The Most Dangerous Person On Earth

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

Hmm. I really dislike this video. First of all it might as well have been a text post. Everything else is bloat generated by AI. Notice how the script clearly has chapters but there's not even an indication of a new chapter starting in the video (example). That's how low-effort this is. The creator just wrote a script and fed it to AI.

At least the script wasn't written by AI. We can tell by how opinionated and self-serving it is. And I suppose I'll be the one to say it: It's not that deep. It betrays a shallow understanding of human psychology and philosophy, conflating nihilism with stoicism with just plain old introversion, and is clearly just meant to farm clicks by making people like us feel better about ourselves. I appreciate that the irony in that wasn't lost to people here, at least.

I found reading some of the posts in this thread far more interesting than watching the video. Something I noticed is that people here seem mostly to reject nihilism. Why? It seems to me not at all far out to say that life has no inherent purpose, that there is no objective morality. Far more problematic to me is to claim the opposite. So I'd be willing to explore that point if others are.

Another point that was brought up a few times and I would be willing to argue, not because I have a strong opinion on the matter either way but because I would find it interesting to explore, is that being well-adjusted in today's society is not a sign of good mental health. Maybe the key is in how we define "well-adjusted". When I think of a well-adjusted person, I think of someone who is adaptable and can be content in a variety of circumstances. This to me is certainly a sign of good mental health. Of course, if by "well-adjusted" we mean "social-media addicted" which is the sort of person the video in the OP is juxtaposing with the enlightened introverted nihilistic stoic (or whatever), then I agree that they are not mentally healthy. But to me they are also not well-adjusted. Quite the contrary.

Hey, Never let the internet never kill your generalized fun...

And here i thought people would be like me and spend the first part lining up these characteristics with themselves.

My favorite part is the bit about not being able to be controlled...  And it really makes me wonder how many people end up turning on the video in the comment section to all the people who call bullshit his lack of in depth knowledge on either philosopher.  Like how many agree until others disagree. 

* Plus Greek philosophy is a really boring topic, so those with general knowledge like myself wouldn't know any better.

But still....

"You know, I thought this video did a good job of demonstrating how a will to power can't be manipulated, but you know, now I'm not sure because I don't want to be the only person that doesn't call the publisher a retard."

[Bootless]

I agree with a lot of your logical , rational comparitivism (sic) , as all life is perception and all life is ultimately subjective, whether or not some material instrument measures it with a number or not.

I have to disagree on your definition of the 'goal of Eastern religion' as annihilation in the sense you are meaning it. 
You are talking about annihilation on all levels from spiritual to physical.
However in pickareligion Hinduism, the 'goal' is not annihilation but liberation.  Moksha .  Freedom from attachment and thus freedom from suffering. 
While alive, in most traditions.

This attainment while living can bestow a secondary benefit:
Moksha has been defined not merely as absence of suffering and release from bondage to saṃsāra. Various schools of Hinduism also explain the concept as presence of the state of paripurna-brahmanubhava (the experience of oneness with Brahman, the One Supreme Self), a state of knowledge, peace and bliss.

I would liken this yoga or oneness to the concept of Gnosis. 
Or the Dao.
The indescribable knowledge, only transferred through a 'physical' experience of 'knowing' .

I don't think I agree with the statement "all life is perception and all life is ultimately subjective". Perhaps I should clarify that I do not hold a metaphysical solipsist view of reality. If I understand biology correctly, life is the ability to metabolize minerals. As such, a single cell organism is alive whether it perceives itself as alive or not.

I really don't know Hindu and Buddhist worldviews much. I have to look up the terms every time I encounter them. Totally lacking in internalizing the concepts.

But isn't it true that the final goal is to escape the wheel of rebirth, so as to lose any self, ego, individuality within the One. Isn't that total annihilation of individuality? Seems so to me.

I really feel no drive to loose my self, my I, in some daily exercise; rehearsing death as it were. If it helps some people to do such, then good for them.

As far as living goes, that's my religion; living rather than practicing death.

I was born without my consent. I live in an era of History that I had nothing to do with the lead up to. I have a set of ethics and morality based largely upon the society I grew up in. I don't see a lot of that system that I rebel against. There is a caveat: I'm a Baby Boomer. I like the U.S. Constitution as written and amended. Separation of Powers, no dictator. Separation of Church and State (no officially approved religion), no definition of God or Canonical religious texts. For 8 years I carried a card with me that had the words Geneva Conventions written thereon. I agree with most international laws and think they should be enforced.

If Americans now want official religion and autocratic rule, then I resist. This to me is ethical and moral. See? Ethics were not even my own invention. I owe those mainly to the time and culture of my upbringing.

