The Most Dangerous Person On Earth

[IgnorantGod]

Even without my belief in an 'afterlife' I think that there are too many interesting things to learn and fun things to do in life , than to waste time being miserable.  if you engage your brain enough it wants more!  I have been depressed from both chemicals and 'philosophy' but what snaps me out of it is helpful guidance from others who show me how to use my energy in a more positive way.
I like the phrase 'get busy living or get busy dying.  '

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Me too I needed 'external' help to get past the nihilist spiral I was caught in. My last 'hope' to get out of it at the time was hyperrationalism, however I knew deep down that it couldn't be the 'savior' I was looking for at the time.

One particular ATS member helped me accept it, and live with it, without abandoning rationality entirely. It was all about utility. Learning to use logic when needed, or scrap it when needed. To be able to wear the coat and to change it depending on the situation.

To be able to believe in something, without being too attached to it and let it be the basis of decisions/actions.

At the end of the day, my whole argument boils down to this : Well, a whole population of 'me' would definitely collapse sooner rather than later.

[Ignorant]

I suppose one can run into knowledge that interferes with their happiness. Nihilism, it seems, is such a piece of knowledge for some. As always when it comes to reaching contentment, the key is in acceptance. If we can learn to accept and be content with the truth no matter what it is, we can stay and fight on its side. Yet if I was given the choice to either believe a falsehood and be content, or believe the truth and be depressed, I would choose the former. Ignorance is bliss. I guess all we can do is hope that the truth never offends us to the extent that we have to abandon it to stay sane.

[Bootless]

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I like that it really gets into why it helps to be antisocial to lead the social. Slave and master morality. 
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Any other thoughts?

I do believe that I found a better video. Really touches on the "Slave and master morality". Plus the observation that I made about the sudden appearance of Stoicism being used as a way to attract women. It's as if the ubiquity of The Art of War  from previous decades as a motivational vehicle has been replaced by Stoicism.



I think it helps to compare and contrast different philosophies in order to get a better understanding of them. 

As I was reading Camus (with help from Spark's Notes) I could see why he opposed Existentialism so much. It's that when confronted with the crisis of existence in an extreme meaninglessness, Existentialism makes the leap for God of some sort. Kierkegaard is the only one I had read, about 13 years ago. And I agree with Camus on that one as quite unsatisfactory.

Stoicism has Logos. Deists have an Architect. Taoists have the Tau. Each serves as the basis for a teleological view of the World; as if all is as it should be, according to plan. Something like that any way.

Camus would have us forever faced with total meaninglessness. I don't think many people can handle that. It would be like going into a liminal space and never coming out, rather than emerging back into community with a new purpose.

I like the idea of Stoicism for some sometimes, and Nietzscheanism for others sometimes. Perhaps, in the nihilist absence of innate meaning, we can accept at least man made temporary structure and meaning, while simultaneously knowing it to be temporary. Perhaps?

[Ignorant]

Camus would have us forever faced with total meaninglessness. I don't think many people can handle that.

Evidently not. It's my hope that humanity will eventually learn, collectively, that this meaninglessness is not all that bad and break free from the shackles of organized religion. I do think the enlightenment has started us on that path, even if we're not progressing on it as quickly as I'd like.
 

I like the idea of Stoicism for some sometimes, and Nietzscheanism for others sometimes. Perhaps, in the nihilist absence of innate meaning, we can accept at least man made temporary structure and meaning, while simultaneously knowing it to be temporary. Perhaps?

We can at the very least accept the meaning we ourselves assign to our lives. Maybe it's to raise a big family, to make a lot of money (cringe), to help the needy, simply to have a good time, etcetera. The world's your oyster as they say.

[Ignorant]

Here's a serious discussion of the subject featuring people who actually know what they're talking about. Bonus: No AI generated images or audio.

They talk about Camus and the Myth of Sisyphus around 49 min.





**Mod. edit -- Embedded video**

[Bootless]

Evidently not. It's my hope that humanity will eventually learn, collectively, that this meaninglessness is not all that bad and break free from the shackles of organized religion. I do think the enlightenment has started us on that path, even if we're not progressing on it as quickly as I'd like.
 

We can at the very least accept the meaning we ourselves assign to our lives. Maybe it's to raise a big family, to make a lot of money (cringe), to help the needy, simply to have a good time, etcetera. The world's your oyster as they say.

Thanks for the link to the Alex O'Connor interview. He's the best interviewer I've seen on Youtube on Philosophy. 

There was something I found off on the Nietzsche hating Stoics video I linked. The use of MLK Jr. as an example. King was a Christian with a teleological dream. A famous quote that he got from Theodore Parker was "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." That's not Nietzshe-an at all. See: The idea that the moral universe inherently bends towards justice is inspiring. It's also wrong. 

I can imagine that King's Eschatology would be something like: "The day will come when God will establish perfect justice upon the Earth. In the meantime, we can see it now as a distorted and obscured image in a mirror  in a dream. We will, with God's helping strength, use our small energy to emulate it the best we are able." That is my approximation. What he actually felt and thought while alone with his God concept, we will never know.

His Christianity is way different than the White Christian Nationalism sweeping the U.S. now. I can imagine an extreme nightmare scenario if that triumphs. It would be like watching the Nazis take France as Camus did, but homegrown domestic Fascism.

