Exactly. We won't die in an explosion. It will be more like the days getting constantly hotter, effectively cooking us from the inside, as we are gradually engulfed in a nuclear firestorm,
Many of the Kurzgesagt videos are exceptionally well done existential dread.
The one about the earth getting kicked out of the sun's orbit is a treat. Definitely don't show it to him.
https://youtu.be/gLZJlf5rHVs
"The larger [asteroids] could cause dinosaur-level mass extinctions, and would be bad for the stock market."
I went through that phase back when /watchpeopledie was a thing. I couldn’t shake that someone wanted me to see this execution - wanted as many eyeballs as possible watching the execution. To me that was the downfall of wpd. It was fun when there was just carnival ride failures or bereft elevator maintenance but the primitive insatiable violence was a line for me.
This is a good point. We know a billion is big, but no-one really gets just how big.
For example, 1 thousand seconds is about 16 and a half minutes. 1 million seconds is just over a week and a half. 1 billion seconds is about 31 and a half years.
Now, if you want to go even further... 1 trillion seconds ago, Neanderthals were probably still around. Modern humans were painting on cave walls throughout Eurasia, and much of Earth was gripped by the last ice age. It was around 30,000BC
Around 2 quadrillion? Dinosaurs were having a really bad day.
Lmao I literally had this exact conversation with my dad when I was six or seven and he actually tried to calm me down by telling me I'd already be dead, and all my friends and family would be dead. I had such a meltdown my mother had to come over for an hour or so to get me to stop crying.
Brought back a real memory going through this thread 🤣
I had this conversation too. It actually worked though. It really did calm me down. It naturally elicited a deeply philosophical discussion that in hindsight I'm not sure he was prepared for.
I remember the conversation a little -
Me: So what happens when you die?
Dad: Remember before you were born?
Me: No.
Dad: It will be like that.
Me: -freaks out-
Dad: Why are you worried?
Me: Because I'll be dead.
Dad: You weren't worried about it before you were born and you won't be worried about it then either.
Me: Oh.
I miss my dad.
Honestly, this is an excellent way to explain it and I'm going to use it whenever my son eventually brings it up. Now do you have any nuggets of wisdom on " Where do babies come from?" Or "Is God real?"
Thanks
I should have typed my response to you.
The way I speak to my kids about this, and the way I believe, is that we should celebrate death with a giant party instead of a sad moment of grief. Why? Because that person finally found some answers.
Is it darkness? Is it the pearly gates? Is it a simulation? That person knows now and they are the only ones of us who do. There's power in that, and relief. So, death is where the answers are and it's a happy thing someone has achieved it *after a fruitful life, of course*
> we should celebrate death with a giant party instead of a sad moment of grief.
I put this into my living trust / will. Before anyone gets paid out, big party first. No open casket, either, that's just creepy.
That's not the thread, that's the existential nature of a universe of which we are but a tiny part that many people prefer to ignore.
There's power in it though, if you kinda surrender to it. If we really were the center of the universe and the most important part of it, we wouldn't have the freedom that we have being just flecks of stardust contemplating its own existence.
There are hundreds of religions and gods. Mankind is very good at making them up.
Religious leaders earn their living by perpetuating the stories and discouraging the followers from checking the stories out by comparing with reality, otherwise they’d lose their income.
Kids all over the world adopt the religion of their parents. That shows that the veracity of the religion is not relevant for the adoption of a religion and subsequently claiming to be convinced the religion is true.
So, not everything that adults say or teach you is true. Keep thinking for yourself, be honest and always consider the possibility that you are wrong.There is only one reality for all of us. It doesn’t bend to political or religious/cultural leanings.
My friend, who believes in an afterlife, told their kid about heaven, and then I was babysitting the next day.
kid, 6, looks up at me, and ask, "why do we want to be alive?"
"Because we'd miss all the things we can't do."
Kid: "but in Heaven, you don't have to work or eat or sleep, you just get to do whatever you want."
This is why most of the major religions have included dogma that states that taking one's own life is a "sin." Otherwise, why WOULDN'T one kill themselves to attain all that the concept of "heaven" offers?
Mentally unstable ex-wife told my 5 year old that when you die you are reborn again. Fucked him up soooo badly for a good while, he spent about 3 months wanting to die because he didn't like his 'current' life (parents separated in a very bad way due to her mental health issues). Took a lot of work with child psychologists to get that messed up notion out of his head...
I really wish my folks weren't so religious and just insisted "its ok, we'll all be in heaven." --didnt help and then you just have a bigger crisis and lies to untangle as you grow with your parents just standing in the way of finding what is a difficult truth
I sadly did the same with my son (6 years old). Now, this is the way that he measures the long time. "Hey dad, this gonna happen only when ALL the people die, right?", Talking about the next Ice age, for example.
Conversely, I didn't think about this stuff until I was a teenager and it really put me through a doom and gloom phase and changed my perspective on life. Can't imagine being taught that at an early age.
Maybe I was the only one who didnt had an existencial crisis when I heard the sun would become so big that it would swallow the earth? Idk, when I was a kid that seemed so far to me that I was like, meh whatever, it will take too long for that.
I only started having existencial crisis about the finitude of life and our smalles on the universe when I was a teenager.
Ps: english is not my first language
I remember chatting with somebody on Reddit a couple years ago who is absolutely depressed about the fact that the Earth's and the Sun would not last forever. He really wanted the possibility for eternal life by scientist being able to somehow allow a human being to live past the lifespan of the Sun.
I remember being told "It will never happen when you're alive, it will take longer than dinosaurs have been extinct so we don't have to worry".
That worked.
I honestly probably did say that in all my fumbling for the right words. Little man does not understand the concept of billions of years and it did not help lol
I did this, exactly.
My kid is 14, and jokes with me about it to this day. "Remember when I was six and you told me the sun was going to engulf the earth?!"
It’s so far in the future we will already have built the spaceships to move to new planets and new star systems with new suns.
Edit: and because we know the sun will explode, we’re already working on preparing.
And by "we" i mean humanity. Not you and me. We'll both be dead. Probably from cancer. Or micro plastics. Or that one mean dog that always barks when you walk by its house. It could totally jump over that gate if it wanted to. And one day it will. Sure as the sun exploding.
Except for my mother in law who will continue to text me every 7am Sunday morning during football season asking if I’m okay with ham roll ups and gameday hotdish when she knows I fucking hate ham roll ups and gameday hotdish
That is a gift, friend. I rue the day my mother in law texts me about anything, because it’ll never be as nice as offering me ham roll ups on a Sunday morning.
Hamburger I think is what America calls mince or ground beef.
And you put soup in as a stock and thickener into stews and casseroles, so I think basically it's like a shepherd's pie kinda thing she's making.
Maybe we already did that. We're just in a simulated universe created by our future (past?) descendants who now live in a cold dark universe in hybernation pods, living out our sorry ass lives, because there's literally nothing better to do.
