Nothing in the comments you’ve posted suggest that. There is one mention of anti natalism: “non-coital existence as the surest path to redemption from the sin of being congregants of this world”
Note the religious language. Sin and redemption? Sin according to who? Then it’s starts being an argument about faith and religion. There’s no point presenting a logical argument into or out of something that is ultimately based on faith.
What anomalous1 said. Human life isn’t awful, and I am not happy because I tricked myself. I am happy because of love. God loves me, and my family loves me, and I love them, and I love my friends and they love me (they have, apparently, very poor taste), and I have chosen to live my life in ways that bring about meaning.
That’s not a trick. There is really good and happiness in life. I pursue that, and, in general, I find it.
What I am saying is that your experience, and the experience of the anti-natalists, is not universal, nor is it really very common. Most people recognize that life is worth living.
And, pro tip: Making other people happy is the best way to make yourself happy. It sounds paradoxical, but it is true.
Regards,
Shodan
Selfish and arrogant…again. I’m detecting a theme here. And one you seem completely oblivious too. If you take the decision out of another sentient beings hands for life then that is an inherently selfish act. YOU are deciding that another’s life will be pointless and cruel and thus YOU are deciding that they shouldn’t be put through that. And you want to ramp that up, seemingly to mass selfishness based on your own outlook and world view…in the face of pretty much universal denial in this thread. It should give you pause that so many people from a really wide variety of viewpoints all disagree with you in this thread. But you just plow on despite that.
Most people don’t think that the universe is meaningless or full of pain. Some people do, and that sure sucks for them. Some of the people who think so change their mind with therapy and/or drugs, so “mental illness” is a reasonable model for what’s going on.
But let’s say that we have it all wrong. All us suckers who are convinced that our lives have meaning and that there’s more to life than suffering are the crazy ones. You and the people who wrote those books see the real truth: a gaping meaningless void.
Then what?
Proselytizing for converts to “nothing matters and life is pain” is probably not going to be a very fruitful enterprise. Maybe it’s because that’s a stupid ethos, or maybe it’s because we’re all crazy and you can’t make a crazy person see truth. Either way, probably not going to get very far.
Maybe learn to paint, or write some poetry? Lots of nihilists and depressed people have made great art.
Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?
“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
― Abraham Lincoln
My bolding.
You keep saying “meaningless” like it’s a bad thing. Imagine, if you will, a universe where human life is meaningful, by whatever criteria you’d use for that. What are you picturing? Are we slaves to a god being? Pieces of some great universal intelligence instead of distinct individuals? Pushing boulders up hills forever?
No matter what you think a “meaningful” existence would be, it inevitably be more limited and less free than what we have (and I suspect you’d be here complaining about how we’re all commanded to serve God, and judged accordingly, even if we don’t want to). “Meaninglessness” is just another word for “self-determined”. That should mean you can make the life you want for yourself…and perhaps you’ve done just that. Perhaps your philosophizing and nihilism gives your life meaning and makes you happy. That’d certainly explain why you cling to it so tenaciously.
As my mother used to say, “some people aren’t happy unless they’re miserable”. Of course, she also told not to cross my eyes or they’d stick that way.
Regards,
Shodan
Re my bolding: It sounds like you ARE tricking yourself.
“If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do.”
Also, reading this thread just got Existential Blues stuck in my head. Thanks, MF.
It might be worth noting that the author to whom the OP has made repeated, recent references, Thomas Ligotti, is - by self-admission - not exactly mentally well himself:
“Ligotti has suffered from chronic anxiety and anhedonia for much of his life; these have been prominent themes in his work.[1]”
Were I to take the OP’s insulting assertions and insufferable hand-waving seriously, I would be tempted to post a response in anger. Then I remind myself that the OP - from all apparent evidence in this and other threads - is mentally unwell. Go seek some professional help, and keep looking for it until you find something that works for you.
We really aren’t lying to you or ourselves when we tell you that existence is generally preferable to non-existence.
It seems odd to me to suggest it’s selfish to have kids because of the potential kids.
But I think you could make a case that it’s selfish to have kids because the population of the earth is above what some believe is sustainable. That would be a much better argument, because it could be grounded in actual evidence rather than the impossible (and ridiculous) moral question of whether or not it’s acceptable to expose new life to life.
I haven’t looked into it enough to defend it, but it’s the rationalization I use when people ask me why I don’t have kids and don’t want them. The truth is, kids don’t make sense to me - I can’t talk to them and I have no interest in having some around just because it’s expected of me. But people have trouble relating to that so if I tell people the world is overpopulated they are often more satisfied with that.
It’s not about being right or happy, it’s about the truth.
The mentally unwell is a dodge used by people to avoid the hard questions in life. Neitzche was also unwell but that doesn’t make what he said any less profound. I also looked up anhedonia and it isn’t something you’re born with. In fact it likely could be caused by whatever revelation he had about human existence. I assume it would be hard to be happy if you thought that human life was an overall negative.
The joy that we feel is just a diversion from the unpleasantness of our experience, our search for whatever might bring lasting happiness is futile. The world we live in to give ourselves meaning is little more than an illusion, as much as the concept of our “self” is. All the meaning that we are convinced exists is based on the trick that there exists a “self”. Judging by the fact that no one read the links in my long post I don’t think people are full grasping why the arguments so far don’t refute the main point.
Expecting something complex like this to be neatly summarized just shows intellectual laziness.
A “self” does exist.
I would argue the same thing in the opposite direction.
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I love my two nephews and my niece, now my nephew has 3 children of his own, all wonderful kids. But frankly speaking, strictly from a non-emotional point of view, yes it’s selfish to have more than two children.
Can you try reading that again and really try to get it? I mean really really really try.
Right it is.
At least he didn’t capitalize “truth” this time. That’s progress, right?
I do get it, do you?
And in response, to the self the research seems to show that a self does not exist.