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Have more famous people died in 2016? - BBC News
Have more famous people died in 2016? - BBC News
It's been held up as a particularly gloomy year for celebrity deaths. But has the grim reaper really claimed the souls of more notable people than usual in 2016? David Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Harper Lee, Alan Rickman, Nancy Reagan, Muhammad Ali, Sir George Martin, Victoria Wood, Leonard Cohen...
bbc.com




There should be a special word to describe the melancholy one feels at losing an icon that was a part of their growing up. It's not like losing parents, but they form part of an identity landscape that parents also occupy.
On the flip side, how awful it would be if we were able to live forever! Tyrants would never die. Better ideas and practices would never replace oppressive or inefficient ones. For this opportunity we can be grateful.
I don't disagree that living forever would make society worse off (retroactively-speaking; future societies might make it work), but I do disagree that "better ideas and practices would never replace oppressive or inefficient ones". Sure, some people are stuck in their ways, but new generations would still be born and would ultimately outnumber the older ones, so while the progress of the Human race would happen slowly it would still happen.
For sure, I could always hope for new people to imagine new ideas, but I never underestimate all the ways that old wolves look to hang on to power, just for power's sake. When all else fails, I'm happy for the inevitability of time to take over.