this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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Would you watch the earth form from nothing to the current time for 500.000 $? (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago by Grogon@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
40 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I give you a cozy chair and you are now going to watch the beginning of earth til today with all your senses. You won’t age, everything freezes. But once you reach this minute you will get a million dollars.

All you have to do is watch earth form from nothing to how it is now in this minute and then you will come down to earth with a million dollars and nothing changed.

Yes or no? You will see things nobody has ever seen and you can watch the dinos if you get to that point after a few million years. I will give you a chair and binoculars

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[–] doeknius_gloek@discuss.tchncs.de 48 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No way. Sitting around for 4.5 billion years doing nothing while nothing happens for most of the time? I'd go insane after a few months with billions of years still to go. The "with all your senses" part also sucks for the millions of years when earth was a ball of lava with a steady rain of asteroids and no atmosphere.

Kurzgesagt made a video about the entire history of earth, each second representing 1.5 million years. I'd suggest watching this to get a sense about the absolutely massive amount of time. Our monkey brains are not even slightly made to observe all of this.

Also funny that you mention money, as if someone who just witnessed the entire history of earth would care about a measly million dollars.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 8 months ago

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[–] Susaga@ttrpg.network 43 points 8 months ago (2 children)

You keep asking this question, we keep saying no, and then you ask it again with LESS money on offer. You don't get how haggling works, and you definitely don't get how asklemmy questions work.

[–] livus@kbin.social 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

At this point I'm pretty sure @Grogon is actually multiple iterations of a time traveller sent here to trap us.

[–] person@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago

maybe OP's deal has a clause where they can trade a soul for their freedom to back out

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 5 points 8 months ago

Even forgot to update the description with the new lower offer.

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Would you sit in a chair in an empty, featureless room and not move out of it for a year? I'd give you a million dollars.

If you had to think about that, now consider multiplying that by a billion, for the same reward.

[–] folkrav@lemmy.ca 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

We can also change your thought experiment to help people conceptualise the β€œbillion” part. Instead of a lump sum after a billion years, let’s just take the original million and divide it so you receive the same amount for every year you complete. Does receiving a hundredth of a cent ($0.001) for every year you sit in said room sound like a very good deal?

Even with hundreds of billions of dollars, it sounds like an insanely bad deal. It doesn’t even cover a yearly salary, and money would be completely unusable for 99.99% of that time lol

[–] Syn_Attck@lemmy.today 4 points 8 months ago

~~the same~~ half that reward. this is like fae tempting kids in the forest, when they need someone to suicide from boredom for some reason.

[–] LanternEverywhere@kbin.social 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Like, in real time? That's an obvious no. It would be literally torture. Not being able to do anything other than just sitting in the same spot and watching a window for essentially eternity would make you literally insane. What a horror show experience

[–] kzhe@lemmy.zip 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It was a billion before that.

Cosmic superbeings aren't paying like they used to.

[–] folkrav@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Even for a billion it’s such a shit deal. Billions of years of doing nothing experiencing the Big Bang and burning alive for centuries on end, to get pennies a year you ultimately will get to spend in the very last fractions of a percent of it all.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, being able to see everything play out would be worth it for me.

[–] demoman@lemmy.one 3 points 8 months ago

You would certainly go insane

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

VC funding gets us all, transcendental or not

[–] Oneeightnine@feddit.uk 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean, is this in real time because I won't lie, I bet there's an awful lot of 'boring' mixed in with all the amazing moments.

[–] jaykay@lemmy.zip 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Initial forming, nothing for a long time, forming of the moon, nothing for a long time, asteroid, nothing for a long time till present lol

[–] Oneeightnine@feddit.uk 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe I could use that time to watch The West Wing? I've heard nothing but good things about it but...who's got the time.

[–] jaykay@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago

Finally enough time to watch all of the Bold and the Beautiful lmao

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

The market value of watching the world form seems to have dropped since yesterday.

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

No amount of money would make me want to endure that torture. Most of earth’s history is just absolutely nothing. Apart from a few asteroid strikes, Cambrian explosion is about as exciting as things can get, and even that is just 100 million years of barely anything happening.

I don’t want to sit down and see how moss forms over millions of years.

[–] robocall@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

500k or 1 million aren't enough. It would be a difficult transition from observing the world, to participating in it. I would basically need to receive enough to comfortably retire.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean many billions of years doing nothing would 100% send u insane but if I had something to do I'd do it. A hell of a gaming setup and a fat steam library and I'd be good.

[–] zakobjoa@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I don't think you realise how long a billion years is.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I figured by the time I've finished playing. Through the library completely I've forgotten the first one and repeat.

[–] ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com 1 points 8 months ago

You'd go insane from the isolation looooong before finishing a fat Steam library. But first you'd be completely bored of gaming. Even if you feel no fatigue, hunger, tiredness etc it would quite quickly lose meaning. There's a reason most retired people don't do that thing they love 24/7. We just can't derive enjoyment from something we can and get to do all the time. Waiting, longing and planning to is vitally important to enjoyment.

If you're deeply autistic but still functioning you might be able to survive the isolation. But you'd need an insanely rigorous schedule set up for yourself where you treat observing the universe form as a job and treat yourself to gaming or whatever activity. But even under those circumstances that individual would likely go completely insane and be a vegetable within a thousand years. After a billion, if you literally can't die no matter what you do, then you wouldn't even be able to form thoughts, your brain would be so fried you'd present as someone with lock-in syndrome and just lay there until you finally get to die. Torture is putting it so mildly it's like calling Carolina Reaper Peppers about as spicy as vanilla ice cream.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 2 points 8 months ago

The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars as people say.

For an actual example, one second is a wave of your arm. 100, 000 seconds is 1.25 days. A million seconds is a little over a week. A billion seconds is over 33 years. Being trapped in a box for 4 billion years is essentially cosmic torture that ancient gods would do to punish each other.

[–] Oneeightnine@feddit.uk 1 points 8 months ago

I dunno, I could spend a good long while playing nothing but Football Manager if I didn't have to worry about being anywhere else.

[–] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Here's the entire history of earth compressed into 1 hour long video. For the vast majority of it absolutely nothing happens.

No I couldn't sit for that long. My brain would melt into goo.

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[–] Corno@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

I'm going to say no on this one! The Hadean Eon alone lasted for around 600,000 million years. A majority of Earth's life had nothing of interest happening so I can't imagine how bored I'd be 😭

[–] blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk 3 points 8 months ago

So that's 4 billion years for one million dollars. In other words, would I like to earn $0.00025/year? Hmmmm....

[–] 404@lemmy.zip 3 points 8 months ago

"You won't age, everything freezes" implies my body (and brain) won't change. That is, I won't be able to form memories. So even if I experience it all "with all my senses", it will only be for that exact moment and then it will be gone.

Like blinking and nothing has changed. You don't remember any of it. It's a bargain if you ask me.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

Dude hell no wtf

[–] nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Why would you not want that?

[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Because you would go insane from boredom and lack of social interaction for a few billion years.

[–] nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl 3 points 8 months ago

I have given this a lot of thought, because at first I hadn’t taken from the question that you have to sit out the whole thing in real time, not in a minute… but then I also noticed that you are going to experience it with all your senses. Would there be boredom? I am not sure.

Also, with all the procreation… what a ride man.