You have a moral duty to bully these apathetic nerds. : chapotraphouse

[–] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

One time, I saw a Prager U video where Dennis Prager in what’s the saddest moment ever caught on tape, makes fun of kindergarten and elementary school signs that say “The world is a better place because you are in it”. He chuckles, sneers at the phrase and then, unprompted, tells a story about how his father was an uncommunicative man, and he would have never said something like that to him. I was a new dad to my first born son. In my mind’s eye, I could picture a long chain of patriarchal violence repeated and reinforced with each generation. Men unable to give their sons anything other than tough love and hard lessons, ending in a pathetic loser sneering at children having a better world than he experienced.

To this day, I tell my sons how beautiful and kind the world has become with them here. Somehow I do hope Dennis gets a mysterious ache in his chest, every time I do. Lmao.

[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

Generational Trauma, the only thing literally killed with kindness.

[–] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Men will really chose to fund a huge disinfo campaign to make as many people as possible as awful and unhappy as they are rather than just go to therapy. SMH.

[–] Pentacat@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago

There’s something in my eye.

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They say this about wars and genocides and social issues but as soon as booba in video game shrinks 10% we need urgent action on this crisis

It’s just selfishness disguised as philosophical nihilism

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The world with 100% boobas in vídeo game

🌎

The world with 90% boobas in video game

💥

[–] comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

voting for 90% boobas is no different than voting for 100% booba

[–] VILenin@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

You need to vote for 99% boobler. Do you condemn khabras?

[–] CoolYori@hexbear.net 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the person that argues why moralism of even the secular kind is bad and we need to be unthinking nihilistic robots. These are the kind that tell me my autism makes me some hyper masculine automaton that is not suppose to know emotion.

[–] ta00000@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

God I'm so sick of that characterization of autism. Autism doesn't change whether you feel emotions it just changes how you express them and how you perceive them in others. I find most people with autism (myself included) to be particularly sensitive in fact, in the way that anyone who finds themselves lower on some spectrum in the kyriarchy is.

[–] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wandering the wretched earth with ridiculously overcomplicated thoughts about everything and disproportionate attention to fine details and out-of-place contrast while equipped with overwhelmingly powerful emotions that you process at 28.8k dialup speeds is super fun and exciting and makes me want to live tequila-sunset

[–] ashinadash@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This description of autism fucks.

[–] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

The guy who wrote it doesn't due to his crippling social deficits dubois-dance

[–] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago

Last night I watched the new Amazing Digital Circus and felt that the theme can be summarized as "continuing to live despite your suffering is important because people deserve the opportunity to love you" and expressing that thought to myself has done more to quell suicidal thoughts in me than anything has in months

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow what an insulting message, shit like this is a hop skip and a jump away from like ecco-fascism.

[–] RION@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

?

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lmao in Italian this just translates to "here's the dolphin" or "behold, the dolphin". Both of which are so much funnier than the original

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

joker-amerikkklap : "LGBT relationships are an AFFRONT TO DA LAWD!"

joker-amerikkklap :: "Climate change? Corporate greed? Like, who cares maaaaaaaaan? We're all gonna die some day. Cantcha just learn to live and let live?"

[+] porcupine@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The context is that the people who tend to espouse this line of reasoning tend to be new atheist types who do have extremely emotional and moralizing arguments they make all the time in other spheres of life. They’re hypocrites who selectively employ this type of philosophical nihilism (nihilism isn’t “you should commit suicide btw, it’s “nothing matters or has inherent meaning”) when it suits them and ignore it when it doesn’t.

This type of person is very well known and hated on hexbear, the new atheist “secular” chauvinist who also happens to hate Islam and always talks in a clash of civilizations idealist manner. For some reason nothing matters we are just apes on a rock man, but also those brown apes over there have an evil culture. Sam Harris, Hitchens, Musk, Dawkins, Maher, you know the type.

[+] porcupine@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't think it's reasonable to extrapolate from an astronomy tweet that scientist = atheist = nihilist = hypocrite = white chauvinist = fascist.

It's already starting half-way down that line of inference, at nihilist and hypocrite. Considering it's a western white nihilist account it's not that large of a leap to white chauvinist (that's the majority of the West).

I think you're in a bit of denial about how evil and widespread these atheist neocon Liberals are and that they want to ethnically cleanse the global south even more than the local chuds. Most Zionists in the west are not evangelical crazies, they're "logical secular Liberal centrists". Fascism arises from the warmonger capitalists, not the fringe lunatics. You don't understand the core of imperialism or fascism if you don't think these types are extremely dangerous and our primary enemy.

