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I'm afraid this poor guy will be besieged by people who heard about a vacancy in San Francisco. I've unfortunately had my share of dead friends and relatives. I wish I could say that it somehow has made me stronger, more mature, but I'm afraid that the opposite is more true. Each is a trauma that I never entirely recover from. They make the world more bleak, confusing, cold, scary. And it makes it harder to comfort p…

I'm late and not sure who will read this, but I've ended up at the "why do we have kids?" question. Honestly speaking from someone who has 2 beautiful little girls and very squarely middle class life with all its ups and downs. I've recently, but slowly mentally shifted towards being a nihilist. There are so many things to live for, I agree, but at the same time there's like a 10:1 ratio of why living sucks. My privi…

I felt this as someone who grew up religious.

It was until this year that I properly internalized that the universe does not give a shit whether “human race survives”, or Earth survives. Or anything survives. Heat death of universe is slow but inevitable. The universe is merely a bunch of elementary particles interacting with each other via force fields. It has no ulterior motive.

All Gods are human made Gods to give us meaning.

However as a human, our experience and feelings is the ultimate personal truth. We are the hero of our own story. We have some other characters and everyone else is a NPC.

We are here because our parents survived to have us, and their parents to have our parents and ongoing for millions of generations.

Nature selects those who survive to reproduce. Human desire has been shaped by evolution. Anyone not passing on their genes, has their gene-line terminated. Those that remain preserve certain behaviors.

If there is some eternal meaning - it is selection. To survive, procreate and proliferate until the heat death of universe.

We were not built to enjoy. We were built to be paranoid and feel we can do more, be more, have more. In the hope it leads to better survival.

However dopamine - the reward molecule can be hacked.Orgasms give the highest natural release. Now most of humanity gets dopamine kicks from Porn, social media, sugar, fast food, drugs.

We are dopamine driven beings.

Re: undefined

#112
post #2

I'm afraid this poor guy will be besieged by people who heard about a vacancy in San Francisco. I've unfortunately had my share of dead friends and relatives. I wish I could say that it somehow has made me stronger, more mature, but I'm afraid that the opposite is more true. Each is a trauma that I never entirely recover from. They make the world more bleak, confusing, cold, scary. And it makes it harder to comfort p…

I'm late and not sure who will read this, but I've ended up at the "why do we have kids?" question. Honestly speaking from someone who has 2 beautiful little girls and very squarely middle class life with all its ups and downs. I've recently, but slowly mentally shifted towards being a nihilist. There are so many things to live for, I agree, but at the same time there's like a 10:1 ratio of why living sucks. My privi…

Context: nihilist and anti-Hedonist.

I think the main problem is viewing struggle as mutually exclusive with happiness, and happiness as the absence of suffering, which is propagated by western consumerist culture.

-Life has no intrinsic purpose, only that which you give it.

-Happiness and life satisfaction are largely independent of material conditions and struggle. Surveys show similar levels between impoverished and rich countries.

-Pursuit of happiness for its own sake is a futile philosophy and a hedonistic treadmill.

-Pursuit of more tangible values like honor, compassion, excellence ect result in happiness as a byproduct.

With respect to kids, Im happy and most of the world is happy, so I expect my children will be happy too, and be thankful to be alive.

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