81–90 of 137 posts
Look at the world, how can one not be sad or depressed about reality? 'Ignorance is bliss' is a widely known for a reason
I don't mean to offend or flame, but putting this bluntly feels important:
Why don't you want to keep living?
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When I see people talk about living indefinitely around here in threads that come up occasionally, it does make me wonder if they are on the other side of some selfishness cutoff. It's weird to think that you'd be interested in living for centuries or longer in a world that has seen everyone before you die and day by day sees horrific injustice. It's almost solipsistic. The same dynamic exists with those hundred mill…
With that kind of thinking, why are you even posting here? Why do you allow yourself any leisure time when people in the world are starving?
I'm surprised how strongly people feel about that post.
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That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever? Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's ir…
Nobody deserves anything. If humans can survive forever, most will (BTW I‘ve read somewhere that your half-life would still be 600 years or so due to serious accidents). Not WANTING to survive as long as possible is IMO pathological thinking. Sure, there are reasons why you would rather not have humans live longer.. but why not long for it? Also, if you live forever, almost everybody will be able to make a lasting im…
Obviously this would depend greatly on where you live (much more likely to be shot in the US or Mexico than in Japan).
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I can understand personally not waiting to live over an arbitrary age, since that's a subjective feeling. It just seems weird to consider it an universal point and deem everyone who doesn't to be morally defective. What's the objective basis for that?
I'm sorry, "weird" in this context just means "whoa dude, that's weird to consider". It's not an argument of morality. You can lack empathy and still be fairly moral. But these are just thoughts, happy to be wrong.
My puzzle is more over the line. Seems to me that if empathetic person can wish to live an extra year starting from their 50th anniversary, why not on their 100th or 250th?
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With that kind of thinking, why are you even posting here? Why do you allow yourself any leisure time when people in the world are starving?
Because HN is a good distraction from that. Maybe I'm working on making it better and I haven't told you, or maybe I'm just a bum. Does it matter? It's a damn forum, we're all wasting time, that's the point? I'm surprised how strongly people feel about that post.
Seems ironic.
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Sure, I'd have it much better than all the people who had to die. But I already have it much better than all the people who are killed or crippled by preventable illnesses because they were unlucky enough to be born into poverty. But that doesn't really factor into my moral reasoning. My living forever wouldn't necessarily make things worse for people who don't get to do that. So, as a consequentialist, I don't think…
That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever? Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's ir…
I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it
That's the problem, clearly you are when you use that first word.
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Because HN is a good distraction from that. Maybe I'm working on making it better and I haven't told you, or maybe I'm just a bum. Does it matter? It's a damn forum, we're all wasting time, that's the point? I'm surprised how strongly people feel about that post.
You just said a whole bunch of people are lacking in empathy, and you're surprised people are reacting strongly? Seems ironic.
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It can. There is also the issue of being awash in selfish dickheads that have a tendency to turn even the most straightforward attempts to help others into a dumpster fire.
It sounds like the "unselfish" person in this scenario would be dealing with the negative form of pride (self-pity).
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This seems to me less like an observable phenomenon and more an excuse to extend an argument that unselfish people are actually just selfish people, and therefore "selfish" people aren't real. Sorry if I'm reading too much into it, but this reads like the preamble to at least 10 articles people have handed to me in defense of Ayn Rand.
I didn't want to be too negative. My point is that it's really hard to distinguish between truly unselfish behavior and non-assertiveness or passive-aggressive behavior. Selfish behavior seems easier to identify.