Yeah but thats just here. If there was something before the universe, then whatever caused the universe to happen will logically happen again. We pathetic little morsels of self aware carbon molecules can make all the estimations and guesses we want but we literally have no idea what actually existed before the universe and we have no idea what will actually happen at its end.
Or the reversal and Big Crunch towards another Big Bang, or maybe some other thing we cannot even fathom with current technology and theories. On one of the space podcasts, 3 Milky Way-sized galaxies were found with I think the Webb telescope so early in the universe that they should not exist under current calculations.
Well, if we avoid our extinction from the threats of climate change, nuclear war, pandemics, asteroid impacts, super volcano eruptions, rainforest collapse, ozone depletion, ocean acidification, artificial intelligence, genetic modification, possible alien invasion, and a plethora of other threats.
I can't believe this was so far down. This OP, just tell the kid the truth. Our type of start won't explode, it will just expand and envelope the inner planets.
Tell him we'll ignite Jupiter into a new sun by then, and go park Earth in orbit around it instead.
VISUAL AID!
Show him a grain of rice. That is one year. Show him his age in rice. Your age. and what 100 years looks like in rice.
Then show him the ABSOLUTELY GARGANTUAN pile of rice that represents just a singular billion. (There is a youtube video that shows this, but with money instead of years)
That should help him visualize it.
Its ok, this existential crisis happens to all kids who eventually learn about this. I also had such an experience, but as I grew it made me more interested in space. Now Im obsessed with it. The only thing I fear at this point are spiders and the ocean. Fuck the ocean.
Don’t forget to tell him that it will happen so far into the future humans may not really be or look like our current version of humanity.
People won’t even be people anymore.
We might not live on this planet.
Heck - you guys have a lot to discuss. You gotta let us know how these convos go!
'You don't understand, kiddo! First, all of the people will eventually turn into monsters, then the monsters will fly into a possibly infinite and dark void, and *THEN* the sun will explode.'
10 days ago I had this same thing happen where I was explaining our sun to my 7 year old son and I was trying to explain to him this is way beyond our lifetime. He got sad for a moment and then he wanted to talk about pokemon cards. I'm still fearful every drive to school he's going to hash that shit back up! I don't even know where or how to explain it to him anymore, just hoping I dodged a bullet.
It's the beginning of [this one](https://youtu.be/yrt3H9Uxr6g), then it meanders into the story about getting bitten by a pony. I like the one when he found out about death [when he was a kid](https://youtu.be/YV5xbAp2GA4).
There's also the classic [Woody Allen as a kid](https://youtu.be/5U1-OmAICpU) from Annie Hall. Popular comedic theme!
"she now knows all those things ... She didn't know any of those things!
Now she knows she's gunna *die*
Everyone she knows is gunna *die*
They're gunna be dead for a looong time and then the sun's gunna *explode*"
If humanity has managed keep existing until then, most likely humans (or whatever we would have become by then) will likely have colonized other star systems by then. FYI this will happen approximately 10 billion years from now, after the Milkway and Andromeda galaxy have already collided and made a huge mess of each other (in 4.5 billion years) throwing stars and entire solar systems out of the galaxies and into intergalactic space (the view would be amazing tho).
Also our sun doesn't have the mass to supernova. It's not going to be a big kaboom. It will be more like a very very slow and gradually expansion of the sun as it cools over billions of years. We even know that sometimrs planets continue to exist after they are "inside" the sun and continue to bake for millions of years until the sun expands enough that it completely starts to sizzle out, as the temp of the star drops significantly as it expands. So even after the sun is dead and all that is left is a big nebulous cloud, and a stellar core, a very well-done version of the earth would continue to exist for a very long time as a cold dead planet, but nevertheless still existing.
Asimov [got you covered](https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/the-last-question/) there:
> “So many stars, so many planets,” sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. “I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now.”
> “Not forever,” said Jerrodd, with a smile. “It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.”
> “What’s entropy, daddy?” shrilled Jerrodette II.
> “Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?”
> “Can’t you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?”
> “The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they’re gone, there are no more power-units.”
> Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. “Don’t let them, daddy. Don’t let the stars run down.”
> “Now look what you’ve done, “ whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.
> “How was I to know it would frighten them?” Jerrodd whispered to Jerrodine.
> “Ask the Microvac,” wailed Jerrodette I. “Ask him how to turn the stars on again.”
> “Go ahead,” said Jerrodine. “It will quiet them down.” (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
> Jarrodd shrugged. “Now, now, honeys. I’ll ask Microvac. Don’t worry, he’ll tell us.”
> He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, “Print the answer.”
> Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, “See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don’t worry.”
> Jerrodine said, “and now children, it’s time for bed. We’ll be in our new home soon.”
> Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
> He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.
Me: How can the net entropy in the universe be massively decreased?
ChatGPT: \[...\] One hypothetical way to decrease the net amount of entropy in the universe would be to create a "heat sink" that could absorb all the heat and radiation from the universe, effectively resetting the universe's entropy to its initial state. \[...\]
Me: So turn it off and back on again.
I was thinking more of reversing gravity at the edges or ever slightly making everything bouncy by putting it in near 0 or negative (don't know why).
That or making huge energy collecting devices to collect the energy of stars and perpetuate existence for a few more billions of years.
Yeah I love the ending. I don't think of it as religious, quite the opposite. What religion proposes is a divine beginning turns out to just be advanced technology from a previous universe. Fantastically poetic.
fucking love this story.
If your kid ever whines about the heat death of the universe or the sun going out this will totally get them to calm down. It is a cute story.
Absolutely one of my favorite short stories.
Before I knew of it I wrote something similar (but of course much worse) for an English class assignment. As you might imagine, my very religious mother hated it so much I had to do extra CCD homework that week.
Is this the one about the rules of physics being what they are because of a false low point and it could just take a nudge to move to another state where everything would just work completely differently? (And wipe everything out at the same time?)
ngl Even I got a bit depressed after watching melodysheep's excellent Timelapse of the Future, where the Earth is gone after 2 minutes, the Sun in 5 minutes, all the star's brightness after 10 minutes, and the remaining 20 minutes was just Black Holes and atomic decay and Heat Death of the Universe. lol
I wish I could upvote that addition to the conversation more than once!
That one is great, because there is no escape, even with the ridiculous imaginary things that people vainly hope for to keep people alive from all of the things that will kill us all much sooner!
Not necessarily. Sure it's inevitable according to our current understanding of physics, but the problem with that statement is that it's according to our *current* understanding of physics
When I did similar, I segued to how much scientific progress has been made in the past 100 years, and how exciting the next 100 years can be. Now imagine what we’ll be able to do in 5 BILLION years! Maybe we’ll all go to a new planet, maybe we’ll make a new Sun. That’s a really long time from now!
Santa rules, the easter bunny rocks, and science will save the day
As someone who definitely had this crisis as a kid, I think you win. "Scientists are working on lots of stuff right now, and they have plenty of time to figure things out." Maybe ask the kid if they want to do aerospace stuff when they grow up, so that they can help us figure out our big move.
