> is the worst job in the world
Is it though? You either succeed, or nothing is ever your problem again.
It is. Death is bad because we don't want to die, not (just) because it tends to hurt.
It's absolutelty an irreversible hysteresis. That's more about not wanting to have fear for dying. After the actual dying, you (probably) don't have a desire to be alive, so the only real problem is the fear leading up to it.
This is wrong.
I would prefer not to die soon, not only because it would be unpleasant but also because my death would be inconvenient for my employer, distressing for my friends and family, bad for charities I donate to, etc. And also because there are various things I would like to do that, if I get hit by a car tomorrow, I will never get to do.
(The last sentence is debatable. You might say that my preferences just evaporate and stop mattering at all when I die. I wouldn't agree, but I don't have a knock-down counterargument.)
You listed: > my death would be inconvenient for my employer
_first?!_
I believe you have your priorities wrong. Most regret not spending enough time with their loved ones. You only get one life after all.
> (The last sentence is debatable. You might say that my preferences just evaporate and stop mattering at all when I die. I wouldn't agree, but I don't have a knock-down counterargument.)
Your current preferences matter now. You currently don't want to die tomorrow in your sleep, therefore dying tomorrow in your sleep is already bad now. Independently of other things you want to do tomorrow or next week.
That is also my opinion. I would also say that because I have a persistent preference for not dying if I needn't, dying tomorrow in my sleep is bad then too even though I will be asleep/dead at the time and therefore any preferences I have won't be actively motivating me at that point. And -- this is I think clearly more debatable -- that if I prefer now that I eat a slice of chocolate cake tomorrow, then to that extent it's a bad thing if tomorrow I don't eat any chocolate cake, even if tomorrow I prefer not to have any. Not a bad thing on balance; if I make a choice tomorrow, then tomorrow's preferences are rightly more important than today's in most circumstances. But, still, the fact that today I preferred chocolate-cake-tomorrow makes no-chocolate-cake-tomorrow a worse thing than if I hadn't had that preference yesterday. And, similarly, if today I prefer that tomorrow I eat chocolate cake, or kiss my wife, or conquer Spain, and I die tonight, then one reason why that's bad is that those preferences don't get satisfied, even though by the time they fail to get satisfied the person who had those preferences is gone.
But, again, a reasonable person could disagree with most of that.
Everyone will die at some point anyways and instant nuclear obliteration seems like the better way to go compared to slowly vegetating away in a hospital bed or the infinite number of painful ways to die.
Its not just about how, but when.
I prefer to die a vegetable at 80 than die from a nuclear blast at 40. All those years can be spent existing happily
Getting blown up by enough high explosives to detonate a nuclear device is not painful at all. You’ll be about as dead as the Deepwater Horizon people.