Personally, I want to die. Not now, not in a suicidal way, but I'm just content with the knowledge that I have a limited time here on Earth and it will be over some day. Even when you're doing enjoyable things, we take solace in the fact that we can "get away for a while" and stop doing that thing. We all (presumably) enjoy Magic, but if you've ever played in a large tournament in contention for prize you'll know the feeling of eventually just wanting it to be over. Most people enjoy sex, but having sex all the time, 24/7 is simply exhausting to your mind and body. I see life in the same sort of way. There are vast numbers of small things we can do to keep ourselves entertained in our mortal lives, but that number (the number of discrete desirable experiences possible in life) is finite. So at some point, I would want to die. Being immortal just means I'd have a few more years to get bored of life, or a few hundred more, or a few thousand.
Oh, I thought he was talking about playing a spell that is countering a spell with counters on it as it comes into play, but I see you guys were just discussing whether he was flashing a creature with flash in order to flash a flashback or just flashing a creature with flash but not needing flash in order to flashback a spell without flash.
People fear death because they fear the unknown. Society in general, lives for plans in the future instead of living for the moment, the here and now. Every funeral I have been to I hear, 'We were supose to do 'x' in 2 weeks.' or 'I have not talked to them in months.' We take advantage that others will always be there. When they die, it makes us think about our own mortality. It scares some, others can handle it quite well.
Personally I am not scared to die. I try and live my life with no regrets.
I see the "base" of morality as basically building cooperative customs to improve the survival of the human race and/or subgroups such as tribe, country, etc. What's "bad" is whatever leads to your group dying in the long run. So yeah, of course death is quite frequently "bad", because "bad" is defined by extinction.
This is not to say you can't construct some fancy morality systems like a categorical imperative or what not, but this above just feels like too effective a psychological explanation of morality. Human morality is at times awfully similar to watching "altruistic" behavior in numerous species that gives them an edge in species selection.
Is the distinction between these two concepts that clear-cut? "This food shortage is good because it means that even a simple loaf of bread will bring satisfaction."
The problem lies in the words "This food shortage is good". It isn't.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
If we can't even agree that a food shortage is a situation that society should try to avoid, then I don't see how we can have any productive conversation about value.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I gave you specifically the point of view from which to look at it. It's analogous to what quirkiness said: the value ascribed to something is a function of its abundance. Just because there are very bad consequences associated with a typical food shortage doesn't mean that this stops applying: people will ascribe more value to food when it's short in supply znd less when it's very abundant. Why would this be any different than money, time or dual lands?
It's not any different. That's my point. In every case, the value reflects the fact that the commodity is something everybody wants more of than they have. A high value is not a good state of affairs. It is a consequence of a bad state of affairs. If you think it's good that a food shortage increases the value of food, you do not understand what value is. (Or perhaps you have a stockpile of food and are poised to make a fortune. What's bad in general can still be good for some people. But even here, note that the one who benefits is the one who has more food than he needs.)
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
-If something is abundant, it will have little value. If it were to suddenly become scarce, its value won't immediately change proportionally. Thus, abundance makes for lower tolerance of sudden disturbances.
I don't understand how either of the latter two sentences follow from the first, from any other facts we know, or from each other.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
There are a lot of interesting points brought up in it, but it all boils down to:
Why is death perceived as a "bad" thing?
"So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more." - Epicurus
(For the sake of discussion, set aside the notion of an afterlife. You die, you cease to exist.)
Death is often perceived as "bad" because of emotions. Without emotions, you would not care so much about it. Though, I suppose that even if someone had no natural fear of death and did not perceive it as negative in any way, they could still say "there's still things I want to accomplish".
If death is not bad then why do we punish murderers? Sure maybe those few moments of agony are not morally correct, but what if somebody poisons you in your sleep? Should this person not go punished because the dead guy isn't capable of acknowledging his death?
If somebody says death is not bad, then i don't see why they don't also support peaceful exterminations of people. If anything, that would be good because there is only a net benefit to all parties involved:
-The dead don't care because they're dead.
-The guy doing the mass murder is getting his jollies off.
So some family members are sad. It is not their place to decide how valuable that person's life is. Even then, what if the family did not care or what if the family were the killers? If everybody who could possibly care about this person were in on the peaceful murder, does that give a moral justification?
I think not. Death is also not a necessity. It is not something that must come. Not only are there creatures that can live forever (in theory), but our own deaths are biologically programmed occurrences that can be fixed along with the side-effects of fixing those things. I do not find it hard to believe that in not too many years time we will not only extend human life spans beyond the natural limit but to also make ourselves effectively immortal.
To this end, i say death is "bad" in the sense that it ends life, which we value. Even if we had an infinite amount of life, we would value it as it would be favorable to death. Given the choice, i would choose to live forever. I think anybody that does not value life enough to choose the same has a mental disability in some regard; if you do not value life your life now, and even if you will not value it in the future, you are in a sense suicidal.