"The world's your oyster as they say."

Actually, I'm a bit more like the oyster in the World. Sort of passively opening up to accept the nutrients that the currents sweep by. Philosophy is like a spectator sport, or commodities that I pick through and squeeze to test for ripeness. I have yet to make a world shaking breakthrough, and don't expect that I ever will.

[Ignorant]

Thanks for the link to the Alex O'Connor interview. He's the best interviewer I've seen on Youtube on Philosophy.

Yeah I'm a fan too.

The guy he interviews apparently defines nihilism as a more generalized concept, "the denial of the value of X" and we can substitute X with whatever. So if someone takes the position that there is no value in X, then they are a nihilist about X. Ok. But he's talking about subjective value here, whereas nihilism to me is the denial of objective value. His take on nihilism essentially boils down to general negativity. One could be said to be a nihilist just for not liking something. It makes sense, then, that he considers nihilism to be an inherently negative thing, and I suppose the true nihilist the way he sees them is just a depressed person. He mentions earlier that people often conflate nihilism with depression and, well, he's doing it too.

Alex finally brings this up near the end (timestamped) and only then does the guy explain the distinction between practical nihilism and philosophical nihilism. He says practical nihilism is the general negativity, and philosophical nihilism is the denial of only objective value. It's a distinction he should've been clear about from the start. The definition he mentions early in the video makes no such distinction, and seems to be only describing practical nihilism.

To me, philosophical nihilism is the only kind. It does, of course, lead to an existential crisis for people fairly often, where they fail to value things subjectively knowing that there is no objective value in them. But this existential crisis is not itself nihilism in my opinion, rather it's the failure to come to terms with it.
 

There was something I found off on the Nietzsche hating Stoics video I linked. The use of MLK Jr. as an example. King was a Christian with a teleological dream. A famous quote that he got from Theodore Parker was "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." That's not Nietzshe-an at all. See: The idea that the moral universe inherently bends towards justice is inspiring. It's also wrong. 

I can imagine that King's Eschatology would be something like: "The day will come when God will establish perfect justice upon the Earth. In the meantime, we can see it now as a distorted and obscured image in a mirror  in a dream. We will, with God's helping strength, use our small energy to emulate it the best we are able." That is my approximation. What he actually felt and thought while alone with his God concept, we will never know.

His Christianity is way different than the White Christian Nationalism sweeping the U.S. now. I can imagine an extreme nightmare scenario if that triumphs. It would be like watching the Nazis take France as Camus did, but homegrown domestic Fascism.

I'm embarrassingly underqualified to talk about theology. I tend to avoid reading about it, because it bores me to death. I do think the universe tending to justice quote is an interesting one to explore, though. King may have thought it's due to God, but even without God I think there's some truth in it. I think human society tends to justice. Why? Because as our civilization gets older we start to understand more and more that injustice is ultimately bad for everyone (it hinders us in the path to prosperity). And we understand better and better what justice truly is, and how to structure our society in just ways.

I haven't read the entire article you linked but its argument that, after King's death, the world hasn't necessarily become more just, falls flat in my opinion. Of course there are setbacks on our path towards justice. We might not even make it there, ultimately (something might destroy us before we get there). But a setback doesn't disprove the claim. I can be driving from LA to New York and take a detour somewhere in the mid-west. Does that detour mean I'm no longer on the way to New York? I think if we take large samples, we see that human civilization does indeed tend towards justice.

It doesn't guarantee that the world will be more just when we die than when we were born. That doesn't qualify as a large sample, and often enough things go the other way. So it's a good thing for humanity that this statement rings true, but not so much, at least not necessarily, for any particular individual.
 

"The world's your oyster as they say."

Actually, I'm a bit more like the oyster in the World. Sort of passively opening up to accept the nutrients that the currents sweep by. Philosophy is like a spectator sport, or commodities that I pick through and squeeze to test for ripeness. I have yet to make a world shaking breakthrough, and don't expect that I ever will.

I also see myself as mostly an observer. I'm certainly not putting in any kind of serious effort to change things, at least. Observing is fun, and there is no risk of failure. I do wonder sometimes if the latter is the real reason that I'm so inclined to inaction.

PS @Mods, please allow me some editorial autonomy when linking videos. I choose not to embed them mainly because: It's much more likely someone will seriously engage with and/or remember to watch a video if they open it in a new tab; it bloats the post and draws attention away from the text; timestamps don't work.

[Maxmars]

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PS @Mods, please allow me some editorial autonomy when linking videos. I choose not to embed them mainly because: It's much more likely someone will seriously engage with and/or remember to watch a video if they open it in a new tab; it bloats the post and draws attention away from the text; timestamps don't work.

Assuming all things comply with the terms and conditions...

All members CHOOSE the content they wish to make use of.
No one HAS to link video content...

I often skip linking videos and simple state my point...

Outside of the T&Cs you have no editorial constraints.

I don't trust video producers and writers to 'think' about their monetized product... they often suck.

(If you wish to reach out... please use the Board Business Questions Forum as a 'go to' place.... 
 There is no entity in the system "@ mods" so I was happy to answer.... or pick a Moderator and PM them...

This serves better over at BBQ... there maybe related observations from others about time stamps and such...