to end it all, except for the fact that i didn't want to hurt anyone else, was itself realization enough that i didn't really want it to be over.

xp to myself

isn't the M*A*S*H theme song about this thread?

would be a null issue to you the you who no longer and never existed.

Second nail in the coffin of my putative goole crush. Surely you'll grant that living or alive, you mean no harm to your closest? Yes, you won't care one way or another, but you'd die knowing you flaked on your beloveds.

Or what goole said to himself

if you could push a button and you'd cease to exist on ILX, would you do it?

I think the button would be more tantalizing if it was a re-set button that randomly turned you into someone different; age, race, gender, orientation, taste, location, era... "Fancy your chances, eh?"

it'd make a political career a little easier

xp

now singing 'pieces of goole' to the tune of the cure's pictures of you

if you could push a button and you'd cease to exist on ILX, would you do it?

Pity the poor souls for whom that button is merely 'Submit Post'.

if you could push a button and become bob marley, would you?
-bob marley

what about if you could push a button and the button ceased to exist?

"people who have suffered losses which they feel they cannot bear"

this is interesting, because the statement isn't connected to whether the person can or cannot bear the loss, but rather their perception of their ability to bear the loss and how that perception becomes reality

it is particularly interesting in the context of our current round of political theater, where the demeanor of our candidates appears to be more important than the positions they take; you could use both to extrapolate an argument that questions the actual existence of "facts"

An Unfortunate Dualist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKbpjw3_EZM

aero very much otm 8 million posts back on this freight train of a thread

what if to the world it looked like you ceased to exist, but to you it looked like the rest of the world ceased and you're in the void, alone with only your own thoughts?

this is interesting, because the statement isn't connected to whether the person can or cannot bear the loss, but rather their perception of their ability to bear the loss and how that perception becomes reality

well - the concept of being able to bear something is entirely subjective. strictly speaking, anybody can bear anything that won't literally kill them. the question is whether the thing in question makes that person's life feel as though it is not worth living.

and you're in the void, alone with only your own thoughts?

This reminds me of Borges' desert 'labyrinth'.

well - the concept of being able to bear something is entirely subjective. strictly speaking, anybody can bear anything that won't literally kill them. the question is whether the thing in question makes that person's life feel as though it is not worth living.

on a daily basis, American society makes me feel like life isn't worth living; however, because I am an egotistical, contrary bastard, this just makes me want to live forever so I can continue to sneer at it

^^^ posts by people who have figured out how to live imo

How many of you would want a button that lets you nap instantly? because you'd just need to put some duct tape over that button...

holy fuck DJP I just noticed your display name and it has literally improved my will to live, thank you

yeah I'm not leaving this world without shitting on a few dozen more people

most of my worldview is a strange mishmash of "Do not go gentle into that good night", "Fight" by The Cure and "Kerosene" by Big Black, with occasional dashes of "I Wanna Fuck You in the Ass" by The Outhere Brothers

no fucking way am I touching that button

because I am an egotistical, contrary bastard, this just makes me want to live forever so I can continue to sneer at it

This is my rearguard answer to the Camus question

djp otm - cf: goole spraying the faces of those he loves

also i misread alfred's comment as 'shitting OUT a few more dozen people' lol

I Want To Spray You In The Face

I'm merely hoping that button consists of an inadvertant OD of morphine when I'm 92 or whatever.

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.

haha i was just trying to fuck with dog latin's un-trolly rosy option, i don't want bits of me anywhere thx

tho i have joked that when i die i want to be cremated and have my ashes sprinkled in the food of people i didn't like.

(the unspoken, disappointed egotistical optimist component of my cynicism is the not-so-hidden hope that some day my sneering will cause society not to suck so much)

i suppose this is the most attractive option if you want to hit it.

and it's off to the out of context thread we go

basically I won't push any button ending my life unless I can push a button that keeps Alicia Keys from singing another note.

everyone you knew is instantly granted religious certainty that you are with God. they all become believers of the hardest core and are glad that you have gone home. several of them become priests

very powerful button, this button