Yes, read Simone Beauvoir along with Sartre. Sartre is kind of a comically privileged white man. As you say people can be free to choose the path of their lives, but some more than others.

Correct, but maladaptive and evolutionarily unfit...

If you want to be entertained, you can watch True Detective Season 1. Someone brought up Rust, already.

If you want to ruin your life in ten pages, the source is The Last Messiah by Zapffe.

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”.

Meh. If rigor were the path to the truth, wouldn't we have the found the One True Philosophy? At the end of the day, all that matters is if the philosophy vibes with you, which you can discover just as well from a comic book version of the philosophy as painstakingly deriving every point.

I think thinking you're using your rational mind to determine the capital-T Truth is delusional.

Yeah not so much that. It was kind of refreshing to read something where the author gives up on trying to preempt arguments against him early in the process of creating his work (exhausting, boring, and as time goes on inevitably futile).

I meant more that the prose is full of self-certain trueisms and has that superficiality to it. It doesn't discount his points to me either, I'm often a vibes person myself. But it offloads a lot of the cognitive work of basically finishing his philosophy onto you as you're reading it. I think that's probably the deeper cause of most other problems people have with his philosophy, like how bad actors took and used it for nefarious shit. But, he was a lonely guy in a lot of pain who took to writing to manage it so that's par for the course.

For all the good it does you. The public will ruthlessly interpret your work however it wants; look at Broicism (neé Stoicism) or Christianity.

Ooh, I have some opinions about Christianity's potential to be used by bad actors. Honestly I feel pretty similar about it as I do Nietzsche but more like the architecture for doing evil has always been latent in the ideology for as long as it has existed sperate from Judaic and Gnostic faith.

I definitely would like to hear more about how exactly Broicism diverges from Stoicism though, if you have the time. You're the first person I've heard say that it's different.

In the text it means any choice you make that sacrifices long term benefits for instant gratification. Nietzsche was way into promoting things that give you pleasure, just not at the cost of your health and prosperity

Obviously Hedonic Philosophy isn't about that either but he wasn't thinking of hedonism as a philosophy, he was describing a problem humans have with how we make choices

The term "broicism" is implicitly a critique. I don't know much about the stoics, but I understand it has a bit more emotional complexity where as broicism is just machistic indifference repackaged. Here's one article: https://www.trillmag.com/culture/broicism-the-manospheres-obsession-with-stoicism/

I think all monotheisms are toxic; not sure how you think Christianity and Judaism are different, architecturally speaking. It just cracks me up that Jesus explicitly talks about all the ways religion is misused (Good Samaritan, Pharisees, etc.), he lays it out and black and white, and it just gets ignored. Not to mention how its used to support hierarchy when smashing hierarchy is absolutely in the text; but it's complicated because the appropriation of Jesus was well underway when the bible was decided on. I think if Jesus was able to self-publish his memoirs, Christianity would never have gotten off the ground.

Sweeeet, I've been curious about this since my first assumption has always been that "Bros" just were doing Stoicism in its best possible interpretation. Maybe I'm too critical of it and not of them.

That's valid and a pretty widely agreed on belief. I tend to make a few more concessions for Hebrew and Catholicism because they have controls and political structures for negating barbarism built in to their scriptures, even if those controls have failed in both past and recent history.

The difference with Christianity from those is you're given leave by the text to engage selectively and do post-modern interpretations of what Jesus wants or the personal cost of not living up to his expectations. Like it's not that he's being ignored, it's that his sacrifice canceled any price I have to pay for my actions in this life. You're right, though. The person Christ was pretty different from the faith that inherited his name, they probably wouldn't have had much to do with eachother if he had a choice in the matter. Mainly because he was a Jew and that's not compatible with how Christians want to believe he was.

I'm not sure what concessions Catholicism has. It built itself into a major political player and was the spiritual foundation of the feudal system and king's right to rule... and this for over a thousand years.