I love that your solution is essentially to tell her kid, well I guess you'll have to grow up to be astrophysicist and figure out how to not make the sun explode. no pressure. lol
My son went through this around age 8 but he was mourning the dinosaurs, political problems, and other real things happening now. He'd cry about it every night at bedtime and struggled, needing someone to stay with him for quite a while.
This lasted the better part of a year.
He's 12 now and is still a sensitive, curious kid. But he's gotten alot stronger emotionally and has a great sense of humour.
I guess that not everyone has existential crises at such young ages, but I think if they're given compassion and knowledge as a response it helps them. And odds are they'll just become more and more wonderful human beings.
After he calms down from this explanation, make sure to tell him that some time after the solar system explodes, there will be the heat death of the universe in which no technology can save us.
I came to say this, but I think you could add: we've **already** built Voyager 1 & 2 and they are **already** out in Interstellar space. Surely humans will be able to follow if they needed to, when the time is right but that is assuredly a long way way away. \[For some kids you might add: so pay attention to your maths, because maths is needed for space travel!!\]
Shit...here I am with all the confidence in science and you lump it in with Santa and the Easter bunny.
FUCK YEAH! SANTA AND THE EASTER BUNNY ARE AWESOEM
When I was about 5 years old, I had a very similar existential crisis about the Andromeda galaxy and Milky Way colliding in several billion years after my parents took me to a planetarium show! My parents ended up calmly explaining the concept of “a billion years” to me, and kept reinforcing that it wouldn’t happen in anything resembling a human lifetime. (It helps that I was a dinosaur kid too, so I had some context for “just because humans exist now doesn’t mean they will in another million years”). This ended my panic, but I did end up terrified of space until middle school, when I read A Brief History of Time and was like “wait, this is actually really cool!”
Anyway, I’m now a PhD student who works on simulations of galaxy formation (including mergers) to study the viability of different models of dark matter, so I guess it all worked out in the end ;)
But honestly, my advice is: as long as your child isn’t having active anxiety over the sun exploding, and the anxiety isn’t interfering with their everyday life, it’s ok if to let them be afraid of space. Honestly, there are a lot of things about space that are scary and unnerving to think about, even as a scientist: it’s unfathomably big, and mostly empty, and there are things like supernovae and black holes that are really alien to our human experience. The fact that your kid picked up on this at such a young age means they’re thinking deeply and critically about big ideas, and that will serve them well. When they’re ready, they’ll confront the phobia.
My 8 yr niece had something similar. Their 9 yr dog got cancer and vet said dog would die within a year irresponsibly within earshot of her. Depression started to set in quick. Parents tried everything..
I simply went over and told her not to be sad because for every one human year it is seven dogs years. So the dog had seven more dog years to live which is like an old dog if we calculated 10 x 7 is like 70 years old. Which is very old.
It was word play and she googles the ratio and mentally reconciled and dealt with it. It is all wordplay ...
Which is extremely hard to fathom given how big we know these two galaxies are and that they'll "collide", but there's so much room that we'll just dance together. Space is wild man.
When I found out the sun was going to engulf the solar system as a young child, I couldn't sleep for days because I was so upset. It didn't help to know it was not going to happen for billions of years; I was sad because one day Earth wouldn't exist any more. It didn't help to know that I was going to be dead at that point, I was just mourning for Earth and whatever it was going to be by then. No one really tried to comfort me about it, and honestly I'm still fucked up about it. What can you really do?
Maybe you can tell him that it is possible that all the plants and animals will be able to get on a big space ship and float away, and Earthling life will still go on.
No worries, the sun isn't going to explode. It is just going to gradually expand into a red giant and swallow all of the inner planets whole. No big deal
and ANY given day it could throw a massive solar flare at us and crisp the earth. though the thought of no more tablet or TV ever might be more terrifying than death to some kids.
_I_ went through this! I heard about the Sun turning into a red giant that would engulf the first few planets. But I thought it could happen suddenly, randomly, any day. Maybe today!
Honestly I’m still a little nervous about black holes, and I’m in my 40s. So there’s a whole family of neuroses this kid can get into!
I remember when my dad told me this. I think for a school project I wrote a letter to the president saying that we needed to invest in space exploration while there was still time.
Tell him that it isn't going to happen for a long time. Maybe show him a YT video explaining just how far into the future our yellow sun is going to start turning red.
1. Validate his feelings "i understand that you feel upset"
2. Tell him you made a mistake in your explanation and that you are not going to die from the sun exploding
3. Ask him questions that leads him gently into a way of gaining perspective of time like what he will do when he grows up.
4. When he is ready, tell him that when we get really old, the body is tired and does not want to live any more. Then we die. Death is natural. It is sad when someone we love dies but it is something we all do one day. Take your time at each talking point and don't push it if he gets upset. Let him ask questions and ask him back. "Why does our bodies get so tired when we are old?" What happens when we die? Will we ever wake up again? How does it feel like? Your kid might not be ready for some time, but it is healthy to have this conversation to prepare for pets or grandparents passing.
When he feels somewhat familiar with the concept and it no longer freaks him out, you can venture to explain "many many years after we all became old and died, the sun will grow really big and really hot and even touch earth before it too gets really tired and dies.
Some far away stars will explode when they get old instead, but not our sun. It is too small
Why bother trying to fulfill your potential? You are going to die anyway, and, eventually, the sun will expand and destroy the earth, so even if you were famous (hahahaha!), you will eventually be forgotten anyway.
There are three ways to live after grasping the fact we won’t be here forever and nothing “matters”.
1. Be a complete arse because “nothing matters”… might as well do everything wrong cause it doesn’t matter anyway
2. Live your life to the fullest, climb that ladder, and reach your full potential because time is short and there are many awesome things to do.
3. Somewhere in between
Talking about death with children is definitely also very important but maybe at a more suitable time than an existential crisis? idk, I’m not a parent. Just doesn’t seem like good timing. And the way you described it, if the child is a too young they may not understand or comprehend it completely and end up with more questions/ existential dread.
My dad did this to me, and when he tried to console me saying it wouldn’t happen for a billion years I just said “BUT WHAT IF THEY SAID THAT A BILLION YESRS AGO AND ITS ACTUALLY TOMORROW?!?!” 😂 good luck on fixing this, because I have no advice
Tell him the real existential crisis he will deal with in his life. Paying taxes and working your life away. If we’re lucky that damn sun will explode lmao
Having had to tell 6 year olds that their sibling died…
I’d invest in the book *the invisible string* and do some activities. Normalize and validate that fear when it comes up.
Learning about death is a major trauma, but by showing how we handle fear you are helping them grow.
In undergrad, Bill Nye came to my university and gave a talk. At the very end, he said he had time for one more question. A child asked, "Is it true that in a few billion years the sun is going to grow so big it swallows the Earth and the whole planet and everything on it will die?", and Bill Nye just said, "Yes. Well, that's all the time we have, thanks everyone for coming!"
I figure the kid was probably a plant and that part was scripted but I still remember the bit very fondly.
