To a few philosophers, particularly the hardcore rationalists, Nietzsche's struggle for self-ownership as meaning was, in modern terms, a truckload of copium

I can see the argument for that. It kind of fits the narrative of "slave morality". Can I read these philosophers statements? I kind of want to know what they're about

Edit: completely misspoke. Don't know wtf I was talking about there

On the rationalist hub per excellence, LessWrong: lesswrong.com/posts/NxYgL5nPMT…Criticism of Nietzsche has been out there for a good while. Bertrand Russell, for example, wasn't a fan of Nietzsche, calling his ideology "an appeal to the emotions": reddit.com/r/Nietzsche/comment…Calling Nietzsche's philosophy "irrationalist" is still a common trend: monthlyreview.org/articles/on-…Even Marxists hammer on Nietzsche's hardcore individualism: queer-bolshevik.medium.com/a-c…

Ty! All the criticisms I've heard I've only really absorbed through cultural osmosis so I want to read some hard stuff

Britt Hartley takes existentialists to the woodshed, pointing out that it's a fine philosophy if you're living a comfortable life, but if nothing means anything and your life sucks, might as well put a quarter in the suicide booth if existential philosophy is all you have.

Having kids (one of whom is special needs) plucked me out of the nihilism well that I was drowning in. I’m so thankful for them. Now, I don’t even have time to think or contemplate life. lol

Just quick short thoughts before I continue reading because I really thought these are immediately striking without further dissection:

Philosophy aside, the comment on LessWrong that said "Nietzsche is a great source of aphorisms, and may be able to trigger some Deep Thoughts in readers, but a lot of his writing seems more like a sort of performance art to me. At least on a superficial level, he's much easier to read than Kant or Hegel, but that also means he does not even try to argue his point in a rigorous way". Spot on, this is like the main barrier to his books. I see this as the first problem you'll encounter before getting to how fascists twisted his words into justifications for doing fuck-all

Then, I REALLY like this Monthly Review article. This passage pointed out a perspective of the problem initially sounding like a misread about how "this is just doing barbarism but with extra steps" but actually pretty accurately describes how greater powers in the world will take almost anything we try to do and turn it into barbarism: The liberalization and deregulation of the most intimate sphere of the person will completely achieve the fetishism of the commodity. And the sole revolt which will from here on be permitted to the Nietzschean by power, when an irreducible part of his disarmed consciousness has, through misunderstanding, fomented some insurrection, will be total annihilation, bestiality towards the other animal which his masters will have brought into the neighbouring cage.

I still need to finish it and get to the Marxist critique but thank you for this

The fun thing is that if the universe has no meaning then it has no meaning that it has no meaning so you might as well relax and be positive since that has many obvious benefits. Not that I'm a nihilist

Right! I'm glad to see someone thinking critically about what hedonism to fundamentslly means, rather than relying on the more pejorative usage of the term.

I realised once that, even tho I was a drug free tee totaller who didn't party or have sex much, I was still a hedonistic at that time because I played videogames as much as possible.

yeah. didn’t he get turned down on a proposal, he had someone else make, and kinda get cucked? he was prob an incel of his time, huh?

If you accept that caring for the wellbeing of your kids is inherently meaningful then you must also accept there is meaning inherent in taking care of your own self :3

Is that a refutation? I admit, when I consider how my distant ancestors and the majority of humans throughout history lived, I wonder why they chose to go on, and to create new generations who also lived lives like theirs, and the only answer I have is that they lacked perspective. Maybe a philosophy that teaches one to refuse a life without dignity is, in that context, correct philosophy.

Active vs passive nihilism

when the world starts to really collapse in a few years we wont have to wonder

people will be rationally offing themselves left and right

governments response will be to make suicide extra illegal lol

First time? - Epicuros

only while the kids exist as you forced them into existence thereby incurring the responsibility

for a thought experiment, imagine you could see your entire life and decide to be born or not based in your mind at the point of death

what would be the point of living a ‘bad’ life?

Existentialism is a response to essentialism though. It isn't that life has no meaning but that people can be free to choose the meaning and path of their lives. An acorn can only become an oak tree but a person is not born with their future path preordained. The idea is existence before essence instead of essence before existence.

