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The Ideal Way to Die

FlaccidDoor March 30, 2021 at 05:43 4500 views 20 comments
I recently made a discussion post about what you would leave behind at death. It reminded me of a question I asked people: If you can set up everything perfectly, how would you die?

Some notable answers I got were: Jumping into a volcano doing flips and tricks, strapping yourself to a giant firework and exploding (that's mine), piloting a missile to kamikaze into a terrorist bunker, and getting murdered with a katana in a murder mystery where the room is locked from the inside.

Comments (20)

Book273 March 30, 2021 at 10:10 #516504
Reply to FlaccidDoor Defending my family from an angry grizzly always had appeal to me. Sure I am likely gonna lose, but somewhere after there will be a big ass bear packing a scar I gave him. That'll work for me.
180 Proof March 30, 2021 at 22:45 #516757
Ideal death: As a mindfile in a 'matrix-like' Matrioshka brain which is falling into a supermassive blackhole.
Pinprick March 31, 2021 at 04:28 #516870
Spontaneous combustion seems fun. But seriously, I’d prefer to just die cancer or something like that. I know it seems morbid, but part of me really wants to know what death feels like, which obviously means I have to actually experience it, which means instantaneous ways of dying are out. On the other hand, I’m very averse to pain and feel like the knowledge that you’re dying would be unbearable.
180 Proof March 31, 2021 at 05:31 #516879
The worst way to die that I can imagine is any way of dying that torments me so unbearably that I'm begging to die immediately, incapacitated to the point where I cannot euthanize myself, and the dying just goes on and on and fuckin' on ... :grimace:
FlaccidDoor March 31, 2021 at 17:54 #517055
Reply to Pinprick I feel like slowly dying from cancer would be somewhat painful, although I have no clue. Chemotherapy at the very least looks pretty uncomfortable.
FlaccidDoor March 31, 2021 at 17:58 #517058
Reply to 180 Proof Yeah I agree. That's why I want to die in a firework where flying up would be scary, but I get a good view before instantaneously being blown apart into a good view.
Ying March 31, 2021 at 21:36 #517124
Quoting FlaccidDoor
If you can set up everything perfectly, how would you die?


Ascension, obviously. I'm an agnostic btw.
FlaccidDoor March 31, 2021 at 21:43 #517125
Reply to Ying Ascension, as in, to heaven? So given that heaven exists, you would choose ascension as compared to descent (to hell). But then that doesn't deal with how you die at all, unless you mean to say die in a way that God would approve your entry.

Or am I misunderstanding and you want to be shot up miles into the sky?
Ying April 01, 2021 at 10:16 #517302
I'm talking about ascending to a higher plane of existence... It was meant as a joke btw. :wink:
Gus Lamarch April 03, 2021 at 01:04 #517950
Quoting FlaccidDoor
If you can set up everything perfectly, how would you die?


What if we didn't have to die? I believe that this doubt is preferable to the fact of death.
praxis April 03, 2021 at 03:10 #517996
Alone, in pain, and miserable. I only say that because that's how I imagine it will be, and I don't want to be disappointed when the time comes.
FlaccidDoor April 04, 2021 at 05:05 #518435
Reply to Gus Lamarch Yes, I think many people would agree with you, but that kind of defeats the philosophical point of the question.
FlaccidDoor April 04, 2021 at 05:42 #518448
Reply to Ying That makes a lot more sense.

Reply to praxis Knowing you can control everything, you would still try to keep it as bad as you can make it because you don't want to be disappointed? It sounds like a very sad case of a self fulfilling prophecy.
Maw April 06, 2021 at 03:12 #519267
Choked to death by an extremely attractive woman
Maw April 06, 2021 at 03:12 #519268
Or knifed by one
180 Proof April 06, 2021 at 09:43 #519330
@Maw –

The OP asks about the ideal, not the erotic, death. :smirk:


Btw, how extremely do you mean by "extremely attractive"?
Saphsin April 06, 2021 at 09:46 #519332
I'm more simple, I just want to go to bed after having a fun day and the next morning just happens to be the time I no longer wake up.
Maw April 06, 2021 at 14:41 #519405
Quoting 180 Proof
Btw, how extremely do you mean by "extremely attractive"?


Think a young Monica Vitti, Anna Karina, or Bibi Andersson
praxis April 07, 2021 at 18:16 #519861
Quoting FlaccidDoor
Knowing you can control everything, you would still try to keep it as bad as you can make it because you don't want to be disappointed? It sounds like a very sad case of a self fulfilling prophecy.


Some believe that what we can control is quite limited so it is as though you are endorsing a happy fantasy, from that vantage point. If we have no expectations, or low expectations, we can't be disappointed, and as a wiseman once said...

[quote=Wiseman]There is no worse death than a death in disappointment, thus we should seek the death of disappointment.[/quote]
FlaccidDoor April 08, 2021 at 04:42 #520061
Reply to praxis So you don't want to consider an ideal death because then that would raise your expectation? I feel like we refer to an ideal as an ideal partly because we consider it an impossible prospect. As in, an ideal shouldn't be associated that closely with something as real as expectations.

If you don't want to be disappointed, would your ideal death be where you expect the most painful death, but the actual experience was like a flip of a light switch?