#I've been watching Youtubes on NDEs lately

[littleapocalypsekitten]

This is a beautiful answer. Assuming that the person who went off on everybody isn't a troll and is sincere, I think this is exactly what is going on. (They will not see this. I've got them / fert blocked because I am in NO mood to be called a stupid bitch Nazi cunt, which seems to be all they are on). I took a look at their blog and they seem to enjoy a science-oriented Youtube channel that I also enjoy, and I have run into Transhumanism-arguments before. As I said on my other reply to this thread, I enjoy writing stories featuring it. I have the robot-consciousnesses-body-surfing version and it exists only for the rich / an artificial upper-class in my world, because I'm certain that it's how it will be if it happens. As also said on my other reply, I recently lost a loved one. A very close adult nephew / best friend. It's been hard. It was a sudden death - some outstanding health problems, but he wasn't even 40. In between planning the memorial-gathering for family and friends, it's been hard and I am familiar with how the emotions go wonky. I've been having bouts of unbridled rage, for instance, but not taking it out on internet strangers (instead, I've been threatening God. I was relieved when my psych doc told me that this was normal). We all get weird when faced directly with mortality, so, yes, I do wonder if Fitzory/fert/whomever has lost someone recently or has had a scary brush with death. I have compassion for them if their emotions are out of whack because of that (but still have them blocked because with my emotions out of whack, I will definitely react to their abrasiveness by saying things I'll regret). What is at heart is a failure to understand. What OP was talking about was making a joke about cosmetics and the beauty industry that asks us to conform to a standard that not all of us onery old cusses want to conform to. Fitz takes it in a completely other direction (science stuff) and it collapses their whole world. They need to step back, take a breath. Being anti-aging and anti-death as a philosophy really does not work with wanting people to die. (A fight or flight instinct? Sure, but it doesn't sell their philosophy). If they're going into it with this attitude, it's pretty much a kind of non-religious Calvinism, isn't it? They reserve the right to pick and chose who will make it to their future deathless utopia ("heaven") while everyone whom they do not like, all the way down to people who "gasp!" disagreed with them! on the Internet!" gets cast into oblivion. Part of the reason why these guys have never "sold" transhumanism to me. Yes, I'd like the elders in my family to get reverse-aged and get their mobility back and their health problems cured. No, I don't want to lose anyone else. Living to 300 years or more with good health like the High Elves in Skyrim would be pretty awesome. However, forever? I'd take a Heaven I'm not sure exists, or even oblivion unless these guys eventually learn how to bring back literal dust and ashes (the family cremated my nephew, we are planning a scattering in a natural setting in his childhood home state later this year). If the option happens and others want to live forever, fine, but I am likely to opt out. Too many people I miss. Even if I'm wrong about the spiritual notions I like to keep, even oblivion seems better. I think the scientific miracles that fert is hoping for are unlikely in any of our livetimes. I hope fert can make fert's peace. (And STOP wishing early death on those of us who may not want to live forever, but definitely want to live longer).

scrunching my face real hard rn

[poodleman]

Okay so I just drank a bottle of Belgian beer for the first time in ages which I hope is a suitable preface for what is to follow. I also have a confession to make: lately I have been swept up with watching NDE (near death experience) videos. 34+ years ago I went wayward from my born-again path, though some time after that phase when I was high on weed I would get paranoid that God was going to condemn me to hell if I died. I am of an older generation--self-identifying as gen-x although on the cusp with that and boomer--that has been largely exposed to scientific materialism, some of which was made manifest in the "cool crowd" spouting existentialism-isms like "life's a bitch and then you die" (which would sometimes be corrected in response to "life's a bitch and then you marry one", charming, isn't it?). I'm sure I have a point here, bear with me and I'll find it. Deep down I have never quite accepted that we just live our lives and then die and then rot in the ground, turn to food for the worms and that's it. It feels lately like I've discovered a new religion, only this one--at least for the time being--is not subject to dogmatic calcification. It appears to me to be more than a coincidence or some kind of snake oil side hustle that so many people being interviewed on these NDE YouTube podcasts share so many similarities in their stories. Also, some of these interviewees are scientists and academics and one show, "Next Level Soul" has a host formerly in the film industry who interviews a well-known producer also from the film industry who produced a film starring Robin Williams. Another interview is with a woman who is part of the current Artemis mission from NASA to re-visit the moon. Other subjects, however, come from many walks of life, as in a former drug addict and prostitute or a hospital nurse. Things get flaky for me, however, when there is talk of higher vibrations and "quantum healing," a term apparently coined by Deepak Chopra. It's as if everybody has an inexplicable knowledge of quantum physics. This said, I still want to believe. In a weird way it makes more sense to me than just dying and becoming worm fodder. The appeal for me lies in things like the afterlife apparently being free of judgment and that there exists there a love that is incomprehensible within this lowly 3D earthly realm. What I don't like is that there is a tittering council of twelve that is very persuasive in sending you back to the earthly hellscape because that's what you agreed to before you were born into your present life (which you still have to go back to because your work isn't finished and if you refuse you will be reborn into a new earthly life). At the very least it's a colourful landscape and one far more convincing, at least to me, than, for example, Christian fundamentalism. And really, what harm is there in having some sort of mythos permeating your existence?

So what follows is a few of the YouTube videos I've been watching lately. Drinking a beer and chilling out seems to be the best response. Rochefort Trappiste 8, if you're curious.