"That's Cute." -Machiavelli

I'm sure they'll be grateful for their chance to pick between being a soldier in the Water Wars, or maybe getting lucky enough to find a human job that pays in food and living accommodations.

Sorry to be that nihilist but I am so grateful for finding a partner that agrees that reproduction is wildly irresponsible to both the world, and that future being who you KNOW and cannot deny that existence will likely be worse for in basically the first time in human existence outside of the world wars and the Black Death.

If I were forced to switch places with a child today I would be pretty upset about the future I had been subject too. But they're just so cute right? And all my friends are having them too!

Downvote away!

I would personally have chosen No, and it's a big reason why I'm not going to have a kid. Very grateful that my wife agrees

The fact that I know about LessWrong because of Behind the Bastards should say a whole lot about how "moral" their "rationalism" really neither of those things and personally I feel like their thought predecessors would be pretty embarrassed by them

Rust Cohle explains why pretty well I think. Instinct, it's burned into enough of us that the few who come to that conclusion don't have any effect. And I agree with his solution

only while the kids exist as you forced them into existence

Many parents have the same realization about their adopted children. You could argue that both types of parents are delusional but the causality isn’t relevant

imagine you could see your entire life

The capacity for imagining your whole life presupposes that you have already begun living, silly :3 but okay. Why would this primordial spirit be interested in life at all if it’s optional? Is living your life inherently worth considering, or something?

Ooh. Very stigmatized ethos surrounding that one. Guess I need to find out what the heck happened there

The short version is that Machiavelli is a rather profound Stoic philosopher, but everyone misses that in a lot of his work he is being slightly sarcastic to throw the "powers that be" off the scent that he was criticizing them. When you hear how he suggests that "Princes should be feared rather than respected." he actually calling out the despots of his day. It's kind of how Stephen Colbert portrayed a right wing pundit on "The Colbert Report" as a way of satirizing right-wing pundits.

Oh, okay. Well with that summary I'm at least interested in reading more and trying to see if I can parse the satire. Thanks for pointing me in that direction

Edit: Jesus this is like way obvious after you read how his career in state politics ended. But we named a dark triad psychological trait after him. That's so dirty

not a problem. Overly Sarcastic Productions has a wonderful series on YouTube for those looking to get into Machiavelli, and other stoic philosophers.

choosing to take on the responsibility is the same imo

biological kid or not once you bring it home it’s then the same, feeling this for random strangers would be odd

acknowledging that a optional life would be skipped kinda is my point

The fact that, evolutionarily speaking, it's easier to find lifeforms that have a strong survival instinct than lifeforms that question or reject it can be explained with two main reasons. First, assuming that evolution is performed by random adaptations that are then tested by the environment to see if they survive and their wielders reproduce, a lifeform that prioritizes a single task is more statistically probable to develop first than one that performs complex analysis of the environment and then chooses a reaction. Which is to say, dogmatic behavior developed long before critical thinking was even possible, and by the time the latter appeared, the survival instinct was already well baked into the very structure of the brain. Second, beings that prioritize survival tend to live longer than those that end up questioning the survival instinct, as the latter die more often for obvious reasons.

Sweet. Reading Wikipedia has got me a little unsure on how to interpret him. I'll check that out next. Stoicism is kind of a personal bugbear of mine but now regardless I really want to know the truth of this guy

Okay, so it is possible to find inherent meaning in lives you did not create. Yay!

For part 2, you’re ignoring my question.

Why would your thought experiment ghost even be considering life? Even before the point of knowing whether it would be “good or bad”. Why does it bother checking that at all?

Put another way: when some dumb loser asks if I want to invest in an NFT, I don’t even need to consider that. I know inherently that what I’m being offered is fundamentally without value to anyone.

The fact that you are evaluating your life at all in your thought experiment implies that the thing you are being offered has the potential to be valuable, yes?