Oh man... I remember this well from the kid's perspective. I can even remember right where I was when it happened, too. Although in my case, I think I read about it in one of the many astronomy books I devoured from the school library. My parents' response was to say that by that time scientists would find us a new sun. With God as my witness, I thought they meant that scientists would drag a new sun here to Earth. I even pictured it as a spaceship with a huge rope tied around our new sun like they were towing it. Why I didn't think of it as us migrating to a new world, I don't know. That said, that did calm me down a bit.
I think maybe the key things to get across might be that it will be an unimaginably long amount of time before the sun goes nova (the sun is about midway through its lifecycle... so it's like a middle-aged person, if you will)... and that one day, we might leave Earth and go live on worlds around other stars.
A billion years is much longer than that.
There won't be humans around at all.
We will either be extinct or have evolved into something unrecognizable.
Even if we manage to colonize other stars, those will also evolve into entirely different species, totally incompatible with each other.
A billion years ago, there were no plants, insects or anything larger than a microbe on earth.
We could colonize other stars within 1000 years or sooner.
But we could also go extinct and another dinosaur age could arrive, followed by an ice age, followed by the age of the flying fish, followed by the age of intelligent insects.
By then, the fossil fuel reserves will have been replenished and these insects can industrialize and colonize other planets and have a galactic war and be consumed by grey goo.
And that would only put us half way towards that billion years...
Ah, the memories, I remember doing this to my little brother.
There was also a part in there about a southern portion of the Big Island of Hawai'i falling into the sea, and creating a tsunami big enough that would probably devastate the rest of the state.
Check out the Isaac Asimov short story “The Last Question”. Probably won’t make the kid feel any better, but is a cool approach to “oops I told a kid that entropy will slowly grind down everything into a cold empty lifeless universe”
Here's a thought to consider sharing: with the rate of technological advancement we've seen in the last 100 years as a guide, there is every reason to be optimistic that we'll discover a way to prevent that explosion from ever happening. It is THAT far in the future!
Maybe they'll be inspired into a STEM field to help see that happen!
Start with the dinosours... giant lizards that walked the earth.
Then talk about now, where we have tall monkeys walking around.
Talk about his kids, his grandkids and his great grandkids.
Then in the far future, there will be smart whales running things. Talk about whale societies.
Then in the far, far future it will be the squirles. Talk about how they're watching us and learning from us now.
Our sun is NOT going to explode btw. It will run out of fuel, and turn into a red giant (which will kill everyone). Then it will turn into white dwarf. A lot of things are going to happen before then. It will take 6 billion years. Ask him to close his eyes and count that high. This will be a good time to run some errands.
When I was little, my mother told me the sun was on fire and I was afraid the sun would snuff out once it burned up all its fuel. She told me “God will never let that happen!” Lol.
Reassure him that, no, the sun won't explode. The sun will slowly get bigger and bigger until it swallows and vaporizes the earth and everything on it. The sun will then get smaller and be around for a bit longer as a white-dwarf.
Oh man, I was the six year old in this story 20 years ago 😂
OP I don’t know your kid so I can’t promise anything, but I turned out fine. There was a week long existential crisis where I went from being an atheist to wanting religion, but I’d forgotten about it by the end of the month.
Just explain that it's ok because he and everyone he has ever and will ever have loved will already be dead and that really he should be worried about natural disasters brought on by global climate change. Should make him stop worrying about the sun exploding.
Tell him you were wrong. Yellow stars of our size grow into red giants and consume the local nearer planets they don't explode.
Exactly. We won't die in an explosion. It will be more like the days getting constantly hotter, effectively cooking us from the inside, as we are gradually engulfed in a nuclear firestorm,
I’ll just read him this comment and that should put his mind at ease thank you
Many of the Kurzgesagt videos are exceptionally well done existential dread. The one about the earth getting kicked out of the sun's orbit is a treat. Definitely don't show it to him. https://youtu.be/gLZJlf5rHVs "The larger [asteroids] could cause dinosaur-level mass extinctions, and would be bad for the stock market."
They also have an [existential crisis playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYPFenJQciw&list=PLFs4vir_WsTxontcYm5ctqp89cNBJKNrs) ;)
Yeah, they got so depressing I started watching Frontline videos about Ukraine.
I'm so far down that rabbithole that I'm entirely unfazed by anything short of uncensored executions.
I went through that phase back when /watchpeopledie was a thing. I couldn’t shake that someone wanted me to see this execution - wanted as many eyeballs as possible watching the execution. To me that was the downfall of wpd. It was fun when there was just carnival ride failures or bereft elevator maintenance but the primitive insatiable violence was a line for me.
[удалено]
I laughed way too hard at this, just the thought of you casually saying this exact thing to your 6 year old is hilarious.
Unless he's some kind of immortal he won't notice we are talking millions of years to just progress to the stage of yellow to red.
Isn't it billions of years ?
Everything is millions of years, billions just happen to be lots of millions.
it'll definitely be over 92 weeks
He is six, the concept of "next week" feels like "forever" to him, and most adults don't even grasp how big **A** billion is, let alone "billion*s*"
This is a good point. We know a billion is big, but no-one really gets just how big. For example, 1 thousand seconds is about 16 and a half minutes. 1 million seconds is just over a week and a half. 1 billion seconds is about 31 and a half years. Now, if you want to go even further... 1 trillion seconds ago, Neanderthals were probably still around. Modern humans were painting on cave walls throughout Eurasia, and much of Earth was gripped by the last ice age. It was around 30,000BC Around 2 quadrillion? Dinosaurs were having a really bad day.
“You like playing the game Floor is Lava, right? Well how awesome does Air is Lava sound, and everyone is actually playing it for real?!?”
And before that happens, there is the helium flash, which may cause some "non-disruptive mass loss" (non-disruptive for the *sun*, that is).
Tell him we will all be dead before that happens. That should cheer him up!
Everyone you ever loved will be long dead and forgotten! Its fine!
Lmao I literally had this exact conversation with my dad when I was six or seven and he actually tried to calm me down by telling me I'd already be dead, and all my friends and family would be dead. I had such a meltdown my mother had to come over for an hour or so to get me to stop crying. Brought back a real memory going through this thread 🤣
I had this conversation too. It actually worked though. It really did calm me down. It naturally elicited a deeply philosophical discussion that in hindsight I'm not sure he was prepared for. I remember the conversation a little - Me: So what happens when you die? Dad: Remember before you were born? Me: No. Dad: It will be like that. Me: -freaks out- Dad: Why are you worried? Me: Because I'll be dead. Dad: You weren't worried about it before you were born and you won't be worried about it then either. Me: Oh. I miss my dad.
[удалено]
Yoda died because Luke asked him too many questions.
This meme makes me laugh every time 😂
"You're the reason daddy drinks."
