• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    7 months ago

    People say you come back. Reincarnation. Do you think so? Well, it doesn’t seem mathematically possible to me, man. Uh, 'course at one time what we had on the earth was six people, you know. I avoid “two” because it’s controversial but six… most people agree, “fuck, yeah, we had six at one time.” Six people, six souls… cool. They died, souls went back to the place; six new people souls- still six souls. Now we have four billion people… claiming to have souls. Someone is printing up souls… and it lowers their value, you know.

    – George Carlin

    • mellowheat@suppo.fi
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      7 months ago

      The universe opposite to this is a worse place than this and contains googolplex souls wanting to get here.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      7 months ago

      There’s no particular reason to think souls and reincarnation would follow the normal flow of time. If you can be reincarnated in a different place from where you lived, why not a different time? Maybe you could be reincarnated as anyone who had ever lived, or anyone ever will live. Taken to the extreme, there could be just one soul and we’re all reincarnations of each other. It’s all woo, so why not?

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        7 months ago

        Reminds me of the short story “The Egg” by Andy Weir (same guy who wrote The Martian and Project Hail Mary (which is an amazing book, btw)).

        I recommend the egg. It’s a quick read.

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      7 months ago

      Yeah. They make great videos and they turned out to have rad politics too. Neato.

    • Madlaine@feddit.de
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      7 months ago

      “Where is this going. Debts? Companies? Did I miss some huge lore dump? Wait … are they talking about the lands outside?”

  • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    .>Be me.

    .>Reincarnate into a cow.

    .>Moo. Moo moo moo.

    .>Moo moo moo moo moo.

    .>Moo

    .>🐮

      • tweeks@feddit.nl
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        7 months ago

        I’d just be happy that people like me. On a bun nonetheless. But a like is a like.

        • Scubus
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          7 months ago

          Does Lemmy have a happy cow community?

    • Carl
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      7 months ago

      Are you going to be a dairy cow? In order to produce milk, dairy cows are kept almost continually pregnant. Unwanted male calves are slaughtered in their first week of life so that their mothers’ milk can be harvested for human consumption.

      I hate milk, but I love my other milk products like cheese, and yogurt.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    7 months ago

    Way easier to lie about it. Just pick babies out to be indentured servants for life to repay some imagined debts. Maybe make them feel it was their fault for not paying off the debt previously. We could even target kids from poor families for this, so they have less hope of fighting back.

    We did this already, a bunch of times.

  • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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    7 months ago

    Rich people would probably set something up so that their future incarnation inherits their wealth, since it’s statistically likely that they’d be reincarnated as someone poorer. I could also imagine a much stronger push to bring the birthrate up even at the cost of using unethical means to force it, because if the population decreases, there wouldn’t be enough children born for an increasingly large percentage to reincarnate into

  • 6buck6satan6@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    This is why reincarnation would come to be. It would then be spun in a way that would be beneficial for people. You can buy that house with a 250 year, 3 lives mortgage!

  • theatomictruth@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Sue a termite for damages just in case they show up as a human later or charge rent to the birds nesting in your back yard

  • mellowheat@suppo.fi
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    7 months ago

    And the government would make sure you paid taxes for every dollar moving between incarnations.

    • MashedTech@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Hey, you have paid taxes in your first life! The IRS department of past life tax recovery is awaiting your presence

  • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    And class action lawsuits for damages caused in previous lives. Started a war? Polluted the land? Several million people want compensation. Can’t pay now? No problem, several lifetimes to pay off that debt.

  • Aurenkin
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    7 months ago

    What do you mean how long would it take? They would be the ones doing the research for that exact purpose.