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'Longest Living Human' Says He Is Ready For Death At 145 (telegraph.co.uk)
Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes an article from The Telegraph: An Indonesian man who claims to be the longest living human in recorded history has described how he "just wants to die". Mbah Gotho, from Sragen in central Java, was born on December 31, 1870, according to the date of birth on his identity card. Now officials at the local record office say they have finally been able to confirm that remarkable date as genuine. If independently confirmed, the findings would make Mr Gotho a staggering 145 years old -- and the longest lived human in recorded history.
"One of Mr Gotho's grandsons said his grandfather has been preparing for his death ever since he was 122," according to the article. Though he lived long enough to meet his great-great grandchildren, he's already outlived four wives, all 10 of his brothers and sisters, and all of his children.
"One of Mr Gotho's grandsons said his grandfather has been preparing for his death ever since he was 122," according to the article. Though he lived long enough to meet his great-great grandchildren, he's already outlived four wives, all 10 of his brothers and sisters, and all of his children.
I was born on December 30, 1870 and as soon as my birth certificate arrives in the mail I'll be able to prove it.
- These characters were randomly selected.
"The problem with immortality is that it's boring."
(There's an episode of the original series where a man gives up immortality to be with the woman he loves....)
"If independently confirmed" - which is unlikely.
Regardless, he'll still be around for quite a while yet. In an interview with Wired, he said he just wants to live until the year of Linux On The Desktop.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yeah, because being "posted to Reddit" and "ripped to shreds" there is an obvious sign of credibility.
Are you forgetting the time that Reddit collectively lynched an innocent man in an effort to identify the suspects behind the Boston Marathon bombing, by any chance? Allow me to enlighten you:
https://gawker.com/reddit-apol...
Of course, being a redditor I'm sure you'll simply dismiss the entire post for being a link from Gawker, despite the fact that 70% of the content is direct quotes from Erik Martin, apologizing for the boorish and ignorant behaviour of people like you. Feel free. Redditors are like conspiracy theorists, they'll cherry-pick whatever details fit their own narrative and then circle-jerk around on their own, respective corner of the site.
Do us all a favour and go back there for good. Redditors are the pus-filled herpes sores of the Internet.
People don't dwell on such things. I had a neighbor who passed just a few weeks shy of 100. Things that all of us consider normal were simply impossible for him such as keeping in touch with his school friends or most of his family as they had all passed away. How many people wanted to talk to him about the way life was in 1880? It is as if the man's entire universe left town and moved too far away.
It would be interesting to use DNA analysis on the 145-year-old and his relatives (living or dead) to verify his age. If his story checks out, then (for example), it could be verified if he is indeed the father or brother to various other people, some long dead, with known dates of birth or death.
My point is those who say the times today are the worst ever and spew some right wing stuff do not know their history. Times were bad in the 19th century. Awesome too if you are educated and middle class (even more so than today) but very tough and brutal. Factories, 18 hour shifts, no EPA laws, children working, people being shot out west looking to escape the missery of the east and fed to pigs, corruption, and crazy dictators and radical ideologies were the norm.
People think Victorian era paradise and Jane Austin, and wonderful class. Not the above
http://saveie6.com/
... extraordinary evidence.
An identity card whose date has only recently been confirmed isn't enough.
You still need to confirm that the card-holder is the person who matches the genuine records.
You also have to assess the credibility of those in the records office and answer questions like "why wasn't this confirmed long ago, like when he applied for a penson (no pension? okay, I'll accept that) or when he hit age 100 (not important enough? okay, I'll accept that), age 110 (you better have a darn good answer) or when he got to be the oldest man in his country (every month of delay in searching for accurate records from this point on makes his claim less and less credible).
It's been 30+ years since he would've been the oldest person in the world. If there haven't been serious, continuous, diligent, credible efforts to find and authenticate his age since the mid-to-late 1980s, then it will take something extra-ordinary, such as confirmation that he fathered someone known to be born more than, say, 120 years ago, for his claim to be accepted. Even if there has been a serious, continuous, diligent, credible effort to find proof of his age for the last 30 years, the fact that it took so long to find it hurts his claim.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
He probably has the same name as his father, and somewhere long the lines their identities got switched up?