If somebody says death is not bad, then i don't see why they don't also support peaceful exterminations of people.
I don't think death itself is bad, but I certainly do think genocide and murder are bad. The end product of both is death, but in this case it's the means, not the end.
I also disagree that death is not a necessity. It's part of the cycle of life and is perfectly natural. How do you justify the statement that it isn't a necessity?
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A tier 3 Legacy deck was named after me. What have you done with your life?
I don't think death itself is bad, but I certainly do think genocide and murder are bad. The end product of both is death, but in this case it's the means, not the end.
why are those bad? what makes the means so much worse than the end in this case? i already stated the possibility that everybody that could possibly care about that person being in on the execution. who is compromised in this scenario? everybody ends up happier at the end except for the man who existed before his demise.
I also disagree that death is not a necessity. It's part of the cycle of life and is perfectly natural. How do you justify the statement that it isn't a necessity?
Death is not a necessity because it is not necessary that death exist in order for life to exist. It may be (current) biological certainty that we die, but it is not a biological necessity. We die because, long story short, if we didn't die naturally, we would be riddled with tumors.
Death is not a necessity because there already exist organisms that can theoretically live forever. It is even possible (it appears at least) for us to make ourselves immortal in the not too distant future. If a robot were capable of fully repairing itself as it took damage and was responsible for refueling itself, it could live forever. I don't see why this principle cannot exist for humanity.
There are a lot of interesting points brought up in it, but it all boils down to:
Why is death perceived as a "bad" thing?
I'm not entirely sure why death is perceived as a "bad" thing, if it is; I'm not sure what you mean; and I won't feed you a line of nonsense or pseudointellectual or philosophical stuff. There's not known about death or that which follows life, (so we haven't much to which we may compare life); but, there's no dearth of hypotheses and unsubstantiated conjecture.
From what I've learnt and felt from communicating and observing in a variety of situations, mostly when I'm not working but there (for kicks and giggles), most people are afraid but do not view death as "good" or "bad". People are afraid because they think of that hole that they leave in their leaving; the loss of everything, particularly some semblance of control and "power", which presumably they have built up through yaers and years of toil, that they will ultimately experience; the pain and suffering that they experience as they approach death; and so on.
To me, death and non-existence, if anything, is the natural conclusion to a rather unnatural state, a impossible or freak outcome of things that so happen to have gone "right". I'm thankful for life, and I do my thanking by living in the moment. Also, without death, I don't think I - or others in the industry of human health, well-being, or life/death - would have a thing to do then.
If you are spiritually and psychologically prepared for it, phsyical death is a very profound and important step in a person's existence. The, roughly, 80 years we spend in the material serves a lot of great purposes, but overall it accounts for a very small portion of our total existence. Death is simply a transition to the next phase of existence. Many believe that if you have not prepared yourself well, you come back and get naother try. Others also believe that if you commit much heinous behavior, like rape or murder, you burn your soul out and are demoted to a much lower plane of existence.
If you get a chance, try to find videos of George Harrison's wife speaking about his last days. He was very spiritually prepared and many people around him reported that his soul was so bright at death, ready to move on, that it glowed underneath his skin. WHen he felt at peace, he cut the connection off to his body.
If you are spiritually and psychologically prepared for it, phsyical death is a very profound and important step in a person's existence. The, roughly, 80 years we spend in the material serves a lot of great purposes, but overall it accounts for a very small portion of our total existence. Death is simply a transition to the next phase of existence. Many believe that if you have not prepared yourself well, you come back and get naother try. Others also believe that if you commit much heinous behavior, like rape or murder, you burn your soul out and are demoted to a much lower plane of existence.
If you get a chance, try to find videos of George Harrison's wife speaking about his last days. He was very spiritually prepared and many people around him reported that his soul was so bright at death, ready to move on, that it glowed underneath his skin. WHen he felt at peace, he cut the connection off to his body.
Please submit objective evidence for your assertions. If you cannot, please consider the possibility that you are incorrect.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
If you are spiritually and psychologically prepared for it, phsyical death is a very profound and important step in a person's existence. The, roughly, 80 years we spend in the material serves a lot of great purposes, but overall it accounts for a very small portion of our total existence. Death is simply a transition to the next phase of existence. Many believe that if you have not prepared yourself well, you come back and get naother try. Others also believe that if you commit much heinous behavior, like rape or murder, you burn your soul out and are demoted to a much lower plane of existence.
I the context of the discussion was to ignore spirituality to have an (attempt) at an objective discussion.
death is at the same time both good bad and neither. each person's opinion is subjective based on their spiritual beliefs and/or their life circumstances.
this is an argument that cannot be won either way as we do not have enough information on the "afterlife" to make an informed decision.
