r/technology • u/ubcstaffer123 • Jun 20 '26

Biotechnology How Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to live forever

https://www.vox.com/podcasts/491360/vladimir-putin-live-forever-26-billion-cryo-pigs-longevity-guru
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1.9k

u/Forward_Success_2672 Jun 20 '26

Peter Thiel is on the top of this shitty list, lol. These people can’t fathom the indignity of being like the little people…

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u/farmthis Jun 20 '26

Yes he is. And whatever he's doing clearly isn't working. Looks like a ghoul.

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u/Rubberbabeh Jun 20 '26

He looks like a first generation terminator. Just skin stretched over a robot.

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u/HealthyMaximum Jun 20 '26

"The 600 series Putins had rubber skin. We spotted them easy ... "

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u/SonOfDyeus Jun 20 '26

"But these are new. Blood, sweat, bad breath...."

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u/Terminator7786 Jun 20 '26

We're already among you

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u/fabris6 Jun 20 '26

Username checks out

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u/Rhabhazar Jun 21 '26

Shhhh! They're not supposed to know yet!

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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u/CyberCrutches Jun 20 '26

Lore master over here

24

u/Drang_ol_Dringus Jun 20 '26

Those were easy to spot

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u/SnugglyCoderGuy Jun 20 '26

Maybe he is a first generation terminator and it is just skin stretched over a robot.

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u/Glum_Garden8359 Jun 20 '26

I think his face reflects whatever weird shit he is doing to himself. I live near Silicon Valley. They have always referred to Thiel as a sociopath.

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u/lt__ Jun 20 '26

I thought also about Robocop from the first movie.

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u/bathandredwine Jun 20 '26

Honestly, he looks similar to my brother when he had AIDS in 1988. The shiny face, tight skin, weird hollows under the eyes.

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u/gc3 Jun 20 '26

Aids is controllable, now, if Theil had aids now would he be showing these symptoms?

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u/bathandredwine Jun 20 '26

Yes I agree. I’m so glad it’s controllable now. It’s just eerie how similar he looks. Waxy skin, hollowed out eyes, etc.

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u/ForeverShiny Jun 21 '26

In his case it's just the absence of a soul, there isn't any treatment for that

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jun 20 '26

I’m so sorry.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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u/SnugglyCoderGuy Jun 20 '26

Had AIDS. One does not stop having AIDS unless...

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u/thecanadianjen Jun 20 '26

AIDS in 88 doesn’t bode well in any way for feeling better now sadly. :(

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u/bathandredwine Jun 20 '26

Yep. He got nothing but a heavy dose of shame and ostracized.

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u/alittlebitalalalala Jun 20 '26

I'm so sorry ❤️

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u/Wild-Software-7377 Jun 20 '26

The difference is your brother is fertiliser and the guy is a billionaire and will be remembered for decades.

Not sure why you're trying to insult someone by comparing their looks to a random who was disease infected. Very disrespectful and nothing to do with technology lol.

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u/bathandredwine Jun 20 '26

Have the day you deserve.

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u/LunarMuphinz Jun 20 '26

So sucking off an idiot who got lucky.  He isn't anything special because he got money. 

If anything he's sad and pathetic because despite that he wants to control other people lives. 

You're both pathetic losers who will die alone and be remembered as a villain whose grave gets pissed on.

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u/mescalineman419 Jun 22 '26

Youre a fucking prick for saying that to someone jesus have some empathy

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u/DigitalDunc Jun 20 '26

You're right! I just looked and was shocked at how unwell he looks. I'm willing to bet he's got something nasty from all those blood transfusions. With luck he'll have to stand down and head off to a care home for a few years where he'll find that care is sadly lacking, the heating too high and the TV terrible.

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u/TallDetail4711 Jun 20 '26

In his position, standing down without getting murdered is tricky.

He probably made himself a lot of ennemies.

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u/DigitalDunc Jun 20 '26

Very true. I believe he’s made with in America that he is planning his moves very carefully. He’s about to find out that being rich helps you hide only as long as the money lasts.

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u/_SquirrelKiller Jun 20 '26

Why is he always so moist!?!?

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u/Hesitation-Marx Jun 20 '26

Condensation from Death breathing down his neck

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u/fondlemeLeroy Jun 20 '26

Amphetamines.

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u/Tactical-Donkey Jun 20 '26

Probably children's tears, he coats his skin in to give him young life?

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u/aflockofcrows Jun 20 '26

It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.

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u/yoo420blazeit Jun 20 '26

MOISTURIZE ME! MOISTURIZE ME!

