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It really is. My great-grandfather was born in 1898 and died in 1999. He almost lived in three different centuries. He rode a horse and buggy in his youth and played Windows Solitaire in his later years.
Ha! My great grandma beat yours! She was born in 1898 and died in 2002!
That’s a weird flex, but you made me laugh.
I doubt they flex much anymore but hey a laugh is a laugh.
Ah! Rigor mortis joke
I thought it was an arthritis joke, but either way I think it’s a little stiff
At my buddy’s great grandmother’s funeral they said “She was born century before last”. I don’t remember the years but it would have been similar to yours.
Fuck, that’s my dream but realistically it won’t happen. I’m an early 90s kid. I would have to live a decent bit over 100 to see 3 centuries.
I’d have to hit 130.
I’m not sure there’s even that much more of this century I want to see.
At least you got it easier than us 2000s kids. I have to live to 96 just to see two!
Except for strictly 2000 kids, those will get to live in three centuries before turning 101
It’s kind of a sad way to live. Your family is mostly dead and all your friends are gone. And the world isn’t what you knew anymore. So you just sit there and wait to die yourself.
Yea I see what you mean, I only really have my siblings, fiancee and mother that I care about so I’m not worried about extended family. I have a handful of great friends but I’m perfectly content with being alone, I often go solo camping to get away from things. I’ve long since made peace with what my dream entails if I ever were to live that long.
Being content with being alone isn’t quite the same thing as knowing the world you lived in is gone and you are all that’s left. And all that you have left is dying.
I remember on New Years Eve 1999 the local newspaper ran an article that was interviewing people who’d been alive for the last turn of the century and comparing the two New Years’ celebrations. In hindsight I wish 10 year old me had had the presence of mind to save it, it was pretty neat.
I have a recording of interviews I did with all my living grandparents for a school project when I was a kid. One thing that stood out was the level of abject poverty they experienced. They were teenagers during the great depression and it definitely had a major impact on all of them.
Would you be willing to digitize that recording and upload it to the Internet Archive for preservation? You certainly don’t have to add the link here, but I believe it would be a wonderful thing for the next generations to watch one day.
I love watching old restored footage so I can vicariously experience that moment in time and reflect on how far humanity has progressed.
I love this idea! I have videos of my grandparents where my dad interviews them about their lives. And then one of my dad when we interviewed him about his life after he was diagnosed with cancer. Can’t really bear to watch that one but some day I should save them online somewhere. I like the idea of them being part of an archive and part of searchable history fo future generations
I think it’s a noble thing to preserve these digital recordings. It’s tough, because they’re the individual person’s memories. But long after we’re dead and our names and lives are forgotten, it would be an important artifact for our future generations to have access to.
Now I’m thinking about all the old VHS tapes my parents have. If they haven’t already degraded, I’m going to ask for those tapes and see what it costs to digitize them myself.
That’s amazing. We can all hope to be so lucky.
No we cannot and will not.
Instead of living that long, I would like to donate those years to the rest of you people. What’s 120 ÷ 8 000 000 000?
Same for my Great-Grandfather, but it was much more than that when I look at his life.
Went from horse and buggies and steam trains, lived through 2 world wars, saw rural electrification - 1930s for him - bring lights and washing machines and telephones, survived his own pandemic - Spanish Flu 1918-1919, saw the invention of automobiles, radios, and TVs, heavier than air flight, the Great Depression, the beginnings of the digital world, and watched the Moon Landings with me sitting in his favorite chair in our living room.
When he died, no one really knew how old he was - there was no official record of his birth certificate since he was born at home in a very rural area. While I’m old myself now and have seen some few changes, I cannot fathom the sheer number of societal upheavals and disruptions he went through every decade of his life.
Well, let’s see. Depending on your age, you were alive when JFK was assassinated. You watched the moon landing. You were alive during the Vietnam War. You remember 9/11, the Great Recession, and the spread of Facebook. You were alive when America elected its first Black president. You witnessed the explosion of technology, namely, smart phones. You’ve driven on roads alongside self-driving electric vehicles. You survived an international pandemic. You have access to the largest library of human knowledge to ever exist. If you’d like to, you can have a decent conversation with something pretending to be human.
I’d say you’ve lived through a decent chunk of history as well.
Everyone lives through history. But few live to see so many wrenching changes as his generation did. The best I can say I lived through was the beginning of the internet and the inter-connection of every person on the planet.