Good/Bad are subjective viewpoints. In an objective discussion, that terminology isn't even useful because your opinion is going to be based off of what you believe happens at death. Even using science we can only know what happens up until the point of death. Not enough there to judge good or bad, just that it is.
Death doesn't exist in a subjective vacuum, even the most Athiestic person has to believe that nothing happens after death, even if they believe nothing happens, because there is no proof. It's just the most rational guess at the moment.
I'm a history major/philosophy minor at a small university. Also, this is my first time in the debates subforum.
In On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche basically defined the difference between "good" and "bad" as being the difference between "us" and the other. We don't see death as being "us" because we can't really interact with those things that have died. Because death isn't of "us", it has to be of the other, and is therefore "bad".
I think the reason death is ever considered "bad" is most because of evolution. Only the things that feared death tried to avoid it, the emotion doesn't really exist for any other reason than it's an evolutionary trait that has survived because for some reason some chemical strongly implores something to avoid dying. I would say it's neutral, it's ultimately not good or bad for the universe itself.
I don't agree with everything you've said but I agree in general that "Death gives life meaning" is a rationalization, not some profound notion.
Why would death have some power to give meaning to anything? And why do I need something external to give my life meaning? My existence today is meaningful to me whether I will die or not.
I don't think death gives power or meaning to anything rather it simply illustrates the reality that we are in fact limit which renders meaning to us. Ultimately that is just psychology though.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
The death itself is not entirely unfavorable in my eyes because after you die you'll cease to exist (for purposes of this forum) and no longer be able to experience the tedium and deaths of those around you, in addition to other bad happenstances. The idea of death being bad may only be caused by the self-preservation instinct so far as I can tell though.
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Not only is Death not bad, it is essential to the continuation of life.
There is only a limited amount of energy and matter on this planet and all 100% of it is being used at all times. This means that in order to produce the matter necessary to create new life, an old life must end.
Every organism on this planet is only capable of surviving by consuming the energy and nutrients of other organisms. If you want to keep living then you have to consume another living organism, whether plant or animal. When you do that the other organism must die in order to fuel your continued existence. Not even vegans can avoid causing the deaths of other lives, since we are only capable of sustaining ourselves through the consumption of biological matter and that matter will, at one point, have been alive. Even tofu is made out of soy beans and those soy beans were once attached to a plant that was at one time a living organism.
This does'nt just apply to animals eating other animals but also to plants which draw nutrients from the soil. Where do those nutrients come from? From the remains of animals and other plants that decayed into the ground. Whether life evolved this way or was created by God is irrelevant as it does not change how this world functions.
Death is the foundation of all life.
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Why waste time thinking when you can spend it smashing.
Adding fire automatically makes everything awesome.
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-regarding Snapcaster Mage.
Personally I am not scared to die. I try and live my life with no regrets.
This is not to say you can't construct some fancy morality systems like a categorical imperative or what not, but this above just feels like too effective a psychological explanation of morality. Human morality is at times awfully similar to watching "altruistic" behavior in numerous species that gives them an edge in species selection.
The problem lies in the words "This food shortage is good". It isn't.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
It's not any different. That's my point. In every case, the value reflects the fact that the commodity is something everybody wants more of than they have. A high value is not a good state of affairs. It is a consequence of a bad state of affairs. If you think it's good that a food shortage increases the value of food, you do not understand what value is. (Or perhaps you have a stockpile of food and are poised to make a fortune. What's bad in general can still be good for some people. But even here, note that the one who benefits is the one who has more food than he needs.)
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I don't understand how either of the latter two sentences follow from the first, from any other facts we know, or from each other.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
But since we cannot control it we fear it.Death has no right or wrong therefore is bad nor good.
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Death is often perceived as "bad" because of emotions. Without emotions, you would not care so much about it. Though, I suppose that even if someone had no natural fear of death and did not perceive it as negative in any way, they could still say "there's still things I want to accomplish".
If somebody says death is not bad, then i don't see why they don't also support peaceful exterminations of people. If anything, that would be good because there is only a net benefit to all parties involved:
-The dead don't care because they're dead.
-The guy doing the mass murder is getting his jollies off.
So some family members are sad. It is not their place to decide how valuable that person's life is. Even then, what if the family did not care or what if the family were the killers? If everybody who could possibly care about this person were in on the peaceful murder, does that give a moral justification?
I think not. Death is also not a necessity. It is not something that must come. Not only are there creatures that can live forever (in theory), but our own deaths are biologically programmed occurrences that can be fixed along with the side-effects of fixing those things. I do not find it hard to believe that in not too many years time we will not only extend human life spans beyond the natural limit but to also make ourselves effectively immortal.
