Thread 17972218

Historically, what made Chinese rulers so uniquely obsessed with immortality? Ancient emperors often used the mystical elixir to seduce women, gain political advantage, and avoid physical harm. There is a famous story of the legendary Han dynasty emperor Qin Shihuangdi, who in his later years sought out the elixir and hired a Daoist master to teach him how to drink it. The master had a difficult time brewing the concoction. At the master's request, the emperor cut off his arm, boiled it with five different kinds of poison, and added the liquor to the elixir. The emperor drank the potion, but he immediately died. Today we know that the brew was likely filled with poisonous copper salts and arsenic.

>>17972218 (OP)
I have only negative associations with immortality ever since I read somewhere that, according to legend, vampires were immortal.

>>17972225
They used to tell that to virgins to get laid and have a nutritious snack. No wonder people hated them.

>>17972218 (OP)
>YELLOW PERIL
fuck chyna
fuck chinks

>>17972274
In fact, the aging of organisms— animals or plants— is something so natural and obvious that immortality really seems strange.

>>17972329
Fun fact: Plants don't age.

Asians connect divinity to immortality. They think living virtuously (different than western virtue) they gain life. They also had a culture around selling people life extending elixirs which were actually just poison and doing shamanic rituals. In fact it's these rituals and elixirs that eventually lead to them accidentally discovering major inventions.

Also their leaders would get so bored they'd order specialty cuisine like still living monkey brains, still living donkeys, and even human

They saw themselves as the Sons of Heaven, the link between this world and the next. Their goal was to maintain their health to provide stability.