What should I become in my life so that I will be remembered even after my death?
Actually no matter what you do people will remember you.If you do bad:people will remember you for your bad deeds.If you do good and do not manage to become a superstar or something special:people will remember you for your good deeds but the no. of people to appreciate you would only include a few because not many had known you by the time of your death.If you invent something new:People will realise the greatness of that invented thing and you only when their lives would have an impact (would become easier).Like most of the scientist get more appreciation after death than they get when they are alive.So totally your take on what you want to do in life.Best of luck…
If a digital afterlife were available, at a monthly subscription, would your personal religious beliefs stop you from opting for it?
I think there will be nothing to stop me from getting there. Immortality is everybody’s dream, isn't it? Every single philosopher died with their questions about death but nobody got any answer to it. It will be such a privilege to try afterlife.If I have to say, however, there could be several downsides of the digital immortality. For example, who is going to run the company? If the company handles the undoubtedly most powerful service on this planet, who is going to ensure the quality of their service? It’s highly possible that the company will become the most powerful oligarchic organization and do some nasty things like covertly cutting me off from the Internet. Julian Assange just went through that and I don't want to be like him.And most importantly, it’s the future of the humanity. Some latest science fiction novels are discussing it, including Peter Watts’ Blind Sight and Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem trilogy. In Blind Sight, the digital afterlife world is called Heaven, and it was ultimately destroyed after the alien invasion. In comparison, Cixin Liu made his novels more philosophical. He believes that he future of humanity is potentially developing towards two opposite directions: to the stars, or to the virtual reality, and based on human’s feminine nature, which is arguable, he predicts that sooner or later we will slide to the introversive side and are doomed to extinction.But anyway, I’ll choose my afterlife. It’s better than nothing.Try first, doubt later.
What are the best practices to prepare for the digital side of my death?
Yes, there are several services for this purpose. Most modern one is https://testamentor.com, which integrates seamlessly with Dropbox. It creates a special folder inside your Dropbox which content is automatically shared to your closest when you become inactive online for too long (detected by last email sent from Gmail, last tweet etc.). It's super simple to use. When you sign up there is a Word template with a checklist in Testamentor folder that you can use for writing down important notes and messages.
What would happen if we realize we are living in a simulation?
It’s likely (but not certain) that this simulation would be running at the level of subatomic particles and the fundamental laws of nature…and if that’s the case, then the hyper-beings in the “real” universe might be completely unaware that sentient life has emerged. After all, the evolution of sentient life may not have been something they were expecting - or even necessarily looking for.We would have to consider very carefully what we do next - because the fate of the entire universe could depend on it.We could try to make ourselves noticeable to the hyper-beings - perhaps try to communicate with them. It’s hard to see how we could do that - and it’s possible that making ourselves known to them could be such a shock that they decide to reboot the simulation or something.We could try to keep a low profile and try to avoid being noticed…and probably the best way would be to try to forget that we’re in a simulation.We could start pushing and probing at quantum theory and see if we can deduce things about the architecture of the computer we’re being computed on. Possibly we could “hack” the universe computer and obtain some useful benefit from doing so. Maybe we encrypt their hard drive and tell them to either increase the speed of light so we can populate the galaxy - or we’ll erase their experimental results! Needless to say, this could be EXCEEDINGLY risky!Doubtless (and with some justification) people with religious leanings would proclaim the hyper-beings as “our creators” and start worshipping them. As with everything else, this is a risky proposition. Perhaps by discovering the identity of our creators - we complete the experiment and the entire universe gets a Ctrl-Alt-Del.Once of the aspects of the Simulation Hypothesis is that if we are indeed inside a simulation - then the odds are good that our creators are ALSO inside a simulation…and perhaps for multiple generations.HOWEVER: Another possibility (I consider to be remote) is that the simulation that we are a part of is operating at a much higher level…perhaps our minds are being simulated directly rather than at the subatomic particle level.That would alter the balance of probabilities quite a bit - but I still feel that the issues I describe above are important.
What happens to social media passwords and profiles when we die? Who has the rights?
Terms of Service agreements state that accounts are non-transferable. This means that companies will not hand over control of the deceased user's accounts to family or executors, which also includes passwords. In some cases and with legal documentation (or, sometimes by taking the service to court), the service will release the contents of the account to the family. Often the service's policy calls for them to shut down an account once they are notified of that user's death.Passwords are yours alone. If you give your password to someone to manage your account for you after you've passed away, it does not mean that person "owns" your account. They are merely impersonating you in order to manage your digital affairs.As for rights to content, most services declare that you own the copyright on the intellectual property of your content. This does not mean you have free and open access to retrieving it or even bequeathing it. Most requests to services are dealt with on a case-by-case basis while the importance of policy-making lags behind feature development and customer acquisition.
I want my wife to get access to my passwords of Google, Facebook, Docs, etc. after I die, but not when I am alive. How can I do that?
I once built (for personal use) something very similar to a dead-man switch partly for this specific purpose.I have a very hidden web-application (on a private network) which I need to log into at least every 60 days. As long as I do, nothing happens.IF I fail to log in to it within 60 days, for any reason including my own demise, It pings me in various ways:tweets something completely embarassing on my own account so people will mock meemails me with a reminderpages me on Telegramdeletes a CSS file from my personal website so it breaks and triggers an alertIf another 30 days go by with me not providing proof of life, the application will at the same time:Send custom-made e-mails to my closest family and significant others, with a personal goodbye message (“Dear XXX, if you are reading this it’s because as you know I am dead but I wanted to leave a final message for you…” kind of stuff)Send a person of my choice, details about my login credentials to my bank accounts, personal email and other online services, social networks, and other stuffE-mail my will to an attorney who happens to be a friend of mine and is unaware he’ll eventually get my will if I kick it before he does.some other stuff I’ll keep as a secret until I actually die :)not the easiest way to do it, but it was a fun project to implement and allows me to feel completely in control of my post-mortem actions
So...What's on your bucket list....?
Personally , I don't have a huge list....I am fulfilling one item soon with a visit to Petra in Jordan & to the Holy Land....apart from that I simply wish to see my grandkids ( 9 on the tarmac & one in the hanger ) grow up & to enjoy them. Another item on the list has always been to do a motorcycle tour of Turkey ....still working on that one!