I wonder whether people who know they are approaching death become more likely to secretly hope for a global catastrophe, such as nuclear war, so that nobody gets to outlive them. This might be more common than people are willing to admit. What someone hopes for internally may be very different from what they say they hope for publicly. Someone might express genuine concern for humanity's future while privately finding comfort in the thought that humanity could end around the same time as their own life. There is also an important distinction between actively wishing for nuclear war and simply finding the possibility emotionally comforting. The latter might be considerably more common. Scientists could investigate this by comparing terminally ill people with healthy people of similar ages, perhaps also studying how their attitudes change as death approaches. But simply asking people whether they secretly hope for nuclear war might not work. They might be unwilling to admit such feelings, even to themselves. Researchers could therefore investigate more indirectly: Conversations: Do terminally ill people bring up the possibility of nuclear war more frequently? Does the frequency increase as death approaches? Streaming habits: Do they become more interested in documentaries, movies, or other content about nuclear war, apocalypse, or human extinction? Emotional responses: How do they react when asked to imagine humanity flourishing for millions of years after their deaths, versus humanity becoming extinct shortly afterward? Brain scans and physiological measurements: Could researchers identify differences in emotional responses to these scenarios, even when people's stated preferences remain unchanged? Anonymous psychological experiments: Could techniques designed to reveal socially unacceptable attitudes uncover feelings that conventional questionnaires miss? Of course, none of these measures would prove that someone secretly hopes for nuclear war. Increased interest in nuclear war might reflect fear rather than hope, and physiological responses are open to different interpretations. Combining several approaches might be more revealing. There are also alternative explanations for any differences researchers might find. People approaching death could become more sensitive to existential threats or more worried about the future of their loved ones. The underlying question is whether knowing that one's own future is ending makes the continued existence of everyone else less emotionally desirable, even if one still believes intellectually and morally that humanity should survive. I think this would be a fascinating subject for psychological research, especially because the most interesting feelings might be precisely the ones people are least willing, or least able, to acknowledge.   submitted by   /u/amichail   to   r/ideas [link]   [comments]