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Comment by pyrrhotech | Hacker News Reader

What is boring about it? Is living 40 years more boring than living 30? What about living 1000 years instead of living 100 years? At what point does it become boring?

It's hard for humans to conceptualize eternity, so don't think of it in those terms. If I could live in my current body for 1000 years, I'd still never get around to most of my backlog of things I'd like to do.

Boredom is mostly caused by lack of purpose IMO. As long as there is something to learn, something to explore, something to achieve, something new or pleasurable to experience, boredom is the last thing I'd worry about.

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Boredom is a common argument against immortality that is completely derived from pure speculation because nobody has ever lived long enough to experience that feeling of suicidal boredom.

I spend great portions of my life being bored. Never has my boredom ever interfered or had any connection with my desire to live or be immortal. It's pure bullshit to even imply there is a connection.

I would find it hard to believe there's a single human in all of history that would be bored if they found themselves living in present day. Especially now that we're in the Information Age, more and more boredom is becoming a conscious choice for anyone with an internet connection, rather than an inescapable circumstance.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. I can be bored and on the internet at the same time.

Aren't you usually avoiding something, though, when you do that?

The thing I'm trying and failing to avoid is boredom. In short I try to alleviate boredom by going on the internet, however I am still quite bored.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm just trying to understand. I can't relate to this. I might 'feel bored' when I have something I feel I must do, but which I don't want to do. And then I may procrastinate, by turning to the internet, only to find this even more dissatisfying.

But if I have some free time with truly no demands, I need only commit myself to something fun and interesting - even something as simple as reading a novel.

Wait... maybe that's the key. Maybe we try to use the internet to alleviate boredom because it doesn't take any commitment, and maybe it fails to satisfy for that same reason. But what if you are willing to put a little more effort or investment into your distractions? Find a good movie, turn down the lights and really pay attention? Or approach the internet with a sense of purpose....?

I was bounding this conclusion on the possibility that someone could be alive until the end of time, that could be a million or a billion years . I think under those constraints it's entirely plausible that life would lose all meaning.

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