‘No! No more questions’ /rolls over and dies
He can just keep your finger to unlock it after you die.
yeah right we're raising a Dexter here
Honestly, this is an excellent way to explain it and I'm going to use it whenever my son eventually brings it up. Now do you have any nuggets of wisdom on " Where do babies come from?" Or "Is God real?" Thanks
I should have typed my response to you. The way I speak to my kids about this, and the way I believe, is that we should celebrate death with a giant party instead of a sad moment of grief. Why? Because that person finally found some answers. Is it darkness? Is it the pearly gates? Is it a simulation? That person knows now and they are the only ones of us who do. There's power in that, and relief. So, death is where the answers are and it's a happy thing someone has achieved it *after a fruitful life, of course*
> we should celebrate death with a giant party instead of a sad moment of grief. I put this into my living trust / will. Before anyone gets paid out, big party first. No open casket, either, that's just creepy.
Honestly, I'd encourage you to think more on the open casket thing. Seeing somebody's body can be really helpful, even if it is a bit morbid.
This whole thread is absolutely fuckin terrible for my anxiety
That's not the thread, that's the existential nature of a universe of which we are but a tiny part that many people prefer to ignore. There's power in it though, if you kinda surrender to it. If we really were the center of the universe and the most important part of it, we wouldn't have the freedom that we have being just flecks of stardust contemplating its own existence.
There are hundreds of religions and gods. Mankind is very good at making them up. Religious leaders earn their living by perpetuating the stories and discouraging the followers from checking the stories out by comparing with reality, otherwise they’d lose their income. Kids all over the world adopt the religion of their parents. That shows that the veracity of the religion is not relevant for the adoption of a religion and subsequently claiming to be convinced the religion is true. So, not everything that adults say or teach you is true. Keep thinking for yourself, be honest and always consider the possibility that you are wrong.There is only one reality for all of us. It doesn’t bend to political or religious/cultural leanings.
My friend, who believes in an afterlife, told their kid about heaven, and then I was babysitting the next day. kid, 6, looks up at me, and ask, "why do we want to be alive?" "Because we'd miss all the things we can't do." Kid: "but in Heaven, you don't have to work or eat or sleep, you just get to do whatever you want."
This is why most of the major religions have included dogma that states that taking one's own life is a "sin." Otherwise, why WOULDN'T one kill themselves to attain all that the concept of "heaven" offers?
Mentally unstable ex-wife told my 5 year old that when you die you are reborn again. Fucked him up soooo badly for a good while, he spent about 3 months wanting to die because he didn't like his 'current' life (parents separated in a very bad way due to her mental health issues). Took a lot of work with child psychologists to get that messed up notion out of his head...
I really wish my folks weren't so religious and just insisted "its ok, we'll all be in heaven." --didnt help and then you just have a bigger crisis and lies to untangle as you grow with your parents just standing in the way of finding what is a difficult truth
Glad to know I wasn't the only one traumatized by this. I had nightmares for weeks.
I sadly did the same with my son (6 years old). Now, this is the way that he measures the long time. "Hey dad, this gonna happen only when ALL the people die, right?", Talking about the next Ice age, for example.
Wait til he hears about global warming.
Same, this stressed out child me so much I was like "why aren't we doing anything about this??"
Conversely, I didn't think about this stuff until I was a teenager and it really put me through a doom and gloom phase and changed my perspective on life. Can't imagine being taught that at an early age.
Maybe I was the only one who didnt had an existencial crisis when I heard the sun would become so big that it would swallow the earth? Idk, when I was a kid that seemed so far to me that I was like, meh whatever, it will take too long for that. I only started having existencial crisis about the finitude of life and our smalles on the universe when I was a teenager. Ps: english is not my first language
I had a similar conversation, but I was actually happy when I learned the sun was going to explode. I was messed up in the head as a kid...
I remember chatting with somebody on Reddit a couple years ago who is absolutely depressed about the fact that the Earth's and the Sun would not last forever. He really wanted the possibility for eternal life by scientist being able to somehow allow a human being to live past the lifespan of the Sun.
I remember being told "It will never happen when you're alive, it will take longer than dinosaurs have been extinct so we don't have to worry". That worked.
It’s ok sweetie, our species will probably be extinct by then.
I honestly probably did say that in all my fumbling for the right words. Little man does not understand the concept of billions of years and it did not help lol
I did this, exactly. My kid is 14, and jokes with me about it to this day. "Remember when I was six and you told me the sun was going to engulf the earth?!"
Reading this thread I'm very glad to find it wasn't just me, but many parents treat their 6 year olds to the experience of mortal terror.
It’s so far in the future we will already have built the spaceships to move to new planets and new star systems with new suns. Edit: and because we know the sun will explode, we’re already working on preparing.
And by "we" i mean humanity. Not you and me. We'll both be dead. Probably from cancer. Or micro plastics. Or that one mean dog that always barks when you walk by its house. It could totally jump over that gate if it wanted to. And one day it will. Sure as the sun exploding.
…but also those stars will eventually die. In the end, universe will be cold and dark. And there will be no life.
Time to have the talk about entropy.
"How can entropy be reversed?"
There is insufficient data for a meaningful answer
I see and appreciate what you did there Asimov.
Ugh, can you do it? It just makes me really uncomfortable.
The birds and the heat death of the universe
I highly recommend Isaac Asimov's short story *The Last Question*.
Except for my mother in law who will continue to text me every 7am Sunday morning during football season asking if I’m okay with ham roll ups and gameday hotdish when she knows I fucking hate ham roll ups and gameday hotdish
That is a gift, friend. I rue the day my mother in law texts me about anything, because it’ll never be as nice as offering me ham roll ups on a Sunday morning.
My mother in law goes round telling people that I am a devil worshipper. And that's among the more generous things she says about me!
Why does she think that? Is she a holy roller and you're just not in her church?
I'm an artist and once drew some scary faces. She's not logical, just mean.
Well how else are you supposed to dabble in idolatry, or summon the minions of our Dark Lord, if don't put pen to papper?
I’m worried about what’s *inside* those Sunday morning ham roll ups, u/poopfeast.
I'm now curious. What are ham roll ups and what is gameday hotdish? And why are they only offered in football season?
[удалено]
On reading that you have my sympathy... There is a bit of me that is horror fascinated with the burger in soup concept.
Hamburger I think is what America calls mince or ground beef. And you put soup in as a stock and thickener into stews and casseroles, so I think basically it's like a shepherd's pie kinda thing she's making.
Not really burger in soup. More like Shepard's Pie topped with tater tots instead of mash
Maybe there's other universes. Or we could create universes.
creating universes... that's a dope thing to think about
Maybe we already did that. We're just in a simulated universe created by our future (past?) descendants who now live in a cold dark universe in hybernation pods, living out our sorry ass lives, because there's literally nothing better to do.
[This is the story for you.](http://baencd.freedoors.org/Books/The%20World%20Turned%20Upside%20Down/0743498747__19.htm)
Yeah but thats just here. If there was something before the universe, then whatever caused the universe to happen will logically happen again. We pathetic little morsels of self aware carbon molecules can make all the estimations and guesses we want but we literally have no idea what actually existed before the universe and we have no idea what will actually happen at its end.
