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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   32526 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025

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I believe it because I observed it. I believe being aware of this truth has utility to me. "What if it doesn't" - well, what if it does. You certainly haven't convinced me yet that it doesn't.

I don't spread it widely because of the reasons you stated, that if everyone thinks there are no real rules then I won't have a nice society to live in and many people I like will have an existential crisis. I don't fear accidentally turning the whole society subjectivist and suicidal because societies are resilient to that, since as you said societies need to have most people believe in their cosmic justice.

I'm aware that some beliefs I have are not the best for reproducing genes or societies, but I do not care. In creating reason, the blind idiot god that is evolution has created, finally, a rock that it cannot lift. I'm more interested in seeing with clear eyes whether we can, after all, create a god to replace evolution than I am interested in caring whether society persists after me.

Actually, my culture is more valuable, and I pay taxes to support my country's military against Muhammad. In any case it is useless to scare me with the extinction of my culture even if I cared about its persistence after my demise. If it goes extinct, nothing says another like it won't be able to exist again.

Well there's not much to argue about. As far as utility goes, I think your nihilistic worldview is not only wrong, but cleaves you off from the most important and fulfilling parts of life. I think you don't even know what you're missing.

If I were to talk to someone who was, for whatever reason, seemingly congenitally incapable of love - and they argued about how, really, they preferred it this way... how could I possibly disabuse them of that notion when they don't even have a concept for what they're missing out on?

I know my arguments sound dreary, but just because I think I know why I have certain beliefs and preferences doesn't mean I don't have them, or that I wish to be rid of all of them - merely some. Conversely, many religious people who have achieved the supposedly most fulfilling things in life look quite sad to me.

It is a common misconception to think nihilists are worse off than you just because they're less uncritical of their feelings, or perhaps less evolutionarily fit.

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