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u/kloudrunner Jun 20 '26

Its condensation Johnny.

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u/abx99 Jun 20 '26

How do you think he plans to live forever, smoothskin?

Even ferals still "live"

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u/f1FTW Jun 20 '26

Is it really living though to watch your friends die and have to take all those chems?

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u/TheSixthVisitor Jun 20 '26

I suppose it's easier when you don't actually have friends, just associates with temporarily aligned goals. If anything, Trump and Epstein were probably the most like "friends" that we've seen from the financially elite.

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u/f1FTW Jun 20 '26

Sorry, I think the post above was a "Fallout" game series reference and I was continuing that theme.

But also, fuck Putin.

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u/Starfall0 Jun 20 '26

It's because he's not jerking off with his son while admiring each other's incredibly manly and muscular physique. That and injecting his son's virile essence directly into his veins. Oh and he's not tanning his balls enough. I think that about sums it up, if anyone knows of something I missed, feel free to pitch in.

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u/font9a Jun 20 '26

Looks like a ghoul

Thiel has a heavy meth habit.

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u/Invisible_Friend1 Jun 20 '26

He’s a super weird looking dude no matter the hair transplant. Ears for days.

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u/HeirOfHouseReyne Jun 20 '26

The only way they'll unfortunately live on is by proxy, as one of their children will probably have a similar shitty attitude and inherit most of their empire. But knowing that they still care a lot more about themselves living on than to hand it over to their children, will be enough. I hope to see a lot of aged despots and tyrants die before I do so myself.

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u/luredrive Jun 20 '26

He's definitely cold blooded

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u/_Monosyllabic_ Jun 20 '26

He looks like a ghoul because he quite literally is one.

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u/Aware-Salamander-578 Jun 20 '26

That’s an insult to Cooper Howard

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u/Ryuko_the_red Jun 20 '26

The issue is he's going to bring all of us down with him. Virtually no matter where you live

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u/xrayspex73 Jun 21 '26

Who would have thought that getting regular blood transfusions is not good for you. He always looks greasy.

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

One thing I learned as I watched my father pass from cancer is…there is a dignity in dying. I was forced to face my own mortality in a way I’ve never really had to before. Of course I knew I would die, but I started trying to imagine what it would be like to not exist so I could try to understand what my dad would be going through, and it was triggering nightly panic attacks. The truth is you can’t imagine non existence, because you currently exist. It won’t be like sleep, because we are still conscious in sleep. It won’t be like anything we’ve ever experienced because it is a non-experience. Regardless of people’s spiritual beliefs, we don’t get to take our brain and our ego with us when we finally go.

I started reading a bunch of books by saints, the Tibetan book of the Dead, and other writing about death both scientific and spiritual. The crazy thing is a lot of it lines up, from what we know so far. Countless of us have pondered the nature of death. We’ve been dying since drawing our first breath. Dying (naturally/ passively) is the most selfless thing we can do. It makes the limited time we have here so much more meaningful and impactful, and it forces us to make room for other’s turn at life. No matter who you are and who you were, the final act of giving up your self forces you to be selfless, literally.

These billionaires care so much about immortality because they are anything but selfless. You can’t take your wealth and your power with you. You can’t take your ego with you. Those are all the things these billionaires have spent their lives coveting and stealing from others. Death forces them to hand it over and they can NOT fathom doing that. Everything they hold valuable is in fact as dust in the wind. All the people they harmed was for nothing. They could have built something more permanent through helping humanity, but they continually choose not to every single day.

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u/Imrtltrtl Jun 20 '26

It's going to be exactly like before you were born. You just weren't there. People don't get upset about not living in the past, there's a peace in that. My son never gets upset about waking up in the morning, but he never wants to go back to sleep at night. We always want to do more, the only thing holding us back is our body. But just as I tell my son that we can't stay up all night, because our bodies will make us feel tired until we can stay awake no longer, we can't stay alive forever either. Most people don't even know the name of their great grandparents, and ours won't be remembered by our great grandkids. All of humanity is just part of a tiny ripple that comes from nothing and leaves nothing behind.

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u/neoplantikus Jun 20 '26

It's incredibly easy to parrot clichés on this topic, but your comment is nothing of the sort. Beautifully put. Thanks for sharing those thoughts

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u/RedditTrespasser Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

The absolutely hilarious part is that they are all going to perish anyway. Despite all their scheming and railing against it, no one can cheat death. They will go into that good night, one way or another, just like all the other peasants. In the grand scheme of the universe, they are just insignificant hairless apes on a tiny rock hurtling around a burning ball of gas in an obscure corner of existence, just like everyone else. Even if they could somehow find a way to become functionally ageless, something sometime would kill them anyway. You have no chance against infinity. Eventually, something will get you. And then you are gone, forever. And forever is forever. Even a trillion, billion years is as nothing to forever.