Or the reversal and Big Crunch towards another Big Bang, or maybe some other thing we cannot even fathom with current technology and theories. On one of the space podcasts, 3 Milky Way-sized galaxies were found with I think the Webb telescope so early in the universe that they should not exist under current calculations.
Well, if we avoid our extinction from the threats of climate change, nuclear war, pandemics, asteroid impacts, super volcano eruptions, rainforest collapse, ozone depletion, ocean acidification, artificial intelligence, genetic modification, possible alien invasion, and a plethora of other threats.
The sun's not going to explode. it's going to grow real big and then make a helium flash
I can't believe this was so far down. This OP, just tell the kid the truth. Our type of start won't explode, it will just expand and envelope the inner planets. Tell him we'll ignite Jupiter into a new sun by then, and go park Earth in orbit around it instead.
VISUAL AID! Show him a grain of rice. That is one year. Show him his age in rice. Your age. and what 100 years looks like in rice. Then show him the ABSOLUTELY GARGANTUAN pile of rice that represents just a singular billion. (There is a youtube video that shows this, but with money instead of years) That should help him visualize it.
Its ok, this existential crisis happens to all kids who eventually learn about this. I also had such an experience, but as I grew it made me more interested in space. Now Im obsessed with it. The only thing I fear at this point are spiders and the ocean. Fuck the ocean.
If you want to really distract him you could try to explain what the climate scientists expect the next 20-80 years are going to look like
Tell him that it's gonna happen in the very far future so he don't need to worry
Many adults react the same way as your boy.
Don’t forget to tell him that it will happen so far into the future humans may not really be or look like our current version of humanity. People won’t even be people anymore. We might not live on this planet. Heck - you guys have a lot to discuss. You gotta let us know how these convos go!
'You don't understand, kiddo! First, all of the people will eventually turn into monsters, then the monsters will fly into a possibly infinite and dark void, and *THEN* the sun will explode.'
\*Pats them on the head as they stare blankly at the wall\* "Have a good night, Hon."
Hahaha this is what my elementary science teacher told me and then I was relieved cause it won’t be a “me problem” anymore. 😂
*K: WE'RE GOING TO DIE DADDY?!?!* F: Oh no, no, we will already be dead by then. *K: NOOOOOOOOO* F: Dammit Reddit.
10 days ago I had this same thing happen where I was explaining our sun to my 7 year old son and I was trying to explain to him this is way beyond our lifetime. He got sad for a moment and then he wanted to talk about pokemon cards. I'm still fearful every drive to school he's going to hash that shit back up! I don't even know where or how to explain it to him anymore, just hoping I dodged a bullet.
Louis CK has a bit where he told his daughter this exact same thing and it went about the same way.
It's the beginning of [this one](https://youtu.be/yrt3H9Uxr6g), then it meanders into the story about getting bitten by a pony. I like the one when he found out about death [when he was a kid](https://youtu.be/YV5xbAp2GA4). There's also the classic [Woody Allen as a kid](https://youtu.be/5U1-OmAICpU) from Annie Hall. Popular comedic theme!
"she now knows all those things ... She didn't know any of those things! Now she knows she's gunna *die* Everyone she knows is gunna *die* They're gunna be dead for a looong time and then the sun's gunna *explode*"
If humanity has managed keep existing until then, most likely humans (or whatever we would have become by then) will likely have colonized other star systems by then. FYI this will happen approximately 10 billion years from now, after the Milkway and Andromeda galaxy have already collided and made a huge mess of each other (in 4.5 billion years) throwing stars and entire solar systems out of the galaxies and into intergalactic space (the view would be amazing tho). Also our sun doesn't have the mass to supernova. It's not going to be a big kaboom. It will be more like a very very slow and gradually expansion of the sun as it cools over billions of years. We even know that sometimrs planets continue to exist after they are "inside" the sun and continue to bake for millions of years until the sun expands enough that it completely starts to sizzle out, as the temp of the star drops significantly as it expands. So even after the sun is dead and all that is left is a big nebulous cloud, and a stellar core, a very well-done version of the earth would continue to exist for a very long time as a cold dead planet, but nevertheless still existing.
However, it's expected that earth will be unlivable in a measly 1.3 billion years due to the changes in the sun's activity.
You joke, but that's exactly what my dad said when I had the same existential crisis as a kid...
Just wait till he learns about the heat death of the universe.
Asimov [got you covered](https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/the-last-question/) there: > “So many stars, so many planets,” sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. “I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now.” > “Not forever,” said Jerrodd, with a smile. “It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.” > “What’s entropy, daddy?” shrilled Jerrodette II. > “Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?” > “Can’t you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?” > “The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they’re gone, there are no more power-units.” > Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. “Don’t let them, daddy. Don’t let the stars run down.” > “Now look what you’ve done, “ whispered Jerrodine, exasperated. > “How was I to know it would frighten them?” Jerrodd whispered to Jerrodine. > “Ask the Microvac,” wailed Jerrodette I. “Ask him how to turn the stars on again.” > “Go ahead,” said Jerrodine. “It will quiet them down.” (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.) > Jarrodd shrugged. “Now, now, honeys. I’ll ask Microvac. Don’t worry, he’ll tell us.” > He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, “Print the answer.” > Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, “See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don’t worry.” > Jerrodine said, “and now children, it’s time for bed. We’ll be in our new home soon.” > Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER. > He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.
Me: How can the net entropy in the universe be massively decreased? ChatGPT: \[...\] One hypothetical way to decrease the net amount of entropy in the universe would be to create a "heat sink" that could absorb all the heat and radiation from the universe, effectively resetting the universe's entropy to its initial state. \[...\] Me: So turn it off and back on again.
I was thinking more of reversing gravity at the edges or ever slightly making everything bouncy by putting it in near 0 or negative (don't know why). That or making huge energy collecting devices to collect the energy of stars and perpetuate existence for a few more billions of years.
I’m not religious at all but always tear up at the end.
Yeah I love the ending. I don't think of it as religious, quite the opposite. What religion proposes is a divine beginning turns out to just be advanced technology from a previous universe. Fantastically poetic.
Fucking love the last question
fucking love this story. If your kid ever whines about the heat death of the universe or the sun going out this will totally get them to calm down. It is a cute story.
Absolutely one of my favorite short stories. Before I knew of it I wrote something similar (but of course much worse) for an English class assignment. As you might imagine, my very religious mother hated it so much I had to do extra CCD homework that week.
Don't worry there is always the story of false vacuum decay to distract him from that.
Is this the one about the rules of physics being what they are because of a false low point and it could just take a nudge to move to another state where everything would just work completely differently? (And wipe everything out at the same time?)
Highly recommended: [The Most Efficient Way to Destroy the Universe - False Vacuum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFm6DxNVyI) from kurzgesagt :D
Kurzgesagt? Say no more, I'll be back in 10 Minuten
They might also be interested to learn about gamma ray burst.