The Catholic Church was aware there was stuff in the bible that wouldn't go in its favor, which is why they killed anyone who tried to translate it into a popular language... At the same time, all these priests and bishops and cardinals and popes COULD read it, and they consistently chose to support their own power. Very human, that, craving power above all else.

One defining weirdness of Christianity is the emphasis is puts on FAITH, on protestations of belief. I don't think even Judaism cares that much about it.

But the religious situation around Jesus' time was absolutely WILD. I'd start with The Life of Brian, but then read about the Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels (there are probably better books by now). There were cults springing up all over the place, each with their own vibe-coded stories that were ChatGPTd from prevailing culture. I think thinking of "Judaism" as an unitary religion/culture is a bit of anachronism.

Teenagers are dumb.

Alright this is going to be a bit of an indulgent bpersonal diatribe, but hear me out. Generally when I'm assessing the worth of religion I try to look at the cost/benefit of it existing, not really whether it's factually true or politically just. Catholicism definitely full of lies and its atrocities are really the same as any monarchist structure and equally indefensible. Also as you say, craven.

But here's what people within it at the very bottom are getting from the deal:

• an accountability system that puts physical personal cost on their choices
• a working historical account getting built onto and preserved as time goes on
• a system of quasi-electoral government that was a country at one time but now gets to act as a diplomatic power in the world

Just saying, those are the exact opposite of what Christianity takes from you as a person living within it

Agreed, though. That's kind of one of the things I appreciate about Judaism, the pluralism and the de-emphasis on Faith. I've been dipping my toes tentatively into some Gnostic histories, and proto Christian stuff. I'll look at the Gnostic Gospels next, then. Do you have a personal favorite little blorbo from cults of that period?

You're the absolute worst and completely useless. Fuck off with your bullshit opinions and grow the fuck up.

I thought I'd get a lot out of reading the Gnostic texts directly, but it was mostly the same religious garbage I've outgrown. One thing that really kills the vibe for me is when people take religion, you know, religiously. Seriously unreadable trash, chapter after chapter about how GREAT God is, as if greatness automatically made something worthy of worship. Servile horseshit.

I got a lot more out the prison planet subreddit, which is sort of gnosticism redux for people with obvious delusion and people like me, interested in the power of a radically different perspective.

It's really interesting that imagining the world as a place created as a prison to torture us IMMEDIATELY makes so much more sense than the tri-omni God of traditional Christiainity, but offering that as a possibility had to be heavily regulated at the edge of a sword.... makes you realize how much of religious debate is based on a very narrow range of choices. Pascal's Wager works in the popular imagination because the bedrock assumption is that there is only one God that exists and that we are choosing to believe in the right one. When you consider infinite gods and infinite risks of choosing the wrong one, the wager falls apart.

Oh damn, this made me have to look up Pascal's Wager in order to follow and that is NOT what I thought it was. And it's not nearly as actionable as I was giving it credit for.

For sure, though. It's not like Gnostic thought is terribly useful in a modern context. It's just the joy of discovering old models of belief. Also they're colorful. I mostly wanted to know if you have any favorite characters from it because most people who engage with that or pre-Christian cults tend to find a funny little guy that they latch onto.

There's a couple people who I interacted with who have derived some personal viable uses from the Gnosticism, but it's kind of way too specific to recommend widely. One was definitely engaging with that "world as a torture device" lense and admitted that these kind of ways of thinking lend themselves pretty greatly to paranoid disorders.

I don't think nihilism and pragmatism are mutually exclusive

Pascal's Wager was (edit: not) intended to be taken seriously, but it sort of took on a life of its own.

Yes, and Gnosticism is definitely cool; just saying reading the source texts is a pretty miserable experience. Better to Monster Manualize it, boil it down to critters and cosmology without the lard of worship.

