“Nihilism is OK” is not OK • Hacker News Board

Re: “Nihilism is OK” is not OK

#81

Post by kongin » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 12:21 PM UTC

0-_-0 wrote: post #80

kongin wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why aren't you bringing in as many children into the world as you can? The average couple can have 12 children in their reproductive lives. Are you on track to reach that goal?

It was you who said that the important distinction is desire to live, I showed where that reasoning leads, and you agreed that it's nonsense. I have nothing more to say.

No, I said the major difference is existence. Destroying something that exists is different to not making it in the first place.

Re: “Nihilism is OK” is not OK

#82

Post by causasui » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:42 AM UTC

0-_-0 wrote: post #47

causasui wrote: post #14

I generally consider myself a nihilist, but only because it's the very last stop on the bus ride of my failed attempts at religion and other philosophies. I grew up very religious and when I lost my faith in my 20s, I tried to replace it w/ absurdism and existentialism, but couldn't shake the notion that lives deep in me that ultimately, even if humanity spreads across the cosmos and we're able to find meaning in our…

What does the heat death of the universe have to do with meaning? Just to apply reductio ad absurdum to the anti-natalism argument: If there was a virus that would prevent all animals and humans on the planet from reproducing, leading to the quick extinction of all consciousness, would that be a moral good?

Absolutely it would be. This is a variation on the "big red button" of extinction question.

I'll also mention it's important not to confuse anti-natalism w/ pro-mortalism.

Re: “Nihilism is OK” is not OK

#83

Post by Talanes » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

rramadass wrote: post #77

Talanes wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not such thing as a society without a moral against killing, so we're far in the reaches of conjecture and theoretical here. I didn't mean "Advanced" in any sort of value judgement way, but just in terms of complexity. "Never kill people" is a much simpler axiom than "never kill people, except for in these specific circumstances where it's good to kill people instead."

There is a very big difference between Morals which arise directly from a sense of self-preservation vs. those which are needed to build a stable/cooperative/just society. Eg: Thou shalt not Kill vs. Thou shalt have only one wife. They are two very different things. I am talking about the latter which is context-specific and malleable. The former i don't consider as a "Moral" but as a direct corollary of the instinct…

I'd honestly swap your examples around.

"Thou shalt not Kill" provides for stability that enables for long-term societies to develop.

"Thou shalt have only one wife" just sounds like a rule made up by someone who wouldn't have a wife if Jerry next door was allowed to have two.

Re: “Nihilism is OK” is not OK

#84

Post by nimvlaj30 » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 1:44 AM UTC

jm__87 wrote: post #25

nimvlaj30 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know right, lots of opinionated statements and very little to back it up. Here is just one paragraph in the intro: > Nihilism makes you miserable and ineffective. Why? > That is not OK. Why? > It also erodes our cultures’ and societies’ ability to improve lives and tackle urgent problems. Why? > That is also not OK. Why? ---- None of this is answered in the rest of the blog post.

I am not an expert in philosophy by any stretch so feel free to poke holes in what I'm about to say, but I somewhat agree with the author's points here, assuming we take nihilism to mean "to both believe and feel nothing has meaning". I think the author may have the causation in the first point backwards though. To truly feel like nothing has any meaning, I think you must first be quite miserable - I doubt anyone fir…

I define a nihilist as someone who believes that nothing has objective meaning. The universe, relationships, and suffering have no objective meaning; in a few years anyone who remembered any of it will be dead, and its cause-and-effect consequences will be recursively finite.

I wrestled with this in my undergrad, which plunged me into a depression that I had never known before. This was doubly troublesome for me because I had previously believed that God existed and had a plan for my life– some kind of universal determinism, destiny, or fate. Going from that mental model of the universe, to one in which the universe is random, cold, uncaring, and devoid of meaning is quite a shock to the mental health.

My happiness came back significantly once I discovered Existentialism, which the author seems to dislike. Existentialism is the belief that while there is no objective meaning to the universe, there is a subjective meaning. I can love my wife, enjoy my job, and enjoy a few brews with my buddies. All of those matter to me, and they don't have to have universal significance. They don't have to have objective meaning. Hell, people might not even be truly conscious or free anyway. It's not going to stop me from having a good time and loving life.

The author makes broad assertions with very little explanation and few references to back them up. I'm still not convinced nihilism makes you miserable and ineffective. I'm still not convinced that that wouldn't be ok from an objective standpoint (although I'd have a problem with it, subjectively). I'm not convinced that it erodes our culture's ability to tackle problems or change people for the better (in fact, maybe it's the first step). And even if it did, who is to say that isn't okay? Obviously those who lose out will not like it (subjective meaning). But there is no objective meaning to any of this. It's random, inconsequential, cause-and-effect bullshit from top to bottom. Who says it means anything at all?

But if it means something to you, then that's great.

Re: “Nihilism is OK” is not OK

#85

Post by nimvlaj30 » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 1:54 AM UTC

awb wrote: post #8

nimvlaj30 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know right, lots of opinionated statements and very little to back it up. Here is just one paragraph in the intro: > Nihilism makes you miserable and ineffective. Why? > That is not OK. Why? > It also erodes our cultures’ and societies’ ability to improve lives and tackle urgent problems. Why? > That is also not OK. Why? ---- None of this is answered in the rest of the blog post.

Probably says more about the author than about nihilism. From Google, nihilism is: > the rejection of all religious and moral principles I wonder if the author is religious and if nihilism is so contrary to the author’s core beliefs that it doesn’t even occur to them that these statements need further explanation and justification in order to be complete as a rational argument.

This was my feeling too