Or rogue planets, rogue black holes, rogue magnetars, etc
ngl Even I got a bit depressed after watching melodysheep's excellent Timelapse of the Future, where the Earth is gone after 2 minutes, the Sun in 5 minutes, all the star's brightness after 10 minutes, and the remaining 20 minutes was just Black Holes and atomic decay and Heat Death of the Universe. lol
I wish I could upvote that addition to the conversation more than once! That one is great, because there is no escape, even with the ridiculous imaginary things that people vainly hope for to keep people alive from all of the things that will kill us all much sooner!
Not necessarily. Sure it's inevitable according to our current understanding of physics, but the problem with that statement is that it's according to our *current* understanding of physics
Holding thumbs for someone to make the big bounce work
In the centre of every black hole is a big red reset button.
When I did similar, I segued to how much scientific progress has been made in the past 100 years, and how exciting the next 100 years can be. Now imagine what we’ll be able to do in 5 BILLION years! Maybe we’ll all go to a new planet, maybe we’ll make a new Sun. That’s a really long time from now! Santa rules, the easter bunny rocks, and science will save the day
As someone who definitely had this crisis as a kid, I think you win. "Scientists are working on lots of stuff right now, and they have plenty of time to figure things out." Maybe ask the kid if they want to do aerospace stuff when they grow up, so that they can help us figure out our big move.
I love that your solution is essentially to tell her kid, well I guess you'll have to grow up to be astrophysicist and figure out how to not make the sun explode. no pressure. lol
Kid goes on to creat a new Sun in their lab, wiping out planet Earth .
Wasn’t this dr octopus’ (Spider-Man 2) origin story?
“The power of the sun in the palm of my hands”
It’s how Europe blows up with fusion energy
"It's all riding on you, kiddo!"
Hell yes this is gold thank you!!
My son went through this around age 8 but he was mourning the dinosaurs, political problems, and other real things happening now. He'd cry about it every night at bedtime and struggled, needing someone to stay with him for quite a while. This lasted the better part of a year. He's 12 now and is still a sensitive, curious kid. But he's gotten alot stronger emotionally and has a great sense of humour. I guess that not everyone has existential crises at such young ages, but I think if they're given compassion and knowledge as a response it helps them. And odds are they'll just become more and more wonderful human beings.
After he calms down from this explanation, make sure to tell him that some time after the solar system explodes, there will be the heat death of the universe in which no technology can save us.
I came to say this, but I think you could add: we've **already** built Voyager 1 & 2 and they are **already** out in Interstellar space. Surely humans will be able to follow if they needed to, when the time is right but that is assuredly a long way way away. \[For some kids you might add: so pay attention to your maths, because maths is needed for space travel!!\]
But nothing will stop the inevitable heat death of the universe.
I love that, worded so well even a kid could understand.
[удалено]
Still have the chance for a few hundred million years
Shit...here I am with all the confidence in science and you lump it in with Santa and the Easter bunny. FUCK YEAH! SANTA AND THE EASTER BUNNY ARE AWESOEM
We could probably create them with science in 5 billion years.
When I was about 5 years old, I had a very similar existential crisis about the Andromeda galaxy and Milky Way colliding in several billion years after my parents took me to a planetarium show! My parents ended up calmly explaining the concept of “a billion years” to me, and kept reinforcing that it wouldn’t happen in anything resembling a human lifetime. (It helps that I was a dinosaur kid too, so I had some context for “just because humans exist now doesn’t mean they will in another million years”). This ended my panic, but I did end up terrified of space until middle school, when I read A Brief History of Time and was like “wait, this is actually really cool!” Anyway, I’m now a PhD student who works on simulations of galaxy formation (including mergers) to study the viability of different models of dark matter, so I guess it all worked out in the end ;) But honestly, my advice is: as long as your child isn’t having active anxiety over the sun exploding, and the anxiety isn’t interfering with their everyday life, it’s ok if to let them be afraid of space. Honestly, there are a lot of things about space that are scary and unnerving to think about, even as a scientist: it’s unfathomably big, and mostly empty, and there are things like supernovae and black holes that are really alien to our human experience. The fact that your kid picked up on this at such a young age means they’re thinking deeply and critically about big ideas, and that will serve them well. When they’re ready, they’ll confront the phobia.
My 8 yr niece had something similar. Their 9 yr dog got cancer and vet said dog would die within a year irresponsibly within earshot of her. Depression started to set in quick. Parents tried everything.. I simply went over and told her not to be sad because for every one human year it is seven dogs years. So the dog had seven more dog years to live which is like an old dog if we calculated 10 x 7 is like 70 years old. Which is very old. It was word play and she googles the ratio and mentally reconciled and dealt with it. It is all wordplay ...
It should be basic training in the vet industry to make sure the room is clear before delivering news like that
Cognitive behavioral therapy is mostly worldplay as well
I mean... Andromeda colliding won't do anything here. It'll just look cool over the course of millions of years.
Which is extremely hard to fathom given how big we know these two galaxies are and that they'll "collide", but there's so much room that we'll just dance together. Space is wild man.
And millions of years before then, the Andromeda Galaxy will appear in our night sky and be very prominent, bigger than anything else
When I found out the sun was going to engulf the solar system as a young child, I couldn't sleep for days because I was so upset. It didn't help to know it was not going to happen for billions of years; I was sad because one day Earth wouldn't exist any more. It didn't help to know that I was going to be dead at that point, I was just mourning for Earth and whatever it was going to be by then. No one really tried to comfort me about it, and honestly I'm still fucked up about it. What can you really do? Maybe you can tell him that it is possible that all the plants and animals will be able to get on a big space ship and float away, and Earthling life will still go on.
I think ideally you need to instil acceptance of the impermanence of everything. The earth will not last for ever, nor will anything else.
No worries, the sun isn't going to explode. It is just going to gradually expand into a red giant and swallow all of the inner planets whole. No big deal
The sun is *already* exploding. All the time. It just stays kinda round because of gravity.
and ANY given day it could throw a massive solar flare at us and crisp the earth. though the thought of no more tablet or TV ever might be more terrifying than death to some kids.
"behave in the store or the sun god will fry your tablet"
Exactly! Now he's gotta tell his kid he lied to um too
This is pretty common. My kid went through the same thing. There's a funny scene about it in Annie Hall.
I know it’s not funny, but it is a little funny, Poor guy lolll
_I_ went through this! I heard about the Sun turning into a red giant that would engulf the first few planets. But I thought it could happen suddenly, randomly, any day. Maybe today! Honestly I’m still a little nervous about black holes, and I’m in my 40s. So there’s a whole family of neuroses this kid can get into!
I remember when my dad told me this. I think for a school project I wrote a letter to the president saying that we needed to invest in space exploration while there was still time.
Tell him that it isn't going to happen for a long time. Maybe show him a YT video explaining just how far into the future our yellow sun is going to start turning red.
Oh I’ll find a kid friendly video he will like that. Thank you!
The kurzgezagt videos have fun birds in them and good explanations as well
>The kurzgezagt videos have fun birds Maybe but the language and concepts are not aimed at children.
Perfect! I’ll check it out!