To this end, i say death is "bad" in the sense that it ends life, which we value. Even if we had an infinite amount of life, we would value it as it would be favorable to death. Given the choice, i would choose to live forever. I think anybody that does not value life enough to choose the same has a mental disability in some regard; if you do not value life your life now, and even if you will not value it in the future, you are in a sense suicidal.
I don't think death itself is bad, but I certainly do think genocide and murder are bad. The end product of both is death, but in this case it's the means, not the end.
I also disagree that death is not a necessity. It's part of the cycle of life and is perfectly natural. How do you justify the statement that it isn't a necessity?
why are those bad? what makes the means so much worse than the end in this case? i already stated the possibility that everybody that could possibly care about that person being in on the execution. who is compromised in this scenario? everybody ends up happier at the end except for the man who existed before his demise.
Death is not a necessity because it is not necessary that death exist in order for life to exist. It may be (current) biological certainty that we die, but it is not a biological necessity. We die because, long story short, if we didn't die naturally, we would be riddled with tumors.
Death is not a necessity because there already exist organisms that can theoretically live forever. It is even possible (it appears at least) for us to make ourselves immortal in the not too distant future. If a robot were capable of fully repairing itself as it took damage and was responsible for refueling itself, it could live forever. I don't see why this principle cannot exist for humanity.
From what I've learnt and felt from communicating and observing in a variety of situations, mostly when I'm not working but there (for kicks and giggles), most people are afraid but do not view death as "good" or "bad". People are afraid because they think of that hole that they leave in their leaving; the loss of everything, particularly some semblance of control and "power", which presumably they have built up through yaers and years of toil, that they will ultimately experience; the pain and suffering that they experience as they approach death; and so on.
To me, death and non-existence, if anything, is the natural conclusion to a rather unnatural state, a impossible or freak outcome of things that so happen to have gone "right". I'm thankful for life, and I do my thanking by living in the moment. Also, without death, I don't think I - or others in the industry of human health, well-being, or life/death - would have a thing to do then. I'm not entirely sure why death is perceived as a "bad" thing, if it is; I'm not sure what you mean; and I won't feed you a line of nonsense or pseudointellectual or philosophical stuff. There's not known about death or that which follows life, (so we haven't much to which we may compare life); but, there's no dearth of hypotheses and unsubstantiated conjecture.
If you get a chance, try to find videos of George Harrison's wife speaking about his last days. He was very spiritually prepared and many people around him reported that his soul was so bright at death, ready to move on, that it glowed underneath his skin. WHen he felt at peace, he cut the connection off to his body.
[Clan Flamingo]
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I the context of the discussion was to ignore spirituality to have an (attempt) at an objective discussion.
this is an argument that cannot be won either way as we do not have enough information on the "afterlife" to make an informed decision.
Death doesn't exist in a subjective vacuum, even the most Athiestic person has to believe that nothing happens after death, even if they believe nothing happens, because there is no proof. It's just the most rational guess at the moment.
[Clan Flamingo]
If life is bad then death is good.
In On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche basically defined the difference between "good" and "bad" as being the difference between "us" and the other. We don't see death as being "us" because we can't really interact with those things that have died. Because death isn't of "us", it has to be of the other, and is therefore "bad".
Sorry to bring Nietzsche into it
BGWGnarles Barkley: Doran Voltron/Rock ControlBGW
UWRA Goat and Her Giant Flamey Hammer: Sunforger Shenanigans[MANA]UWR[/MANA]
UWEndless TrialsUW
"Each year that passes rings you inwardly with memory and might. Wield your heart, and the world will tremble"
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Chances of bad hands (<2 or >4 land):
21: 28.9%
22: 27.5%
23: 26.3%
24: 25.5%
25: 25.1%
26: 25.3%
I don't think death gives power or meaning to anything rather it simply illustrates the reality that we are in fact limit which renders meaning to us. Ultimately that is just psychology though.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
There is only a limited amount of energy and matter on this planet and all 100% of it is being used at all times. This means that in order to produce the matter necessary to create new life, an old life must end.
Every organism on this planet is only capable of surviving by consuming the energy and nutrients of other organisms. If you want to keep living then you have to consume another living organism, whether plant or animal. When you do that the other organism must die in order to fuel your continued existence. Not even vegans can avoid causing the deaths of other lives, since we are only capable of sustaining ourselves through the consumption of biological matter and that matter will, at one point, have been alive. Even tofu is made out of soy beans and those soy beans were once attached to a plant that was at one time a living organism.
This does'nt just apply to animals eating other animals but also to plants which draw nutrients from the soil. Where do those nutrients come from? From the remains of animals and other plants that decayed into the ground. Whether life evolved this way or was created by God is irrelevant as it does not change how this world functions.
Death is the foundation of all life.
Adding fire automatically makes everything awesome.