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Re: undefined

#71

Post by nsm »

irjustin wrote: post #66
delichon wrote: 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…

Every generation brings us closer to a day where we can actually eliminate suffering?

Re: undefined

#72

Post by dgfitz »

genewitch wrote: post #37
dgfitz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what you feel is what you feel. There is no right or wrong.

okay, fine. what about introspection? What about what is considered mentally healthy or not? what about how it affects others around you? If you have past experiences or trauma or other orangic or inorganic neurological or mental issues having a "flat affect" can be "wrong". If what you're feeling isn't helping you, how would you know that there's another way unless you get help? This sounds defeatist and if you peek…

A feeling is only a feeling. How you react to that feeling is the important part. Until then, you and only you own those feelings.

Re: undefined

#73

Post by lazide »

clooless wrote: post #68
irjustin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ask yourself if you'd be willing to painlessly end your life, if given the option. Most people prefer to keep on living, which is strong evidence that on balance, despite all the bumps and grief of living, life is still pretty awesome.

Or, most of the folks who preferred dying over having kids did so before procreating - and the folks left don’t have that issue.

Regardless of suffering levels.

Re: undefined

#74

Post by p_j_w »

clooless wrote: post #68
irjustin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ask yourself if you'd be willing to painlessly end your life, if given the option. Most people prefer to keep on living, which is strong evidence that on balance, despite all the bumps and grief of living, life is still pretty awesome.

Is it, or is it strong evidence that we have an innate fear of death built in?

Re: undefined

#75

Post by silverquiet »

stephen_g wrote: post #70
irjustin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don’t want to downplay what you’re going through, but I do want to gently caution you against taking a (hopefully temporary) personal feeling as a universal human truth… A large proportion of people certainly must think life is worth living and continuing, and probably most of them have less wealth and resources than you do!

I've never found any other truth than nihilism, and I'd say at this point I've been looking for three decades since I was a surprisingly young child. It seems like it eluded Nietzsche who I'm sure was a greater thinker than I, and so I don't hold out much hope.

The question of children is one that I've long wondered about in this context as well; my take is that there's a lot of peer pressure that goes into perpetuating society (one of my grandmothers actually told me it was the basic reason she had children). This is another area where religion is quite important; we see fertility falling as religion recedes the world over. I could never really consider consigning more people into the existential dread that I've lived with for the majority of my time, and so the thought of having children never passed my mind.

Re: undefined

#76

Post by lazide »

schrectacular wrote: post #51
baq wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After getting philosophical one evening I came to the conclusion that 'bleak, scary and just plainly shit' is the default state of any particular person's mood and this is how the whole humanity evolved. Happiness and bliss are what you're chasing after, not what you're supposed to be - if you're permanently happy, you've diverged from the mean and either are an exception or overdue for a mean reversal. That is in it…

I have a feeling you might enjoy this conversation: https://www.econtalk.org/a-users-guide-to-our-emotional-ther... You are not alone in that path of thought. I think that yes, happiness is fleeting, but I tend to think something like satisfaction or contentedness is within reach for many people. Because people aren't going around being actively sad I don't think either. It seems like most folks (and research backs i…

Another thought - feelings/emotions are always relative; and will show up on a distribution naturally.

Even in the trenches of WW1 there were smiles sometimes.

Re: undefined

#77

Post by lazide »

noah_buddy wrote: post #55
squigz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of inherent distrust of humanity is probably one of the worst effects of social media.

To be fair, inherent distrust of humanity has probably existed since the beginning.

It does have significant survival benefits in many situations.

Re: undefined

#78

Post by tzs »

Aeolun wrote: post #49

Traffic in the US is so absurdly deadly. You have one of these posts and people come out of the woodworks everywhere saying they also have a friend that died in a traffic accident. I have zero. I cannot even think of a far off acquaintance ever killed in traffic. Why is traffic such a deadly thing in the US compared to the rest of the world?

Most people use traffic deaths per 100k inhabitants when comparing, but that exaggerates the risks of US traffic because people in the US drive more.

For example the US has around 12.9 traffic related deaths per year per 100k inhabitants, and France has around 5. That's a ratio of 2.58:1.

But people in the US drive an average of around 23000 km/year. French people average around 13000 km/year. That's a ratio of 1.77:1.

That means that per kilometer driving in the US has about 1.46x the chance of resulting in a traffic related death as driving in France, which is much lower than the 2.58x that most people here would use when comparing.

In terms of absolute risk, which is probably what most people consider when deciding if their car is safe enough, the US has around 1 car related fatality per 130 million vehicle kilometers. For France it is around 1 car related fatality per 190 million vehicle kilometers.

Both of those are low enough that most people probably consider them negligible.

Re: undefined

#79

Post by lazide »

stefan_ wrote: post #57
tylerflick wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we like to blame scary things like guns, rather than confronting the fact that giant SUVs and distracted driving habits are far more dangerous.

Even better, people die at elevated rates from both of these! It is not either or.

Well, approx. 45k people a year die from traffic crashes in the US a year. [https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D158/D362F918]

And 48k from firearms (including suicides and accidents)

[https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D158/D362F919]

COVID-19 is also estimated to have killed 48k in 2023.

Both combined are still less than from drug overdoses though.

[https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D158/D362F367]

Check the top causes, and you’ll find heart disease still at the top at 680k/yr, and all of these causes listed above as essentially in the noise.

[https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D176;jsessioni...]

Re: undefined

#80

Post by breadwinner »

squigz wrote: post #47
silverquiet wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So sleep tight kids… I think this is why religion is so important and I say that as someone who is incapable of believing in any.

Could you please elaborate on why you feel religion is important?

Praying can sometimes bring comfort, if you believe that God will ultimately make everything alright.
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