Wow. I played Windows Solitaire when I was in primary school. Even if I don’t make it there I wonder how different the world will be 99 years after my birth.
At this rate, probably playing the last working copy of windows solitaire. It has to be run on a system cobbled together using 73 year old black market parts to hide the copy from our corporate overloards, otherwise risk the auto detect sytetem to disable the computer and send the police robots to your door.
You joke, but the solitaire police are fucking brutal. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we aligned them perfectly to crack down on all of us.
By then, they’ll have released Solitaire 2.
The oldest person alive right now was born in 1907 and is 117. Depending on how well her memory has held up, she might be able to remember a time that nobody else in the whole world can.
She deserves a free xbox
She’s eligible for AARP, which gets her 10% off at Bonefish Grill.
Do they sell XBox’s there by chance?
Yes.
Imagine being born before World War I and still being alive. You’ve seen more change in the world than anyone ever has, more deeply transforming events and previously unimaginable things become real. Even teens complain about changes in the world and many work so hard to stop them, I can only imagine experiencing so much makes those things seem so childish and ignorant.
And you know, in a way it goes even deeper, because for her parents, at least half of their life and frame of reference took place in the 1800’s. When she was born, 10 year olds would have their earliest memories be of the late 1890s. And the adults around her would be able to vividly remember and discuss events they were present for way back in to the 1850s or even earlier, depending on how much contact she had with old people.
Also, I’m in my late 20s now, and I recently had the startling realization that the old people I remember from my childhood don’t really exist anymore. When I was a kid, old people used to be prim and proper. They dressed a certain way, much more formal and traditional. They weren’t all uptight, but they had an idea of what’s proper or not, and wouldn’t be afraid to tell you. They were typically more quiet and less outspoken. All the women knew how to cook and sew, and all the men knew how to do woodwork and make leather shoes shine forever.
I had this realization the other day walking through my city, when I suddenly noticed how all the old people don’t seem that old anymore. They’re all relaxed and casual, dressing up in colors. They actually smile at you on the street and seem to have a sense of humor. And then it hit me: they’re not even the same generation. Old people are the kids of the old people I remember. They grew up with the early prototype of modern rock and pop. They were hippies and greasers. I think the end of WWII and the invention of modern pop culture reaching out beyond the cities really made a cut down between those two generations, the current old people and their parents.
This comment ran longer than expected. Thanks for coming to my ted Talk.
I had a client years ago who was in his late 80’s. He grew up on a farm in Indiana and I remember him telling me a story about threshing grain. He was just a kid in the 1920’s, shoveling coal into the firebox on a big Case steam engine that they took from farm to farm. He said they would try to stay near a creek whenever they could so they had a water source for the engine. It was hard, hot work. He said there was a “big German fella” who worked on their crew who never drank anything but hot black coffee, something which fascinated him as kid.
It was an interesting story to listen to. Such a mundane activity but the fact that it’s no longer a thing and only existed in the memory of someone who remembered doing it made it kind of fascinating
The internet is incredible. This post is full of insight and wonder and I feel like I’ve already read it many times before and didn’t bother with finishing reading it. I’m completely ignoring the reply to it by gooslife too.
My grandfather was born in 1910. He was a bombardier in WWII for the US Army Air Corps, since the US Air Force didn’t exist yet. He’s no longer with us, but his life was so very different than mine. He grew up on a farm with a horse and carriage. I grew up in an apartment playing Atari.
Oh absolutely not. No thank you. The world at large has my permission to smother me with a pillow if I hit 90 and don’t die. But it’s fine, I’m sure the microplastics/ultraprocessed food/climate change/whatever will take me out before that.
maybe by infusing with the plastics we will take on their longevity
I fucking hope not.
People say wild stuff like this when they’re young. The 89-year-olds in this scenario change their minds. Every time.
Speaking as a nurse that’s done a lot of hospice and goals of care discussions: it’s absolutely not every time. Lots of folks primarily want to die with dignity.
That’s actually and ironically super encouraging to hear! I’ve become afraid of this trap that I see miserable older people slide into at will.
Thank you.
Edit: responded to the wrong comment, don’t mind me.
You seriously overestimate climate change unless you’re already old, infirmed, live near a coast and are poorer than dirt.
