Why were pre-modern people so much more comfortable with death ?

One of the most highly funded "private" research movements right now is immortality. People seem to increasingly shy away from dying . Not that people of old were exactly happy to, but they seemed more accepting?

Is it because they had to deal with death personally more than we do now? Is it because they were more religious? Is it because they had better shit to do than worry about dying all day? Is it because they had balls of wrought iron?

I'm not afraid of dying per se, but do wish it were a bit les personal. I mean everybody dies but we can't even just enjoy being dead together (as far as I know, anyway).

The first emperor of China died swallowing mercury thinking it would make him immortal, and he spend a fortune on research and expeditions in trying to find immortality.
People always where scared of dying and tried to escape it

Thoughts of death are a great comfort for most people because they lead mediocre existences due to their mediocre genes, wanting immortality makes no sense unless you were born genetically supreme.

Nigga have you ever heard of Xu Fu and his journey for the elixir of life

Meant for OP, ignore reply

The Fountain of Youth is not a particularly recent concept.

I suppose, but you also had the advent of stuff like stoicism and Epicureanism. also doesn't the epic of Gilgamesh have a moral about seeking immortality being a fool's errand?

Not to mention the still-present religions where death is required to level up Homestuck style

And if anything I'd imagine suicide rates are higher now than ever before.

>People seem to increasingly shy away from dying
Because their lives aren't fucking shit and they don't want to quit them
back them you were just hoping you're going for something better or at least end of your misery
today the belief in blissful afterlife is so eroded even people with completely bland lives don't want to quit them

>After his second voyage he never returned.
The absolute madman really found it didn't he?

>caring about genes like the lolberals in academia taught you

One of the oldest stories we have, Epic of Gilgamesh, has the main protagonist searching the plant for eternal life because he fears his mortality after witnessing the death of his friend. So, you're very, very wrong.

There may have been a period of time where people were utterly clueless about it and had fantastical ideas of salvation (Middle Ages) but that was a brief period over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. We moved beyond that thanks to science.

>he came to a place with "flat plains and wide swamps" (平原廣澤) and proclaimed himself king, never to return.
Seems like it.

On the contrary, it's a taboo in modern society to talk about the effect genes have on the course of a person's life.

I thought the moral of that story was that it's pointless to seek immortality, though? The lesson is to accept it (IIRC anyway).

>We moved beyond that thanks to science.
See the OP, some big money and big names are trying to push the transhumanism meme.

They weren't. Why do you think Christianity was so successful? The promise of eternal life and paradise after physical death. People always dreaded it, it's human nature to.

>There may have been a period of time where people were utterly clueless about it and had fantastical ideas of salvation (Middle Ages) but that was a brief period over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. We moved beyond that thanks to science

One of the oldest known stories is about Gilgamesh looking for immortality.

>n 219 BC, Xu Fu was sent with three thousand virgin boys and girls to retrieve the elixir of life from the immortals on the Penglai Mountain

>sending virgin children with him
Why? If you want someone to find immortality and bring it back, why the fuck would you give him colonists/sex slaves?

So you'd get eternal, young hymen and fuck their asses with max pleasure. Or something like that.

Well there was supposed to be a dude at the mountain, and the Emperor talked to him (Anqi Sheng) for three days and later sent an expedition to find Anqi with the elixir of life. So perhaps it was an offering? Or they wanted the sailors to not get sexually frustrated idk

In some cultures death was seen as a continuation of life. Egypt comes to mind as an obvious example. In Egyptian culture, everything revolved around preparing for the afterlife.

In Europe, during the black plague, death was so commonplace that it was prominently featured as a theme in art.

BTW: why would you want to live forever? Why would anyone? Unless you're a billionaire, there's just not much to life for after a certain point. All your loved ones die, your body ages and becomes frail and useless. What the hell is the point?

You get super powerful?

In some ways, they were and weren't.

Death was far more ever present in societies even up till the 1920's in the western world, compared to our own time. It's said that in order to have two grown male children in Byzantium, you would likely have around 6 infants die either at birth or after a few years. It was common for children to die in waves of rubella or scarlet fever, death from a cut that festers.

Life was cheap in ancient societies. In many ways they were used to it, but at the same time the idea of a kickass afterlife was really appealing since the constant presence of dying through some inane means probably wanted to add luster to the horror of being gutted on the battlefield by a scary Barbarian.

“Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?"

That quote (attributed to Epicurus) pretty much summarizes my view on death. I do not fear death myself. If anything, I fear the way I die.

Specificaly, I fear not dying alone, but dying forgotten, forsaken. Maybe they had a similar approach?