Life is horridly unfair, wherein I guess lies the challenge of life: Try and fight through all the bad, focus on the good, and make it through life as best as you can.
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The universe isn’t fair; it’s statistical. One either accepts that, and deals with it, or not.
The universe, it should be noted, doesn’t care whether you accept that or not.
Regards,
Shodan
The universe is indifferent, which is pretty fair, but people cheat, so life is not fair.
I’m a former conservative atheist turned bleeding-heart liberal Christian.
I think you are wrong about this. Would you care to give an example of a zero-sum financial transaction?
Has anyone cited “The Meaning of Life” yet?
That makes me think of a memorable quote from McCarthy’s “The Road”.
I’ll have to paraphrase:
“You wish you would die?”
“No. I’ve seen what dying looks like. Those of us living, we all got that ahead of us.”
“But maybe you wish you’d never been born?”
“It’s foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these.”
What’s fair about indifference? People who seek to treat others fairly must be attentive, not indifferent. If the universe is indifferent (and I agree that it is), then it cannot be fair, except occasionally and by random chance - which sounds pretty unfair.
The other side of the coin is that if you were fortunate in life, it would be nice to think you deserved it.
I was thinking of the blind-folded statue of Justice, that kind of indifference.
Lady Justice is blindfolded so that she can disregard things not relevant to justice/fairness, but this is not the same thing as the total indifference of the universe.
If a good man and an evil man were standing at the bottom of a cliff and a rock fell from the top, Lady Justice would see to it that the rock fell on the evil man; the universe, left to its own devices, won’t care who the rock hits.
Life is mostly random events that you have little control over. “Fairness” implies that there is a sentient and controlling nature to it, which there isn’t.
Life’s not fair. But it’s not unfair, either. Life just happens without much regard for how you’re treated.
I don’t know if life is fair, but I do know that it all evens out in the end.
For me it is a little more complicated than that -
Life is made up random events, as well as interactions with people.
For random events, life is fair - in that the same conditions and inputs would have the same results for everyone.
Whereas for human interactions, life is not fair - humans change their reactions to the same inputs and conditions in uncountable ways, and different humans react differently.
Speaking of fairness, when I hear people complainin’ about the wealthy, this is what I’m thinkin’…
And then I find myself asking why it is that so many times the inclination is not to increase the ability or determination of the poor to grind, but to take that ability away from the wealthy.
Disclaimer: I should state that I myself am not wealthy. I just appreciate the produce of and standard of living made possible by those who are.
No, life isn’t fair. People get killed in horrible ways for the worst of reasons, or no reason at all. Or for little if any fault of their own, are tortured or permanently crippled or rot in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. What’s ‘fair’ about any of that?
Life is indifferent.
People are unfair.
Of course it’s not fair. I was born in a First World country and had healthy food and clean water and vaccinations. On the same day, presumably, some kid was born in a desperately poor Third World country, to a family who had no access to any of those things, and died before she had her first birthday. I don’t see how any sane person can possibly look at those facts and conclude that life is fair.
(I know there are loons who believe in that vomitous bullshit where the Third World baby wasn’t thinking positively enough, or was paying for something she did in a previous life, but I don’t categorise them as ‘sane people’.)
I’ve told you this before, young lady: Life is not fair – and anyone who tries to convince you Life is supposed to be fair is trying to sell you something. And, just like I told you the last six times, you need to learn that well – preferably before your twelfth birthday next month. It will save you from a lot of unnecessary drama and heartache.
—G!
In other words: No, you can’t have a TV in your room.