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Let's say you found out you're a Replicant from Blade Runner. Most of you memories are fake and you only live 4 years. What do you do?

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[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Keep on keepin' on, I suppose. There's a concept known as Last Thursdayism that this is similar to. It says that everything since last Thursday (an arbitrary day of the week, possibly referring to the book The Man Who Was Thursday more than Thor, the namesake of the day) is real, and everything before that is implanted memory. The movie Dark City explores this concept.

Wikipedia used to have a whole article on it, but they've since taken it down and integrated it with something else and added some bizarre claims to it. It's now part of an article on rejecting the concept of the Earth being billions of years old. I'm not even mad, it wasn't a real school of thought to start with, but they're trying to make it sound even more crazy now (they added that "left-handedness is a sin" as if that has anything to do with any of this). So, not gonna link it. They used to go into some detail about how people have justified it. I suppose due to the rise in flat earther theory, they don't want to lend any credence to any batshit insane theories, even though most of us were just pointing them out for funsies.

So, being that Dark City is one of my favourite movies and I've considered that, which is very similar... I feel like there isn't much you can do. Worse, anything you do outside the norm would be recorded as some kind of success by the people running the experiment.

[–] Shellbeach@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hello there! Have you been to my username?

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I am embarrassed that, even after looking right at your username, I still assume you meant you wanted me to click on it (e.g. view your history). I should turn in my Dark City card.

But nah... I wanna say I've been there but I just can't remember... I think it's out past the... no... you go out to... you know, I just don't remember how to get there.

[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago

I need to rewatch Dark City

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

Time loop movies, like Groundhog Day, kind of have that emotional resonance of impotence.

Dark City is a fantastic flick

[–] lonefighter@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Forgive me for commenting completely off topic, but I've scrolled past this post in my feed 4 different times today and every time I've read it as "what would you do if you found out you were a Republican?" and started laughing before rereading it correctly.

I'm not even trying to make a political statement, it's just the absurdity of it, it would be just as funny to me if you insert any other political party.

[–] JoeTheSane@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Came here to say this.

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 3 points 1 month ago

If someone gave me a few billion dollars, I might consider become Republican... It's either that or Batman... But I like guns, so Batman's out... Oh!Red Hood! I'll become Red Hood.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

first second my brain read it as that and reacted similarly.

[–] Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 month ago

I would give myself a crazy haircut, put on a bunch of loud make up, and spend most of my time leveling up my acrobatics skill in a crusty old mansion filled with toys.

[–] Doom@discuss.online 12 points 1 month ago

Literally honestly not care

[–] tacosanonymous@mander.xyz 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] bashibazouk@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] trd@feddit.nu 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] bashibazouk@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

More Roy...

[–] the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

I don't see why I should care. It did me no harm when I didn't know, and the only thing that would have changed is that now I know.

[–] sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 month ago

Ooh, used to think about this so much!

If your reality up to now was fabricated, sure that's great to know that for decisions going forward but there's not really a lot you can do about it in the present-tense. Except maybe laugh at whoever made my backstory, seriously: cringe. What an idiot.

You know what's not fabricated? The way I feel for people I'm close to and pets I take care of. That's kind of all that matters

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 7 points 1 month ago

Anyone who designed my existence for the sake of feeding it into my head has something seriously wrong with them, and not just because they wasted a huge amount of time.

But I would like to know when my four years is going to be up.

[–] EnsignWashout@startrek.website 5 points 1 month ago

Probably zone out all day on my home emotional manipulaor machine.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I'd try not to think about what I would do if I found a turtle flipped on its back.

[–] datavoid@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

I thought this said Republican.. in that case I'm going to try to get rich at your expense

[–] hexdream@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Life in prison would probably be less of a deterrent 🤣

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 2 points 1 month ago

I'm not going to work anymore.

[–] wattanao@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Be happy that I was actually put on this Earth for some purpose, if only to be someone's experiment or whatever (I don't know Blade Runner)

[–] derfunkatron@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is an interesting take, I guess.

To fill you in, the replicants in Blade Runner are banned from Earth and are typically used in extremely dangerous lines of work like asteroid mining and space warfare, or sex work and mundane industrial labor. They aren’t considered people and are literally corporate property (i.e. slaves).

I personally side with the replicants who came back to earth to demand their makers “correct” the genetic time bomb they encoded into their DNA.

[–] wattanao@fedia.io 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I see, I think my answer still remains the same then. Having a timer sucks, but knowing I have a somewhat specific job I was made for would be comforting.

Sure, being a slave would be bad, though, the question is what I would do if I found out I was a replicant, so I assume my life up to this point has been the same. Even if they were fake memories, I in some way was allowed to live a middling existence, which is still fine with me, even if someone came to my door tomorrow and said I had to go be an asteroid miner now.

[–] derfunkatron@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I can understand that and how it would be somewhat comforting to know you have a purpose. The thing that trips me up about this particular thought experiment is that once the realization sets in that one has implanted memories then naturally one has to doubt every single thought, feeling, and memory. That instability of self is terrifying to me (not to say that I have any way to confirm that I’m currently not a replicant).

[–] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I don’t know why this knowledge would really change anything. The memories are still real to me and my age isn’t really relevant beyond legalistic stuff

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 1 points 1 month ago

Sounds cool. Try to find other me's and talk about any differences we have. Explore that avenue. I wouldn't believe the 4 year thing until it happened, otherwise you're basing major life decisions on a diagnosis from an untrusted source.

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

4 years to live is not long to live and to be deceived with fake memories would destroy my world. I'd have a breakdown and go on a rampage killing humans and looking for replicants to wake up. Not even sure what other options there would be.

[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] m4xie@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

No, they'd wake you up.

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago

I would wake up from the nightmare.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

party. oh and wonder why they made me so old to begin with.