Everyone else is pretty much going to be fine.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Oh you doomer zoomers…
I mean even if you aren’t old now you’ll be old eventually. And then the heat’s gon’ get you
That’s not how climate change works lol. Some areas become cooler, some become warmer. On average it gets hotter by 2.5 degrees or less now.
That means unless you live somewhere that can’t stave it off like near a lowlying coastline or in other heavily affected areas already well predicted, then you will literally be fine.
Better people than the average Lemming listen when they hear people are going to die or have their lives severely affected.
As someone who lives somewhere that’s supposed to be cold for 5+ months of the year, with snow on the ground and everything… Our grass was green last winter, not white because it’s covered in snow.
We had cold snaps but they lasted days, and the majority of the “winter” was spent above freezing. I haven’t seen anything like it in the last 40 years (my entire life), and I expect much the same next year.
Good thing I invested in that snow blower… It makes for some lovely decoration in my garage and does a really good job at collecting dust.
On average it gets hotter by 2.5 degrees or less now.
Yes on average over a multiple decade period. This says nothing about how weather is going to change and it’s likely to change a lot. Extreme weathers are going to be way more likely anywhere you are.
Haha wow. I typed up a comment about how being 90 would meet your requirement, but then I realized there was no or and you meant you’d have to be all of the above. You’re nuts lol.
Every time I feel old I remember that all of my grandparents lived to well over 90 and that I’m barely halfway through my life. With modern medicine and the Boomers beta testing any advances, I’ll probably live to 130 with good quality of life with just over the counter medication and regular automated cancer screenings.
And extra colon cancer screenings if I’m a good boy.
I can’t afford to live as long as my grandparents.
Neither did they, but they borrowed from future generations.
Now ppl can’t & even might not want to live that long.
I sure as fuck don’t.
80% of my time here has been fucking miserable, why the fuck would I want to to continue???
Ikr?
Like, I have statistical proof from my own life, at 99.5% confidence level I can say that the downhill trend will only accelerate, and the results of most of my life match the model completely.
I can’t afford to live now, when I’m old and can’t work, I might as well die because I certainly won’t be able to afford to live.
I hope I don’t make it to 80, that I don’t have to muster the courage to action my principles. Let me die with meaning before I’m no longer contributing to our fight for dignity. A body without a brain is little more than a vessel for profit.
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As an American, if I can’t die of heart disease all at once liked a normal person, then I have staggeringly excessive secondary options to remedy my own excessive lifespan.
My grandfather just turned 95. He will probably continue voting for Republicans until he is 120.
Another 5 years and then he can run for president
Millennials worst nightmare.
But I think its clear that through freedom and equity of the markets we have chosen to fight this problem and mitigate the number of people becoming old. You can see the results already.
My great grandmother only budgeted her retirement to live until 90. When she turned 91, she fixed her will to leave less. She’s turning 98 soon and constantly is afraid she’ll run completely out of money. She jokes that she’ll end her life any day now to avoid having us deal with her debt.
It’s absolutely horrifying thinking like that.
Oh, forced to inherit your families debt is fucked up law anyways, middle-ages shit.
In a more human (socialist) world aging population means more social transfers for healthcare (and/or providing minimal income/pensions), but also more people working in that sector (doctors, nurses, carers, etc). All of that is a challenge for millennials and gen-z to finance (or let them just die).
And I don’t se capitalism solving that issue in a humane non-Soylent-Green manner.
This will happen to all of us if quantum immortality is real.
Meh. Solipsism is lame. Way more fun to believe in a world where my actions have consequences
I like dualipsism. There’s two of us across infinite lifetimes and we have no idea who’s who
Nice. I like the one where I’m Batman and you’re Joker
Wait I thought those were both you…
Ohh well this iss embarrassing…
I wouldn’t say it’s more fun, but it doesn’t matter since actions with consequences are what we’re stuck with. Unless you’re really rich and/or famous, but that’s a different subject.
Well, if you’re everyone then you are really rich. Just not in your current consciousness. You’re also homeless, so there’s that…
It’s not.
Really? Do something to prove it.
Can you disprove the existence of God? That’s the same argument.
I mean, you can try to kill yourself, and if you survive each attempt then you are quantum immortal.
But, this is my universe, so you probably won’t survive in mine. But in yours, you’ll be immortal!
Of course statistically the odds of surviving through any given second decreases until eventually reaching a number so infinitesimally small that it is effectively zero.
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“Quantum immortality” is magical thinking for people that aren’t comfortable with their own mortality. It’s functionally no different than belief in an afterlife.
