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'Tho similar to my vision, yours somehow seems much nicer...
It's the closed casket. It produces a feeling of finality.
And I thought my own post was (ahem) groundbreaking.
Whoa! Great minds and all that.

Well, yeah.

-It's just like in my song, where my Unfinished Business becomes finished. There's no feeling like being done.

Might I suggest a nice dark mahogany finish?
Come to think of it, I might need something that will preserve evidence of poisoning, in case the M.E. decides to exhume me later.
[this is good]
You're going into the wooden bobsledding business? Oh well, there are worse careers. ;)
Your answer is unacceptable. Try again.

Okay... In ten years I see myself raising a worm farm. Is that better?

Ooh, clever, I see what you did there...
Okay, how about this... in ten years, I see myself as a florist. As in, pushing up the daisies.
Cute and clever. But you'll never get me to accept anything that involves you being dead. I'm kinda funny that way. Have no plans of ever dying myself.
Well, as Strix has pointed out to me before, as long as there are people who are still alive, it is not proven that everyone dies.
[this is good]
I like that! Do you think she'd mind if I stole it?
Hehe... no, I don't think so. Actually, I heard or read somewhere that half of the human beings who ever lived are alive today, due to the population boom of the last century. If that's true, then it could be said that as of right now humanity only has a 50% mortality rate.

It's not really mine to steal. I think I first came across the concept while researching the controversy over fingerprint evidence in court. Somebody was trying to get fingerprint evidence tossed out on the grounds (this is terribly simplified, but you'll get the idea) that there is no way to prove that no two fingerprints are identical. I believe it was the judge who pointed out that taking that view was about as practical as assuming immortality on the basis that we aren't all dead. I still think fingerprint experts have their place in the courtroom, but I've decided to go with the immortality assumption. Death creeps me out.

I think Snopes has an article on that. IIRC, they are dubious.

there is no way to prove that no two fingerprints are identical.

Just as there is no way to prove no two snowflakes are identical. Yup. The physicist in me is all over that, but as long as statistics tell us that there is at least a 95% probability that it is true we're going with it. Like you I just love the immortality assumption. It's too cool to ignore.
Yes, it does have the ring of an urban legend, doesn't it? I was curious, so I did a Google search. According to the Population Reference Bureau, 5.8% of all of the people who had ever been born were alive in 2002, when the did their estimate.

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Paxton

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Paxton
United States
Three things they say come not back to men nor women--the spoken word, the past life and the neglected opportunity. - Will Dearth, Dear Brutus by J M Barrie

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