Item — HN Reader

Don't you find liberating that any human, no matter how powerful they may be, how good or bad they are, cannot escape from death?

Maybe it sounds a little dark or edgy, but this thought gives me peace. Imagine what an immortal tyrant could do to humanity...

7 comments

Yet he was surrounded by his family by the very end. Pretty much died under his conditions, unlike all the other lives he affected

There's apparently an old Japanese saying that goes "Asleep, one mat; awake, half a mat." It refers to the space on a mat that everyone, even the Emperor, occupies.

Straight from The Great Dictator.

"The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish."

Until you learn it's not individuals, but groups of them with ideas that persist for multiple generations.

“Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.”

Tomorrow is the 5th of November after all.

> Imagine what an immortal tyrant could do to humanity...

I'd imagine an immortal tyrant would do nothing to humanity since humanity would be insignificant to him.

The great equalizer

(Interestingly, some of the world's dictators do seem to have an interest in the current state of the art in prolonging life. For example Xi and Putin chatted about organ replacement https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr70rvrd41ko)