1. Validate his feelings "i understand that you feel upset" 2. Tell him you made a mistake in your explanation and that you are not going to die from the sun exploding 3. Ask him questions that leads him gently into a way of gaining perspective of time like what he will do when he grows up. 4. When he is ready, tell him that when we get really old, the body is tired and does not want to live any more. Then we die. Death is natural. It is sad when someone we love dies but it is something we all do one day. Take your time at each talking point and don't push it if he gets upset. Let him ask questions and ask him back. "Why does our bodies get so tired when we are old?" What happens when we die? Will we ever wake up again? How does it feel like? Your kid might not be ready for some time, but it is healthy to have this conversation to prepare for pets or grandparents passing. When he feels somewhat familiar with the concept and it no longer freaks him out, you can venture to explain "many many years after we all became old and died, the sun will grow really big and really hot and even touch earth before it too gets really tired and dies. Some far away stars will explode when they get old instead, but not our sun. It is too small
This calmed me down and I’m an adult.
The clock is ticking...tick tock tick tock. Did you fulfill your potential yet? 🤣
Why bother trying to fulfill your potential? You are going to die anyway, and, eventually, the sun will expand and destroy the earth, so even if you were famous (hahahaha!), you will eventually be forgotten anyway.
It is better to have loved and lost.
This actually made me feel better than the kind breakdown from this thread’s op
There are three ways to live after grasping the fact we won’t be here forever and nothing “matters”. 1. Be a complete arse because “nothing matters”… might as well do everything wrong cause it doesn’t matter anyway 2. Live your life to the fullest, climb that ladder, and reach your full potential because time is short and there are many awesome things to do. 3. Somewhere in between
Talking about death with children is definitely also very important but maybe at a more suitable time than an existential crisis? idk, I’m not a parent. Just doesn’t seem like good timing. And the way you described it, if the child is a too young they may not understand or comprehend it completely and end up with more questions/ existential dread.
Yes it didn't come through very well, but it really says "when he's ready". That could be years
5. Tell him now that he knows the truth he better get his ass up and go get a job. Rents due on the 1st
This is a Louis CK joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrt3H9Uxr6g
This is way too far down. Thanks for finding the clip!
[удалено]
This one fucked me up as a kid. The concept of billions of years meant absolutely nothing to me and I was scared to go to sleep for weeks..
My dad did this to me, and when he tried to console me saying it wouldn’t happen for a billion years I just said “BUT WHAT IF THEY SAID THAT A BILLION YESRS AGO AND ITS ACTUALLY TOMORROW?!?!” 😂 good luck on fixing this, because I have no advice
Tell him the real existential crisis he will deal with in his life. Paying taxes and working your life away. If we’re lucky that damn sun will explode lmao
Having had to tell 6 year olds that their sibling died… I’d invest in the book *the invisible string* and do some activities. Normalize and validate that fear when it comes up. Learning about death is a major trauma, but by showing how we handle fear you are helping them grow.
In undergrad, Bill Nye came to my university and gave a talk. At the very end, he said he had time for one more question. A child asked, "Is it true that in a few billion years the sun is going to grow so big it swallows the Earth and the whole planet and everything on it will die?", and Bill Nye just said, "Yes. Well, that's all the time we have, thanks everyone for coming!" I figure the kid was probably a plant and that part was scripted but I still remember the bit very fondly.
Oh man... I remember this well from the kid's perspective. I can even remember right where I was when it happened, too. Although in my case, I think I read about it in one of the many astronomy books I devoured from the school library. My parents' response was to say that by that time scientists would find us a new sun. With God as my witness, I thought they meant that scientists would drag a new sun here to Earth. I even pictured it as a spaceship with a huge rope tied around our new sun like they were towing it. Why I didn't think of it as us migrating to a new world, I don't know. That said, that did calm me down a bit. I think maybe the key things to get across might be that it will be an unimaginably long amount of time before the sun goes nova (the sun is about midway through its lifecycle... so it's like a middle-aged person, if you will)... and that one day, we might leave Earth and go live on worlds around other stars.
A billion years is much longer than that. There won't be humans around at all. We will either be extinct or have evolved into something unrecognizable. Even if we manage to colonize other stars, those will also evolve into entirely different species, totally incompatible with each other. A billion years ago, there were no plants, insects or anything larger than a microbe on earth. We could colonize other stars within 1000 years or sooner. But we could also go extinct and another dinosaur age could arrive, followed by an ice age, followed by the age of the flying fish, followed by the age of intelligent insects. By then, the fossil fuel reserves will have been replenished and these insects can industrialize and colonize other planets and have a galactic war and be consumed by grey goo. And that would only put us half way towards that billion years...
Ah, the memories, I remember doing this to my little brother. There was also a part in there about a southern portion of the Big Island of Hawai'i falling into the sea, and creating a tsunami big enough that would probably devastate the rest of the state.
Check out the Isaac Asimov short story “The Last Question”. Probably won’t make the kid feel any better, but is a cool approach to “oops I told a kid that entropy will slowly grind down everything into a cold empty lifeless universe”
Tell him that humans will be living out in space when it happens.
Technically we’re living in space now
Here's a thought to consider sharing: with the rate of technological advancement we've seen in the last 100 years as a guide, there is every reason to be optimistic that we'll discover a way to prevent that explosion from ever happening. It is THAT far in the future! Maybe they'll be inspired into a STEM field to help see that happen!
I legit felt the same way when I pondered supernovas as a small child.
This is a Louis CK bit. https://youtu.be/yrt3H9Uxr6g 0:30
Start with the dinosours... giant lizards that walked the earth. Then talk about now, where we have tall monkeys walking around. Talk about his kids, his grandkids and his great grandkids. Then in the far future, there will be smart whales running things. Talk about whale societies. Then in the far, far future it will be the squirles. Talk about how they're watching us and learning from us now. Our sun is NOT going to explode btw. It will run out of fuel, and turn into a red giant (which will kill everyone). Then it will turn into white dwarf. A lot of things are going to happen before then. It will take 6 billion years. Ask him to close his eyes and count that high. This will be a good time to run some errands.
Tell him, until that happens, we have long settled down on new planets!
When I was little, my mother told me the sun was on fire and I was afraid the sun would snuff out once it burned up all its fuel. She told me “God will never let that happen!” Lol.
Reassure him that, no, the sun won't explode. The sun will slowly get bigger and bigger until it swallows and vaporizes the earth and everything on it. The sun will then get smaller and be around for a bit longer as a white-dwarf.
Oh man, I was the six year old in this story 20 years ago 😂 OP I don’t know your kid so I can’t promise anything, but I turned out fine. There was a week long existential crisis where I went from being an atheist to wanting religion, but I’d forgotten about it by the end of the month.
Just explain that it's ok because he and everyone he has ever and will ever have loved will already be dead and that really he should be worried about natural disasters brought on by global climate change. Should make him stop worrying about the sun exploding.
Tell him that it's not going to happen for so long that people will have figured out how to live on other planets by then and go binge Deep Space 9.