And, yes, there were a lot of people attracted to world-as-torture-device, but it's interesting that can invalidate a philosophy when the countervailing philosophy of God Loves Us attracts a greater amount of disordered thinking.... This is an artifact of exactly what we're talking about--the need for people to avoid acknowledging existentially destabilizing realities. Check out The Last Messiah for more on that.

Back to Catholicism: it's a religion. All religions have psychological and social value, lest they would not exist. There's not any real point to rate and compare religions, because I believe they are simply the result of society and not its determiners.

Nihilists can have, and love and care for, children.

It's all about making your own meaning, and I imagine having kids is one way a lot of people do that.

Really? Maybe that's how I got my misconception of it. My favorite thing about this thread is I'm getting a lot of stuff to reexamine, so this ones moving to the top of the list.

Dude, that would be so sick! I really love Monster Manuals! One of the Gnostic thought people I talked to recently actually showed me a video that was showcasing the different deities in a similar way, but as Tumblr art characters. Very entertaining.

I hadn't considered that angle for our discussion here but that's true. The biggest damage any Faith-based theology is doing to incentivising people to decouple from tangible reality. I won't ever defend that, I just don't know of a way it's possible for anyone to widely convince people to stop doing it.

I'll consider that last part. That seems like an idea I'll have to examine for a bit. Thank you for engaging and for all the recommendations, Schipelblorp 🙂 Always a pleasure

Did you read in the intended "not" into "Pascal's wager was intended to be taken seriously." ? Because I think it was an idle thought experiment that got taken up by Christians.

I have spent more time reading monster manuals than I ever have playing... it's mythological crack.

If you want more, the person that's pushed forward my thinking most recently is Britt Hartley of No Nonsense Spirituality on YouTube. She cheekily refers to herself as "your atheist spiritual director", but there's a lot of wisdom there. I think you'll appreciate her attempts to separate the baby from the bathwater, as you have with Catholicism here.

my take on life is that yeah it doesn’t have inherent meaning, but you don’t need a meaning for everything you do. you can just enjoy being alive despite the meaninglessness, it actually gives you a lot of freedom to do whatever you want to do for the sake of it.

for the morals: just don’t bring in needless suffering, nobody choose to be here and nobody wants to suffer, the only thing we can do is to make the existing lives better

Oh ouch, my underdeveloped feelings

It sounds completely irrational to seriously consider the heat death's impact on anything when nothing will be alive to experience it, if you ask me

Could you maybe put some effort into your response, explaining why you so strongly disagree with an opinion I've developed over a pretty long time? Because you're the one that looks childish responding so emotionally

Ooh you know I actually didn't, I was just assuming he was being serious considering the non-secular time he existed in. But I didn't exactly think he was talking about the results being literal eternal suffering or paradise either. In my misconception I had thought he was proposing to live as a functional faith practitioner and just reap the tangible benefits of that when you're alive. So thanks for prompting me to actually look at it.

You already know I love youtube. I'll get to that first before the books but probably not before the further Wikipedia articles I got recommended in this thread. Is it cool if I message you any thoughts she stirs up? I definitely appreciate people who can identify pro-social and useful facets of problematic ideologies.

Partly, he's neither a nihilist nor that embraced by teenagers afaik.

He is considered more hedonist than he actually is, though.

Sure! Love to hear your thoughts.

She's like a third-wave atheist, recognizing that hating women and muslims isn't a coherent philosophy to build a life around, that there's more to the human project than being technically correct actually.

Lol what even is this?

Anon after reading nihilist philosophy.

Oh no. It turned him into anime

Unironically, yes maybe. If it is seen as avoiding your responsibilities, and doesn't contribute to some area of society (but rather sees-to the "worship" of you yourself) then it is hedonistic

Edit: other guy said it better than me

There is a quote from Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits that I think of every time this comes up.