People want to believe that he is depressed because his kids and wives are gone. It is romantic to be depressed when you have no family or lovers.
Smart people don't make others responsible for their own happiness. Wives and kids come and go (especially today, thanks to the divorce revolution). Once you can find the natural wellspring of joy within, you are no longer dependent on these ever-changing circumstances to be happy.
But...when your daily routine is an ongoing repetition of pain and indignity, with no realistic means of pursuing self-cultivation (nor even just enjoying hobbies), the continual displeasure can easily overwhelm any sense of calm contentedness. Under these circumstances, even the most enlightened of minds will realize that life is handing them their hat, and gracefully take their leave.
The poor quality of modern education is apparent in your post.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
It's not surprising to see the western media censoring the second most remarkable fact about this fellow -- he still smokes video. Similarly, the officially recognized longest living man and woman on the world and only two humans verified to have lived beyond 120 years of age were both smokers (Jean Calment and Shigechiyo Izumi.
Unlike that non-English video where he smokes almost throughout, in this English speaking video, they blur his cigarette in a crude attempt to hide the fact that doesn't fit in our antismoking Matrix. With the reporter's strong antismoking position thus clear, the implication is that he couldn't get several minutes of continuous footage without the old timer lighting up i.e. the fellow must still be practically chain smoking (not unusual among Indonesian man).
The big problem with living a long time is that your body deteriorates. I'm 41 and my body isn't what it was when I was 21. When I'm 61, I'm sure I'll be wishing I still had 41-year-old-me's body. But if I was 145? The problems I'd face simply because the human body doesn't handle that extreme level of aging well? I'm sure death would be preferable.
If you could guarantee me immortality with my body frozen at 21 (or even 41), I might jump at the chance. Yes, I might regret it when everyone I knew passed away, but I'd constantly be able to see what's coming up next an could forge new friendships. But aging to 145 seems too long for me. Not that I'm looking forward to death, but I have a feeling that I'd be eagerly waiting it way before I hit 145.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
However there are only about 35 people in the world over the age of 112. I'd say that having an identity card is a little short of absolute proof that this guy is 145.
Between 2008 and 2011, there were over 4,000 people who applied for jobs using SSNs for people who were born before the 20th century.
http://insider.foxnews.com/201...
I will sooner dismiss the know-nothing who says "That can't be true, don't bother checking it!" than the know-nothing who says "That might be true, go check it."
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
The Unix Epoch is 01/01/1970, this guy is recorded as being born 31/12/1870.
Perhaps someone was born 31/12/1969 and some function was trying to translate timestamps from one system to another.
One day before the epoch is a bit of an edge case, and timestamp conversions can be funky. So instead of subtracting 1 from the 70 the function subtracted it from the 19 and now you have an official, but nonsensical, piece of identification in the system.
Of course it clearly doesn't match the guy born in 1969, but surely someone noticed and "fixed" the problem by associating the record with it's rightful recipient, the oldest guy in the village.
I stole this Sig
He was working as a village karnam a hereditary village official assisting land tax office and other official government work. A coupld of decades after the independence, the government decided to abolish the heridiatry position and regularize them all as "village officers". Part of the application process was filling documents for age and dates of birth. My dad told him government retiremnet age was 58 and he would be retired in 13 years or so. He did not want to suffer the loss of income. One of the official forms of documentation for date of birth was an affidavit fron the village karnam. So he issued himself an affidavit proclaiming him to be 20 years old!. Only adverse consequence was his traditional Hindu ceremonies he had to do as he turned 60 all had to be done in secret, lest the government becomes aware of his true age!
Was thinking all the birthers could have gone to Kenya. The could find a local dynamic_cast(village karnam) to issue birth certificates for any one for any date.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I suggest that's months. As a friend pointed out, these stories come from people who were desert nomads. Time passing in the desert is measured by phases of the moon, often, AIUI. So did he perhaps live to be 80 years old? Not impossible, and at that age in those times he would be incredibly old.