[Ray1990]

I only managed about 5 mins of the video, it's kind of all over the place isn't it?

We're social creatures. We came out kicking and screaming then slowly learned to stop pissing ourselves, the whole lonewolf super-solitude dude is a myth anyway. By oneself the most you could ever amount to is a cave-dweller, that's if you've found some way to nourish yourself into infanthood, like growing up sucking on wolf tit or something...

Society might be mostly tailored to our wants and not our needs but I wouldn't let that nullify that social contract we've all benefited from.

You can be highly educated in philosophy and still be absolutely delusional. Loners are typically only dangerous if they feel like society has let them down in some way, to say Marcus Aurelius or someone like Da Vinci were loners would be disingenuous, I bet if you dragged Howard Hughes out of his milk-ridden isolation he would've agreed he couldn't work on the things he did without 1000s of people and the history of human ingenuity. Nietzsche? I'm sure he was a bit lonely and nutty once upon a time too.

Now if any of those people were loners and felt betrayed by society then they might just have been capable of some serious damage. All were VIPs elevated into their positions by societies that enabled them. 

It always irked me that independent people often use famous people for comparisons. Cherry-picking antisocialites is what they are. Antisocial is just a longer word for c*nt

[Bootless]

Hey, Never let the internet never kill your generalized fun...

And here i thought people would be like me and spend the first part lining up these characteristics with themselves.

...
"You know, I thought this video did a good job of demonstrating how a will to power can't be manipulated, but you know, now I'm not sure because I don't want to be the only person that doesn't call the publisher a retard."

Wait! I did that. I don't own a cell phone so I never scroll through text messages. No X account or any of those popular social things. I don't even own ear buds for that matter. I read paper books or read pdf books on my PC at home alone, not in public.

But those are just such insignificant points of similarity.

--------
I didn't subscribe or like the Youtube video, but the algorithm took note that I had watched it. Now every time I open Youtube, there are these videos from accounts with Stoic in the name. They seem to be "Do this to get the women" self-helps for men.

Here's a sample:



Now I've heard of a rule 34. I wonder what the rule number is for "If it exists, then it will be used as a way to get the women."

[sahgwa]

I don't think I agree with the statement "all life is perception and all life is ultimately subjective". Perhaps I should clarify that I do not hold a metaphysical solipsist view of reality. If I understand biology correctly, life is the ability to metabolize minerals. As such, a single cell organism is alive whether it perceives itself as alive or not.

I really don't know Hindu and Buddhist worldviews much. I have to look up the terms every time I encounter them. Totally lacking in internalizing the concepts.

But isn't it true that the final goal is to escape the wheel of rebirth, so as to lose any self, ego, individuality within the One. Isn't that total annihilation of individuality? Seems so to me.

I really feel no drive to loose my self, my I, in some daily exercise; rehearsing death as it were. If it helps some people to do such, then good for them.

As far as living goes, that's my religion; living rather than practicing death.

I was born without my consent. I live in an era of History that I had nothing to do with the lead up to. I have a set of ethics and morality based largely upon the society I grew up in. I don't see a lot of that system that I rebel against. There is a caveat: I'm a Baby Boomer. I like the U.S. Constitution as written and amended. Separation of Powers, no dictator. Separation of Church and State (no officially approved religion), no definition of God or Canonical religious texts. For 8 years I carried a card with me that had the words Geneva Conventions written thereon. I agree with most international laws and think they should be enforced.

If Americans now want official religion and autocratic rule, then I resist. This to me is ethical and moral. See? Ethics were not even my own invention. I owe those mainly to the time and culture of my upbringing.

You can say that 'practicing death' helps you to live more fully.  So it is also a part of living. 
When the transient nature of life is experienced, as you have seen first hand, you not only appreciate it more, but sometimes it gives you the sense that you are more than your body.

I have had a near death experience and also travelled outside of my body (so I think) and I am looking forward to a new existence after this one , but 'practicing death' is not really longing for, nor obsessing with physical death.
It is more along the lines of being more of an adult in the school of the soul, and able to recall your death, your life, and to more fully be present in this life, and in the next one.

To have your knowledge not wiped out, but your soul stronger for the next journey. You may even be aware enough to Choose Your Own Adventure, instead of being a mere salmon blindly fighting the current, you can have more control over things. 
That's the reasoning anyway. 

As far as this relates to nihilism, if you are fully engrossed in experience of your body mind and soul, to reject them wholly would be an affront against the ones who gave them to you. At it's most basic.