Okay, so it is possible to find inherent meaning in lives you did not create. Yay!

except predication of choice makes it literally not inherent

neither does potential imply inherent either

it’s trivial to imagine simple real world examples that would make any positive aspect of living rather insufficient to the point where dying young and unexpectedly is almost a blessing among alternatives

if aggressive cancer, long lasting stroke or alzheimer's is in my future let me die sooner in my sleep

to say nothing of famine, massive drought and war

if i knew i’d live to experience alzheimer’s let me never be born

Paganism is good though. Praise wilderness!

An acorn can only become an oak tree but a person is not born with their future path preordained

modern people love thinking this but most people never move even 50 miles from where they were born and the single largest indictor of ‘success’ in life is your parents income

for example being born in gaza or ukraine right now is pretty damn bleak

if it were my choice to be born there or not, i’d pass

(my body is devoid of worldly power but I low-key agree because physically building personal meaning and protecting the wilderness trumps all)

Yeah, rationalism has been twisted into individualism with a lot more steps. If they were truly rational (as in, considering our current knowledge of astrophysics and biology, the heat death of the universe and the origins of survival instinct), they would have probably ended up noticing that attempting to make things better for hypothetical future people is equally as worth(less) as making things better for the people of now - both are merely postponing the unavoidable.

You're both correct, but the underlying point is it's not guaranteed if you're a human in Ukraine vs an acorn in the forest. HUGE difference, and only a clown would pretend they're equivalent.

Lots more community. Relationships and physical play (e.g. sports, theater, art, ritual, dance etc.) were the primary form of entertainment. Brains were capable of enduring in silence for 10 minutes without exploding in anxiety. Plant medicines were socially acceptable including "drugs".

Yeah there were diseases, famines, wars, etc. But these weren't constant threats, often regional until empire developed with (inter)continental trade.

People had joy and fulfillment, a bit of boredom, and many lacked effective contraceptives, so kids happened.

who’d actually choose to roll the dice?

there is nothing glorious about suffering and the human condition being what it is means very few will end with a charmed life

vastly more of existence has been and will be without me existing, I think i’d been fine skipping it entirely

He should have tried warning people not to look into the abyss or something.

Some author I read said that nihilism can only be temporary and then natural evolution will be towards stoicism/pragmatism. Later she argued that pragmatism isn't so awesome either, but no concrete arguments were put forward. Quiet pragmatic

I always found his frantic fear of nihilism to be a little adolescent, like "how could humanity possibly survive the death of God? How will we live a life without inherent existential or moral purpose?" You just do, Freddy.

Yeah and Kierkegaard already solved this decades before him, in exactly the way you describe (although he didn't personally think it was possible).

Yes me too. But that same baby born in Gaza could be born 15 miles away and live an entirely different life. That is the whole point. The gazan child is not essentially a victim by virtue of being born in Gaza. The gazan child is likely to be a victim not because she has to be (is essential to her nature) but because someone has chosen to victimise her. What modern people miss is that that distinction was lacking for the first couple thousand years of philosophical thought.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach you 'bout the raising of the wrist. (Socrates himself was permanently pissed).

Yet here we are, celebrating people whose moral purpose is nonexistent at best and usually completely evil.

What would be considered hedonistic back then? Talking a walk in the woods and climbing mountains for pleasure?

except predication of choice makes it literally not inherent

Things aren’t any less meaningful just because you chose them. For example I’ve been playing the same guitar for over 20 years. That instrument is now inherently meaningful to me in a way that others are not. It’s inherently irreplaceable to me. You’ll find most musicians bond with their instrument in a similar way

neither does potential imply inherent either

Of course it does. Every time a guitar is destroyed on stage thousands of discussions break out about how upsetting and wasteful it is. How it could have been so meaningful to a child who wants to play but doesn’t have the means.

We see these things and we want to connect them with the people who their meaning will most benefit, precisely because they are inherently meaningful.

big list of horrible things

The question of whether or not you will experience extreme suffering is not relevant to the meaning your life possesses. The 5,000 people who were just swept away in Nepal have not had their lives rendered meaningless, regardless of whether or not they would have chosen not to be born if they knew that would be their fate

It's sort of paradox that a government that is actively looking to liquidate its excess population would put the kabosh on suicide, but I think it would. Cruelty and control.