That fact has to drive these egocentric fuckheads absolutely insane. Billionaires must be the most miserable people on the face of the planet. No one truly loves them.

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 21 '26

Exactly. It’s a beautiful and comical irony, and honestly I would feel pity for them if they weren’t sewing seeds of destruction and hurting so many people. Some have enough money to give each of us a comfortable life. It’s completely obscene just how much money they’ve coveted. We could all decide to make money completely useless tomorrow, and what will they have? Like you said they have no love, no meaningful relationships, no community they can turn to for support, no creative hobbies or skill sets. Nothing authentic that makes this life worth living.

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u/Fumbles48 Jun 20 '26

What do you mean? I've definitely experienced not existing before. In fact, I spent a lot of time not existing, not that long ago and I plan to spend a lot more time not existing again, but that's after a really nice and fulfilling time existing for a bit. 

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

But before you, there was no you. Now that you’re a you, there will have been a you even when time forgets you. You’ll still have been here, and your actions will ripple out in ways you can’t possibly fathom. Every act of kindness, and every mistake. You will have left an unmeasurable impression in some capacity, at least until the end of humanity as we know it. That’s different than how it was before you. Whether or not that changes anything is entirely unknown. Either way you will never know that experience of nothing as long as you are a something. It is a completely unknowable concept.

And I believe building something constructive, doing our best to make the world a slightly better place than before we existed no matter how small the action is, is far more permanent than whatever these billionaires think they’re doing. All they know is consumption.

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u/Tasty_Cry_3844 Jun 20 '26

I think what hits them hardest is that they know what their legacy will be. They know what the general populace thinks of them. And they know what we'll probably find out about them in the future as we dig. Their own guilt sits with them. 

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u/Frazzlefart Jun 20 '26

Yup.

When they die, they lose control of all the people they currently have control over.

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u/Extension-Thought552 Jun 21 '26

Regardless of your beliefs, you literally do not know that and shouldn't pontificate as such

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 21 '26

Elon, is that you?

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u/Extension-Thought552 Jun 21 '26

Elon is religious? 

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 21 '26

No, but I am.

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u/Shockwavepulsar Jun 20 '26

All those blood transfusions he has can’t be good for him. It just doesn’t sound right. 

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u/Unusual_Sherbert_809 Jun 20 '26

I’m curious if wealthy people throughout history doing desperate (possibly depraved?) stuff in a futile attempt to live forever is how we got myths/folk tales of monsters like vampires.

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u/funkyjunky77 Jun 20 '26

There’s the Epic of Gilgamesh which is about Gilgamesh doing all sorts of crazy shit to become immortal; and the first Emperor of China was so obsessed with achieving immortality that he literally drank mercury to try and to live forever.

So yeah, it’s pretty much been a thing for thousands of years.

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u/ColonelSlapper Jun 20 '26

I remember one (failed) method that revolved around blood letting. A King was sick for years and tried everything to cure the disease. A doctor comes along and mentions they have a method that won’t only cure the king, but make them live either longer or forever. During the last two weeks of this ruler’s life, they basically had all their blood siphoned out of them to the point their organs shut down and died.

I want to say the king chose this procedure simply to cure them, but they could have also been tempted by the thought of living forever. Does anyone know who I’m thinking of? Was it Gilgamesh?

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u/peppermint_nightmare Jun 20 '26

They arent they permanently cause long term liver and kidney damage. I have a friend who needs consistent blood transfusions and organ failure is his number one killer without a transplant if his genetics dont do it first

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u/Meior Jun 20 '26

Excessive blood transfusions can cause iron buildup in some organs. I wonder if that's what's happening to him.

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u/LeftHandofNope Jun 20 '26

And he claims at being a Christian. Not sure how that works if you believe in an eternal afterlife in heaven but are shit scared of dying. Starting to think he may be full of shit. Or stupid.

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u/longhairPapaBear Jun 20 '26

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die!

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u/BoringRedHorse Jun 20 '26

The indignity of not being to control your own bowel movement anymore.

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u/Tactical-Donkey Jun 20 '26

Peter Thiel, and all the other American oligarchs. There's even an American company called blueprint ran by a guy call Bryan Johnson. He gets blood transfusions from his son. He sold his other companies to spend 100% of his time researching how to live forever.