That is not true. Quantum immortality does not mean you will live forever. It means that whenever there’s a non-zero chance of surviving something, you will do so. At one point you will die in all conceivable universes, at which point your consciousness is finally gone.
How could you be immortal though? You will eventually reach the end of your natural age. Or does it propose that we will jump back to previous possibilities at some point with no knowledge of our older self? I can see that there would be branches of my choices and universes where my actions led to my deaths, but my consciousness is a continual stream forward.
I didn’t take 90 years to get to that, sadly. 1/3 of that at most.
I’m straight, 70 to 80 years is enough
You could try being gay for 40 years more then
There gets to be a point for most of us where we go from “sexual preference” to “meh.” Sex drives tend to evaporate eventually.
That’s actually why being open to having a “roommate” when your old makes more sense. Don’t need physical anymore just the emotional. But I dk I’ll see when I get there.
I’m not so sure this is true - retirement communities are one of the biggest hotbeds of STIs
I was referring to the if you’re not going for physical does being straight or gay matter?
I was more addressing not going for physical anymore - you don’t get an STI unless you’re getting physically intimate!
Same. Any more and just about anyone you know and can relate to is dead. And I have kids and perhaps they’ll have kids, but when I’m 90 and all my friends are dead, and anyone I looked to in life for guidance is dead, and I can’t commiserate with people about the old days of the Internet or what things used to be like without hearing “oh grandpa,” what really is the point?
Things might be different in 50 years if I have a robot body I reckon 90 won’t be so bad.
I started at the place I’m working at now right out of college, and there was a pension that was intended to provide 85% of your final salary from retirement to the end of your life; I would have had all my retirement points at 55. Then like 15+ years ago, the company was sold and the pension was frozen. Still a great thing, but nothing close to what it was supposed to be.
When I turned 55, I was pretty pissed off about it - I should have been able to retire. Then I realized that I could easily live another 30 years. That’s an awfully long time. Sure, the money would have been nice, but I don’t think I would have wanted to retire then. I’m getting close to it now, and still it seems like a long time potentially.
I’m not 40 and I’m ready to retire, the pandemic had me test it for 14 months and yeah, sign me up!
Do you have a game plan for what you’d do? Not rhetorical, I’m curious.
I worked with a guy who I thought would really love retirement. He and his wife traveled a lot, and he had a couple hobbies he was passionate about. I met him for lunch a couple years later, and he was morose and said he regretted retirement. He said he still loved traveling, but it was something they only wanted to do two, maybe three trips a year. He was excited about doing his hobbies more, but doing them all day felt like it was his job and sucked some of the fun out of them. So he ended up sitting on the couch watching TV all day.
Meanwhile, the place we work has way more than a normal cross section of brilliant people, and we do super interesting stuff. He said he loved talking with friends and family, but he desperately missed solving problems with literal rocket scientists.
I’m still going to retire next year, but stories like that give me pause.
Just work part time instead of full time or do contract work for several months a year
Yeah, I thought about it. I’m a manager at my company, and my actual software development skills are pretty antiquated. Could probably do requirements and architecture, but they don’t need me for that (certainly not at my pay level). I can’t be a part time manager. I’m guessing there are a couple things they’ll ask me back for, weird niche experience I have, but those things don’t happen every year.
I’ll probably be fine. I’m don’t get bored very easily. We’re planning to relocate when I retire, so settling in and exploring will soak up a lot of time for a while. Should be fine.
I must be too easy to please or something but I work so I can enjoy life outside of work and even being stuck at home while pretty much everything was closed was enjoyable to me…
I don’t need a plan because I know what I love to do and I find that people who focused on work all their life have a hard time with retirement because they never took the time to truly start enjoying their time outside work (I’ve got tons of examples of that from seeing colleagues retiring and I could tell which ones were going to be bored and would go and find another job because that’s all they’ve ever had as a “hobby”).
If I could retire tomorrow I would build a four season house to replace our three season cottage, I would go hiking every day (to the joy of my dog), play video games, watch movies, read books, cook, go camping… All the things I already know that I enjoy and that work gets in the way of.
I’m (unfortunately) not even close to retirement, but everything you said, I agree with. For me, a job is like a train track, and I’m on the train and life is just going, and I get off at stops here and there, but that clickity-clack is a constant white noise. Perhaps it’s me remembering the immaturity of when I was younger, but I’ve always found that when I don’t have work, I seem less focused on general.