“You can lie to yourself, say that you never had a choice, that you weren’t cut out for this. But deep down you’ll know. You’ll know that humans aren’t cut out for anything. We cut ourselves out. Slowly, with a rusty knife. Because otherwise, here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to die and you’re going to stand at the gates of judgment and you’re going to ask God what was the meaning of it all, and God will say, ‘I created the universe, you little shit. It was up to you to give it meaning.’”

“You really think God uses that kind of language?”

“Yes.”

True

What you’re saying sounds more like doomerism to me than it is nihilism. It’ll get better. Hang in there ❤️

I love this. And this is precisely what I started doing. In my mind, the better I am the better they are, and that’s proven to be true. They’re everything in my world and I’m so freaking happy I decided to have kids, genuinely. My son is 13, and he’s entering that phase of “I’m a good dude and can be so much fun”. He and I are like best friends. We do almost everything together. He’s like the little brother I never had.

Spitting fire!

That’s awesome, I’m so glad to hear it! And beyond just your own family, people you may never directly hear from might see your perspective here and have their lives improved in turn, in whatever small way. There’s a certain momentum to it that we can all contribute to

"Must be exhausting!"

Nietzsche was explicitly, spitefully against asceticism. On the Genealogy of Morals is largely about how church clerics valorized ascetic lifestyle in order to trick the public into always believing they are not doing good, when actually the church has explicitly created two moralities because the rich, powerful, and aristocratic were not expected to (and Nietzsche was not in favor of) living ascetic lives.

The whole point of this meme is that Nietzsche was a life-affirming philosopher. He absolutely did not advocate for an ascetic lifestyle because he believed the joy was the highest pursuit of human life.

Now, if you find this contradictory, well Nietzsche is an extremely contrary and frustrating writer. His writing is beautiful and prosaic, but he's endlessly skeptical In one line he is saying something so profound and affirming, and the next line ascerbic and devastating. He flatters you, makes an airtight case for the flattery, then rips it to shreds; then he rips that to shreds and he is back to flattery. I'm sort of unconvinced that he even is a philosopher, but I love his writing and prose.

If you have an interest in philosophy or Nietzsche, Rick Roderick is one of my favorite, and most charmingly relatable commentators. He has a whole series on Nietzsche which is very good. But he covers Nietzsche in the first episode in his "Self Under Siege" philosophy series

Highly, highly recommend!

Fuck yeah I am. I've got a living playlist of lectures I can add this into, thank you!

Actually I see a yt video at the top of the page here, can I watch all the episodes there as an option?

You just do, Freddy.

A lot of people don't.

There's a whole superstructure to religion - culture, ethics, public infrastructure, social networks, financial networks, a common history and language - that you need to supplement as you dispose of the older system.

What the European socialists discovered at the turn of the 20th century was that you can't just burn down all the churches and start over from scratch. Anarchism without some new common social foundation just ends in civil war and foreign occupation.

Subsequent generations still need a scaffolding to cling to as they mature. And if that scaffold isn't rooted in some new existential or moral foundation (or if it's rooted in a rotten one) you end up with ultra-nationalism, or Victorian mysticism, or whatever paint Ayn Rand was huffing.

Love me some quality David Wong.

This also skips on how his sister edited his yet-unpublished works after his death, to include her German ultranationalist and antisemitic views, while he was opposed to them.

A kinda similar situation to that of Kafka, wherein Max Brod, who was supposed to burn all of Kafka's manuscripts, instead e.g. rearranged the chapters of ‘The Trial’ for no good reason, such that it probably reads way more surrealistically. I've recently listened to some kinda restored edition that attempts to put back the intended order, and while it's still a mess at times, the happenings are pretty understandable.

Here's a playlist of his Self Under Siege lectures.

These videos were such a good foundation for my own learning! And Rick Roderick was a real one. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks 😁

i’m pretty sure gods and religions were invented exactly because of people were thinking there is “no higher meaning”

meaning that religion had to be a response to nihilism

And yet in almost every one of those examples the problem was people sticking to the existing religions and culture being too terrified to let go or incapable of accepting that others have moved on.