I used to hate olives, along with a lot of other things. Peppers. Beans. Blue cheese. And I used to tell everyone about how much I disliked stuff.

But then I grew up. You don’t have to eat olives if you don’t want. But if you restrict your life to your little pre-approved list of acceptable foods, you’re missing out.

Life is short. Way too short. You don’t want to discover how delicious a dirty martini with blue cheese olives is when you’re old.

It even goes beyond this.

Everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else. Smarter than doctors, scientists, and engineers. Definitely smarter than whatever the political or ideological “other side” is.

It’s ruining our society. When George Carlin did his bit about “how stupid the average person is”, he forgot to mention how 99% of us assume we skew into the “smarter than average” side.

I can’t have conversations with people I used to respect, relatives, old friends, or even casual acquaintances without everyone blathering on about how stupid these people are or that group is. I hate it.

Me no lurk. Me comment.

Yup. The realization that we’re all just making it up as we go is when it happens. Welcome to adulting.

Yep. I sneezed and now my back hurts.

This is it. Paying bills? Nah. Owning property? Nope. The realization that there’s no such thing as an “adult”. BOOM. Now you’re an adult.

Yes and No. 48.

There was never a horizon or dividing line I crossed between youth and adult. It just happened.

I’m still the same person I was when I was 10/20/30/40. Still like cool things, still confused about why we’re all here.

Other than my body getting real creaky and doing all kinds of weird old things, the only real difference between youth and adult is the realization that this very thread addresses. We’re all just making it up as we go. There’s no such thing as “adult”. There’s no Council of Super-Smart People running the world.

The only thing that makes you an adult is the realization that you have to be the change you want to see in the world. That you have to be the super-smart person running things.

I switched.

Well my house is an Animahouse and can do that whenever it wants.

Hopefully my clone likes me as much as I like me.

Agreed. That’s my point. I don’t really know if we have a soul. If transporter technology existed and worked as theorized, then it would answer a bunch of questions that have been plaguing humanity.

If everything that I am can be duplicated by making a perfect copy of me atom for atom, then there is nothing to fear from transporter technology.

I would actually really like a 4"x4"x1.5" square of perfectly marbled steak cloned from Kobe beef genes in some tray in a lab. No gristle, no bones, perfect consistency in every bite.

Seared in a blazing hot cast iron pan with salt, pepper, butter and lemon.

$8.99 lb. at Publix. I’ll take the transporter to get there.

Isn’t it still kind of the same thing though?

Star Trek calls that “matter stream” energy your “pattern”. Pattern sounds a lot like Information. Data. Which is very easy to transmit and duplicate. Data can also be lost or corrupted.

So it’s as if they convert all your atoms to a file, then FTP your file to somewhere else where the technology turns your pattern back into matter.

“You” can’t exist as just data, so at that point you’re already dead. I think…

There are episodes where your pattern is stuck in the pattern buffer. You’re only information being stored at that point.

If you have no soul and you just exist as matter, then in a horrible transporter accident where your clone and your original still exist, now there are two of you. You are both you. There is no difference if you are both perfect copies of each other. 1=1.

Sounds like a win/win to me, finally a best friend who really gets me.

“Soul conceit” is the right term here. The belief humans can’t seem to shake that I am more than just the sum of my parts.

I don’t know if I have a soul or if my consciousness is really just electric meat. But it seems that if I am more than the sum of my parts, the soulless me that comes out the other side will just be “my parts” and will be obviously different than the original me.

If we really are just our atoms, and the technology can be trusted to reliably replicate me atom for atom on the other side then there’s nothing to be afraid of. The original you hasn’t died, it’s just ceased to exist. No big deal. The clone of you is also you, so you still exist.

Oof…everybody being able to go to whatever the latest viral pool above a waterfall or cronut shop is all at once…

Agreed. Fuck hormones. I’m over here trying to be logical, and my hormones are telling me other things.

Thank you, fellow human.

Fair question.

I’m assuming that if your soul really is “you” then a soulless clone of you that is identical to you down to every atom, but had no soul, would be bad.

I don’t know if that means your soulless clone would just be an instinct driven animal, or maybe just an evil version of you that immediately grows a goatee. I don’t know what function your soul actually performs. But at some point, maybe not immediately, a bunch of soulless clones walking around would be noticed.

Maybe? (Or maybe not?)

Well, if the technology actually existed, it would solve that whole “soul” question.

We would know pretty quickly if we transported humans and they came out the other side as soulless aberrations because their original just got killed.

So yeah, I would 100% use it after it first proved once and for all that the sum of our consciousness really is all the synapses and signals and grey matter in our heads. Because if so then what does it matter if your original matter has been erased and then recreated. Your clone is just as much you as you are you at that point.

Yeah…getting older is why this bullshit happens.

I used to have deep, deep sleep and could sleep until 10am if my schedule permitted.

After I hit my 40s I always wake up at 5-6am. Always. Still tired, just can’t fall back to sleep. Hate it.

I think those “up early” Dads and Grandpas are full of crap. They want to sleep in too, but their stupid old bodies won’t let them, so they act like the’re so awesome for being up early. At, least, that’s what I do…