And yet another saying on the matter of our lives:
Ligotti’s anti-humanism is far more profound that the utilitarian influenced anti-natalism it is often naively linked. “Life is a confidence trick we must run on ourselves, hoping we do not catch on to any monkey business that would have us stripped of our defense mechanisms and standing stark naked before the silent, starring void” and "This would be for the good of all, for even those who know nothing about the conspiracy against the human race are among its injured parties.”
In a sense it states how foolish an anthropocentric view of the world. Again, anti humanism.
Nobody has argued that there is not a significant number of the population that experiences these very real feelings. Nobody has argued that there does not exist a kind of support network of like minded individuals. Nobody has argued that people who feel this way do in fact write and publish material related to their mental outlook and theory on their understanding of meaning of life. Nobody has asked you to provide a cite or provide evidence in support of what you’re feeling and thinking.
EVERYBODY here GETS IT.
The issue isn’t that we don’t understand your point of view (Hint: we absolutely do). The issue is that you refuse to understand or accept anything other than your own.
Because so far there hasn’t been any strong evidence against it. The best people can do is just “don’t think about it”. But that just feels like living a lie.
The book that I referenced states that the joy is just a distraction from the horrors of existence, the illusion of the self, the meaninglessness of our existence, and other things. Hence why he calls it the “conspiracy against the human race”.
The world and what we strive for is so small and meager compared to all of existence. Our struggles, dreams, and hopes but microsopic. Such a human centered view of existence.
Ligotti’s anti-humanism is far more profound that the utilitarian influenced anti-natalism it is often naively linked. “Life is a confidence trick we must run on ourselves, hoping we do not catch on to any monkey business that would have us stripped of our defense mechanisms and standing stark naked before the silent, starring void” and "This would be for the good of all, for even those who know nothing about the conspiracy against the human race are among its injured parties.”
You have demonstrated, time and again, an unyielding willingness to ignore all evidence that contradicts your world view. You’ve yet to acknowledge that the majority of evidence contradicts your personal confirmation bias. This does not bode well for balanced and enlightened discussion of your pet subject.
The overwhelming evidence is this: Life, despite its challenges, its catastrophes, its tragedies, its relative brevity - persists. The tendency among living organisms is to survive, avoid pain & maximize pleasure.
It is pure arrogance and lack of understanding on your part that your personal failure to find meaning in your own life necessitates the same inability and failure in others. You would not, for example, insist that just because you don’t understand math, that nobody else should understand it, thus rendering the entire idea of math useless - right?
Proving that despite his nihilism, he seeks & finds pleasure and reward in a popular form of age old human expression - the trans-generational art of literature. If he was a true believer in his personal convictions, he would not spend time and energy involved in something as ‘pointless’ as the creative process. So I’d go so far as to call him a hypocrite; someone who lacks the courage of his own convictions.
It would be one in high life being worth living could be an empirical fact instead of a question still up for debate. You probably wouldn’t have antinatalism either.
I still say you are missing the point. The fact that a majority feel that way doesn’t make it so. After all, you still have people attempting suicide. Not to mention that the majority can find themselves in the minority at some point and vice versa. It’s an appeal to popularity and that’s a fallacy. I had said that already, so that isn’t evidence.
So far anything beyond anecdote doesn’t seem to refute the logic made by what he and others are saying.
In regards to the author, he uses the whole surivival instinct as a reason to why he hasn’t died yet. He also said he doesn’t want to cause that kind of anguish on those close to him by taking his life. But that doesn’t negate what is being said by him. He states that most just live in ignorance of how bad the human condition really is, that maybe the masses are just fooling themselves. In case you haven’t learned, just because someone talks about suicide and hasn’t done it doesn’t mean they don’t want to. It’s very hard to actually go through with it.
Everyone’s comments have clearly shown that they haven’t read the posts I have made or looked at the links posted. If you did you wouldn’t be showing the same tired responses that aren’t counterpoints.
That’s not an answer, though. If life must have meaning to be worth living, answering that a meaningful life is one worth living doesn’t answer the question of what meaningfulness is.
[QUOTE=Machinaforce]
I still say you are missing the point. The fact that a majority feel that way doesn’t make it so.
[/QUOTE]
In this case it kind of does. The only way for your worldview to make sense outside of the sad few who believe as you do is if a large majority of people suited actions to the supposed misery and basically voluntarily stopped having kids. Ironically, it’s generally more self focused (and generally affluent and focused on career and advancement) types who generally opt to not have kids. Just looking at the reality of how the world actually works and who opts out of kids and why shoots down your entire worldview and the question you are asking in the title.
As a percentage of the population it’s a very small number. So…it doesn’t negate the point that a large majority of people have kids nor that a large majority of people don’t agree with your outlook on life. It SHOULD indicate something to you, but you seem immune to any sort of logic that contradicts your world view.
Um…considering that standards of living are rising world wide and, in fact, we are in the greatest period of such advancement the world has ever seen, I seriously doubt that the large majority of people who feel life is worth living is suddenly going to shift. You can, of course, keep dreaming, but ain’t gonna happen.
Not in this case. Actions speak louder than words, and simply put the majority of people act as if their lives have means, are worth living (thus, the low percentage of people who suicide). Whether you want to believe it or not, whether it conforms to your world view or not, the actions of the majority of a given species ARE the norm. And that is the norm among humans. Maybe in some dystopian future this will all change but it hasn’t happened in the few hundred thousand years our species has existed yet…and, frankly, shit was a lot worse in the past, yet folks STILL took pleasure in life and thought it was worth it to bring more humans to the party.
The irony levels of this are, well, off the charts. Thanks for this…seriously, it’s goofy shit like this that makes MY life worth living and a happier place.
The sum total of your rebuttal, every single time to every single poster, is the equivalent of shutting your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LA-LA-LA-NOT-LISTENING-LA-LA-LA…
You can call out whatever rhetorical fallacy you want, but just because they are the only response you have, doesn’t mean you’ve won the argument, or even have a valid argument to present. You’ve not proven that your position is the predominant one, yet you insist that it is. The fact that there is evidence, backed by science, that your position is highly likely linked to mental illness (depression, most likely) only makes you want to ignore it, like a climate denialist ignoring the evidence that climate change is real.
The fact that you’ve found a small minority of like minded individuals who seem to have the same nihilistic view of the world doesn’t mean you’re onto something here. All you’ve done is find a community of like minded nihilists who enjoy moaning and obsessing about the fact that you just can’t seem to find any joy or meaning in your daily existence. Every reason you’ve given so far is nothing but confirmation bias - you’ve excluded all evidence except a tiny fraction of unsupported opinion from like minded nihilists and anhedonics because it fits with your preconceived notions.
My guess is, is that you actually derive pleasure from all this bitching and whining about how void of meaning your life is. I agree with Human Action who (I believe) suggested that despite declaring that life is without joy and meaning, you actually derive joy and meaning from all this obsessive moping, knowing you are not alone with your nihilism.
You are in love with the self-indulgent imagery of standing alone naked and screaming into the void. Hey, some people are only happy when they are miserable. If so, brood away, Machinaforce. Whatever gives you meaning and doesn’t hurt anybody else in the process.
If you can write paragraphs about how meaningless life is, maybe you can also manage a single well-formed thought about what a meaningful life might be.
You can, of course, keep dreaming, but ain’t gonna happen.