[Bootless]

You can say that 'practicing death' helps you to live more fully.  So it is also a part of living. 
When the transient nature of life is experienced, as you have seen first hand, you not only appreciate it more, but sometimes it gives you the sense that you are more than your body.
...
As far as this relates to nihilism, if you are fully engrossed in experience of your body mind and soul, to reject them wholly would be an affront against the ones who gave them to you. At it's most basic.

Once upon a time, I used to play video games (Diablo II, and World of Warcraft, and Guild Wars 2) with my Grand daughter. Our characters would get killed, but there was always some way of getting resurrected or re-spawn. One time we were watching something on television and she said "well when they respawn ...". I had to tell her that "there is no respawning, that's only in games".

To meditate for a time, with the sensation of being nothing, one with the One, and then getting up refreshed to go about your day, is not death. Death is final.

On that body, mind, soul thing:

I quote the Wikipedia:
Plato's theory of soul

Plato's theory of the soul, which was inspired variously by the teachings of Socrates, considered the psyche (Ancient Greek: ψῡχή, romanized: psūkhḗ) to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how people behave. Plato considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of a person's being. Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn (metempsychosis) in subsequent bodies. Plato divided the soul into three parts: the logistikon (reason), the thymoeides (spirit, which houses anger, as well as other spirited emotions), and the epithymetikon (appetite or desire, which houses the desire for physical pleasures).

I was taught that Plato was a great Philosopher who used logic and reason to reach his conclusions. Then one day I actually got around to reading Phaedrus.

Turns out that Socrates claims that he's saying nothing new. He got it from the Pythagoreans who in turn got it from the East.

Let's say my estimation of Plato was decreased somewhat. Even though I never was formally trained in Logic I am aware of some things called Logical Fallacies. Maybe that's an appeal to authority or something.

Now compare and contrast Epicurus. He was a Greek person, exposed from a young age to stories of the gods and heroes and some of the Philosophy too. He ran with the atomic theory. The soul was a thing that was taken for granted in his time. So he didn't deny the gods or the soul. The gods, he said, aren't looking down at you in wrath or favor. They're too occupied with other things. The soul is atomic like the body, made of finer atoms, which dissipate much quicker than the atoms of the body, almost instantly. No immortality of the soul.

I like Epicurus more than Plato. He didn't deny the existence of the gods. I don't either. I have seen Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Sol, Artemis, and etc. They are real. They just aren't what people used to think they were.

I have no reason to believe in any immortality; of the gods or myself.

I'm finding The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus quite interesting. It pretty much starts out where I am. It's a little bogged down with references to other Philosophers, which I can't quite associate the name with a concept. Oh well, such is the plight of the under educated.

[sahgwa]

 Death is final.

I have no reason to believe in any immortality; of the gods or myself.

I'm finding The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus quite interesting. It pretty much starts out where I am. It's a little bogged down with references to other Philosophers, which I can't quite associate the name with a concept. Oh well, such is the plight of the under educated.

I am sorry you feel that way.
If you had gone outside your body while alive, like I have been lucky enough to do, I think your opinion would change.
After all, it's just our opinions here. 
I hope you are able to Lighten up :)

[UltraBudgie]

nihilism totally makes sense
until one has memories of past lives
then you can see what is different
and what is the same with you
i actually think you have to get to nihilism first
and go through it
at least that's my experience
buddhism does hit a wall there
if you don't reconcile and remember
you and your past lives
hinduism i think is a response to that
although it gets caught up
in polytheistic dogma

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/4/5/

bhakti can cure sadbuddha too
get out of nihilistic spiral
remove the blinders
but as path in and of itself, maybe not enough
but a doorway out

[sahgwa]

nihilism totally makes sense
until one has memories of past lives
then you can see what is different
and what is the same with you
i actually think you have to get to nihilism first
and go through it
at least that's my experience
buddhism does hit a wall there
if you don't reconcile and remember
you and your past lives
hinduism i think is a response to that
although it gets caught up
in polytheistic dogma

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/4/5/

bhakti can cure sadbuddha too
get out of nihilistic spiral
remove the blinders
but as path in and of itself, maybe not enough
but a doorway out

If someone hasn't been through nihilism at least once with a helping of depression then in my opinion one hasn't lived fully quite yet.

[AlroyFarms]

If someone hasn't been through nihilism at least once with a helping of depression then in my opinion one hasn't lived fully quite yet.

What impetus draws us to the light/life/love if not the experience in the cold dark voids? 

We are shown both sides, both energies. We will have all pertinent information when it comes time to make a chocie. 

Pleading ignorance and doubt will no longer be accepted at a certain point.