You nailed it, Kevin.

Teenagers: I'm sad because nothing matters

Nihilists: why are you sad? Why do you care? Nothing matters! Come have some pizza.

That's depression, not nihilism. Nihilism is related to existentialism, and is about believing in nothing but what you experience or can prove. Unfortunately it's very close to some forms of scientism, whereby someone makes "Science" their religious faith. The idea of nihilism is to be faithless and to view the world through the lens of the material.

A nihilistic outlook can be a response to, or defense mechanism caused by depression. But it's also a philosophy that is, ironically, well studied and developed. Not that that matters.

As long as you have an amphibic rodent, everyzing is fein, Lebowski.

Nihilism is related to existentialism, and is about believing in nothing but what you experience or can prove.

Oh, so I am a nihilist? 🤔

Nothing matters :(

vs.

Nothing matters >:D

I find solace in the latter.

They didn't say science, they said scientism. As a term it's been used a few ways, but in this context it's referring to a sort of cargo cult erected around "science". It's not about testing theories and hypotheses, it's a dogmatic acceptance of some extant collection of scientific theories as fact, even beyond their experimental context or in light of conflicting evidence. Among other things.

I'm more suspicious of people fretting over "scientism" than I am concerned about people dogmatically accepting scientific theories.

There is such a thing as motivated reasoning and I look down on those that indulge in it.

Nothing objectively matters, but humans aren't objective beings. Lots of things subjectively matter!

I feel like this isn't a great explanation of nihilism, someone might think it functionally is materialism, or some sort of skepticism.

Nihilism is the rejection of meaning, ethics, or knowledge as things that actually exist objectively. An existentialist accepts some form of nihilism, and grapples with its consequences. One key idea across existentialist thinkers is that Existence precedes Essence, that existing is always shaping who you become, rather than some kind of intrinsic being that nihilism would reject.

It's a variation of the old joke where the teacher points to a kid and asks to give two examples of pronouns. The frightened kid asks "who? me?" and the teacher continues, saying "perfect!"

My freshman biology class was 1st period, and I would always put my head down and snooze for a bit. I was never fully asleep, though.

Every time, the teacher would ask me a question about what she just said, and I'd pick my head up, answer, and put it back down.

But she was a really good teacher. After a bit it basically became a game with us, and she's one of the only ones that stood up for me when I was expelled for a BS reason.

Everything is true.

Nothing is permitted.

Found the OTO member pretending to be the opposite.

Ah yes, good ol' absurdism.

"No you haven't!" does Jedi mind-trick hand motion

As another commenter pointed out, this is a bad description of nihilism. That sentence describes empiricism.

You are probably an empiricist.

As that other commenter pointed out:

Nihilism is the rejection of meaning, ethics, or knowledge as things that actually exist objectively.

A double positive can never be negative.

Yeah, riiiight..

(but actually I do, read Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, you will not be disappointed)

I'm not. Scientism, in this meaning, it's basically the opposite of science. It stifles proper scientific reasoning. Pretending it isn't a problem is itself a problem.

I said I'm suspicious of people worried about it, not that I'm a supporter of scientism.

A lot of people who seem to worry about scientism turn out to have some quackery that they insist is worth looking into because "Its not been disproven". Or have some kind of spiritual belief that they want to mentally run cover for via "science might be wrong".

That's a fair thing to be concerned about - any blind faith is a problem. We should always be ready to, if not slaughter our sacred cows, at least take them to the vet once in a while (apologies for the tortured metaphor).

I'll admit that a lot of my understanding of nihilism came from existentialist thinkers, and from Turgenev's Bazarov.

Yup. The idea that there is a a meaning to life is repulsive to me. It implies that there is a correct state of affairs, and introduces the possibility that you've done something wrong, and failed to fulfill some purpose. That's nonsense, there are no wrong choices. You didn't fuck up by not taking that promotion, your ex wasn't your soulmate, there is no fate but what we make

I like, nothing matters, because everything is made up anyway.

There's no point in the grand scheme of things, so I get to decide what's important for me in the here and now

Well, that was pointless.