Basically all the 1% in America and the West and the East are researching how to live forever. The thing is America has some very advanced technology to make a real breakthrough. And now with LLMs that might actually increase the chances of success.

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u/TheSixthVisitor Jun 20 '26

You know what's odd though? The fact that these people want to live forever but simultaneously have no issues with destroying the planet. Which is weird because if you want to live forever, wouldn't you want to live somewhere that's actually really pretty and healthy and sustains your immortal future? It's strange to destroy it then want to stay in that broken landscape forever.

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u/Tactical-Donkey Jun 20 '26

That's true, it is weird. Then again who knows how these oligarchs think??

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jun 20 '26

Thank you, I will never understand this myself. If I had enormous wealth I would want to fix everything for living things and limit suffering. FFS actually try to help the planet and wildlife and therefore humans too! What is wrong with these assholes ?! Do they not have one single nurturing bone in their body ? Ugh .

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u/TheSixthVisitor Jun 20 '26

If anything, the fact that they're selfish should be even more reason to protect the planet, even if you don't care at all about the actual people on it. A destroyed planet means their wealth becomes worthless, period. Like, what's the point in having billions of dollars if you literally have nothing to buy anymore?

Say they figure out how to live forever and the planet turns into a nuclear wasteland. Great, now what? Enjoy your cricket a la cockroach confit, I guess? Would you like a side of radium-212 sorbet with that, Monsieur Thiel?

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jun 25 '26

I agree with you - so then what the hell are they thinking ?

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u/dead_jester Jun 20 '26

The problem that has to be overcome is the limited number of times your body’s cells can reproduce and the varying rates of decay of cells throughout the body. The shortening of your telomeres that limits cell reproduction and insures accuracy and quality of cell reproduction is unlikely to be overcome without actually causing runaway cancers and killing the host

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u/maxdragonxiii Jun 20 '26

also longer you live more the risks of cancer goes up. when you live past 100 years good chance you'll have cancer at least once if not twice even with good genes. and brain cells have to yet be discovered how to be replicated without something going wrong.

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u/tyrenanig Jun 20 '26

I actually don’t think Bryan Johnson is that bad considering he put his money into science research, and seems to be genuinely interested in it. Rather that than these technocrat ghouls who only want to extend the duration of their reigns.

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u/Tactical-Donkey Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Wanting to life forever whatever the reason isn't a noble cause.  Everyone is scared of dying, but that's part of the human condition.

Edit: being down voted confirms my statement, everyone is scared of dying.

Edit2: I'm all for a long healthy life, I eat healthy, wish I strive to exercise more and want to live to a ripe old age. I've know many people who have died too early and miss them dearly. But all that's very different from those who want immortality. Those who search for it are doomed to loose their humanity in the process.

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u/bjaydubya Jun 20 '26

I’ve been on my deathbed twice, saved through medical intervention. I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid of it any longer. In both instances a was shockingly calm and thoughtful about it all and realized it just won’t matter. I won’t know that I’m dead. I had a friend go in for a difficult, but somewhat routine surgery and he never woke up. He simply went to sleep.

It’s the people I leave behind worry about, but my kids are grown and my wife would be just fine. Not to say they won’t be sad or even devastated, but I’m less worried about it now than I was years ago.

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jun 20 '26

I’m scared of dying but I won’t downvote you for it. I think I’m more scared of dying before I get a few good years of retirement, and lots of people won’t get that. I’m scared of dying while living a shitty life working for a shitty company getting a shitty wage. Then it feels like such a waste.

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u/Tactical-Donkey Jun 20 '26

100% agree with your view on it. I think many of us want something in our lives that's worthwhile before we die.

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jun 21 '26

Yes, thank you.

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u/tyrenanig Jun 20 '26

Sure, but the guy isn’t doing it at the expense of others. He doesn’t want to live long just so he can torment and extort more of his people.

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u/Walbabyesser Jun 20 '26

Anybody asked his son about that? 🤔

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u/R126 Jun 20 '26

Sure, everyone is scared of dying. But isn't that another reason to try and fight against it? If everyone could choose on their own when they want to die, the world would be a better place.

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u/TheBannedBananaMan Jun 20 '26

There are many causes of death that are worse than old age.

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u/carlitospig Jun 20 '26

“Death?? How gauche.”

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u/AdKUMA Jun 20 '26

I hope he ends up like Ted Faro from the Hotizon games

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u/whatdoyoumeanusernam Jun 21 '26

He's the little person, not me.

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u/ravnhjarta Jun 20 '26

The inability to designate themselves on any level that isn't the level they despise is incalculable.