I am fortunate to have a good job, and I don’t love it, but it’s more than tolerable, which to me is the benchmark. I assume how you feel about your job is a big factor in this whole discussion. I imagine I’ll work less when I hit the magic social security number, but the thought of retiring just stopping working entirely one day just doesn’t make sense to me.
I’ve been working at my company for 39 years (I’ve done a lot of different things in that time, so it isn’t stale). I like the work and the people, and it feels important, but it’s getting tough when the alarm clock goes off, and I’m beat when the day is over. I’m getting ready to pull the plug, but I’d be a liar if I said I had no reservations.
Work definitely does suck the life out of you, regardless of whether or not you like it. Just hard to focus on something all day and not be tired.
I won’t say good luck in retirement, because I don’t know what that means. So I’ll just say see you around the fediverse, because there’s no retiring from this life.
Thanks! And same to you!
Keep busy with something. The day a man retires is the day he begins to die. Always keep busy, just try to be happy about it & maybe take a slower pace.
A couple years back, I saw a really old woman slinging fries at McD’s. She seemed happy enough, not destitute, this job was just something not too difficult to do to pass the time.
I’m more of a coffeeshop guy, myself. I could see myself doing that.
That is a bit of a worry. A big issue is that I really like to read. I already read kind of a stupid number of books. I have to not let that escalate too much when I’m not working 40+ hours a week.
“have to not let that escalate too much”
Why? You’re retiring so you can spend time doing the things you like doing, you’ll feel much more fulfilled if you do things you like with your time instead of forcing yourself to do something you don’t enjoy…
Because reading a book is about the must sedentary thing there is, and I need to get out of the chair sometimes.
That is the cool thing you can retire at 55 and then do more of what you want maybe take a part time role or just find a new job or hobby. Then with the excess income you are so secure you can just fly to Paris if you want or go spend time with your kids for a month without worrying about bills or having the pressure of work.
I’ll settle for 50, i don’t need more of this madness we call life.
Oh shit, 50 comes a lot faster and is a lot younger than you might think.
I get it, i’m only 14 years away from it. The first 14 felt a lot longer than the last 14 up until today.
I don’t really know how to explain my reasoning, i think i’m just done and i’ve been done for a long time.
From my perspective i’ve given all i had to give and apparently it’s been the opposite of what i had to do.
I promised the wife i wouldn’t step out and that’s basically why i’m around today. I like to think i’m here for her, but i basically pay the bills and help her with information on how to reach the next step on the ladder of her plans. But tbh i could give so much more if i wasn’t the way i am, i’m always looking for something to silence the constant noise and it usually involves spending money on things that keep me busy while that money could be used to help her buy the things that make her progress faster.
I’ve tried getting help, but i have this thing where i keep shutting down at the worst possible time and instead of pushing through the help i contacted basically pulled out and pushed me away. I gave up looking for answers.
I don’t mean to intrude or push in any way, but your story sounds familiar and I found Running on empty to be an interesting read, if you ever feel inclined.
Good luck.
I might get that book, that’s the only chance of me finishing it if i can keep my curiosity for it alive.
This might not be helpful, in that case sorry, but the idea that came to my mind first was:
Do something every day that’s a little uncomfortable and out of your comfort zone that helps your own progress. Do it every day, even if just a little bit, like study or work out or some bit of work on a personal project. If you do it every day you can build up to something.
I had a boss who was older but studying for her masters, and was lamenting it was discouraging being the oldest person in the class doing it. The prof told her “well, you’ll either turn 50 with the masters degree or without it, which do you prefer?”
Doing something out of my comfort zone has been my baseline for the past 12 years.
I don’t believe it’ll build to something tho. I’ve been trying to build airbrushing, 3d printing and fusion360 into something for the past 15 years…where 3d printing came in 5 years ago.
If i managed to pull this off like 7 years ago or something along that time i might have found some success, but i feel like i need another 12 years before i reach the point of being knowledgable anough.
Wow sounds like a cool niche and activity!
Only a niche if you let it become one, 3d printing is one of the most versatile things you could do.
Agreed. I’m less than a decade out from it and I’m a millennial.
I’m hoping to at least make it to 65+.
Though, the prospect of retiring is something I consider to be out of reach, so… I’ll be working until I knock off.
I hit that mark at 59