[+] porcupine@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The Nazis and Italian Fascists and Japanese Imperialists were not religious zealots. They all espoused scientism and secular theories of racial/cultural conflict. It is not Joe Brandon's catholicism that is driving his Zionist bloodlust and islamophobia, as he's much more extreme than the vast majority of catholics and catholic leadership on these matters. He is a zionist because of the secular Israeli project's influence in the political system and his hollow sell-out nature making him a vessel to be filled with the first monied interest to cross his path. He is a secular fascist, despite being a catholic. Obama was a secular fascist. Trump was a secular fascist. Nixon was a secular fascist. Are you noticing a pattern? It's nothing to do with their christianity, it's their "pro-west" secular views that fascism emerges from.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm actually extremely mad that nihilists are using the pale blue dot this way.

What I always took away from it is we're all the same. The pale blue dot is us, not just humans, but the whole biosphere is all an interconnected "us" that unites Earth as the only world to harbor life in a huge and lonely universe. There is nowhere else.

Or as Sagan said: "To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." That shit makes me tear up, still, 16 years out of highschool when I first heard it.

To flip this around as "lol no one and nothing matters" is an abomination, a total perversion of the pale blue dot.

These people are not well.

[+] porcupine@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's very clearly the message: you don't matter on the scale of the Earth, everyone disappears when you zoom out far enough.

And that's exactly the ethos of so-called effective altruism, longtermism, extropianism, etc. The idea is that you should zoom out and ignore all the individual people because they don't matter on a large scale, instead we should focus on growing the economy for a technological-utopian future where the number of humans can grow exponentially by living in space and trying to colonize all parts of the universe.

This dominates Silicon Valley and has become a driving force in the tech industry.

[+] porcupine@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Isn’t it interesting to look outside ourselves for a moment and consider things from a different point of view.
When I find myself seriously considering things like that, I remind myself to go outside and touch grass.

Why are you talking to me like that?

I just don’t believe that the Venn diagram of people who like looking at space pics and people who are seriously committed to leading a post-human space empire is a circle.

This isn't just a space pic. This is, specifically, a nihilist space meme. I think the venn diagram in this case has a lot of overlap.

you don’t matter on the scale of the Earth, everyone disappears when you zoom out far enough.

Yes. I agree this is what it’s communicating. This seems straightforward, empirically correct, and philosophically basic.

I reject that!

Everyone matters. When you zoom out, we're all the same. We're all connected. An injury to one is an injury to all.

What this meme does and what you are doing is flipping that around to then say "When you zoom out, we're all irrelevant. We're all nothing. No one matters at scale." I refuse! Every single person matters to all of us, because we're all the same. When you zoom out you can't tell us apart, all you can see is a pale blue dot. That's us. That doesn't mean that no one matters at scale, that means everyone matters as much as everyone else. No one is more important or more valuable or more human, we are all the same, we all matter equally. We are our home.

I refuse to accept that no one matters, no matter what scale we are talking about. Every single person matters as part of that pale blue dot.

[+] porcupine@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

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[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It sure has been a long time since Philosophy 101 huh? I'm pretty sure you are confusing existentialism with existential nihilism.

Existentialism is the belief that we construct the meaning of our lives through our own awareness, will, and reason. Nihilism, on the other hand, is the assertion that there is no meaning to life including whatever meaning we try to make for ourselves and that it is pointless to try to give life meaning. The man climbs the tree because he wants to, there's no deeper meaning behind it because meaning doesn't exist. He's not making a new meaning for himself, he's just doing what he wants because there's no reason not to and nothing is stopping him.

I'm sympathetic to the nihilist view, but rather than reject giving life meaning as pointless I just recognize that it is absurd and then do it anyway.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy, yeah?

And now we return to that pale blue dot. That's home. That's us. I choose to give that meaning and acknowledge that I am choosing to do so, despite the meaningless universe in which we find ourselves. I am part of something bigger than myself, and so are you, and together we give the world meaning. Nihilism rejects meaning, and I don't think you're actually a nihilist.

[+] porcupine@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

You're right, “only I matter” and “only I and [subgroup] matter” are not nihilistic either, but that's that's not what this meme is implying or what I'm rejecting. A truly nihilistic stance is "I don't matter, no one matters, nothing matters, and there's no reason to create meaning because that doesn't matter either." If I ask "should I kill myself" then nihilism can not provide me a reason to survive. Earth before, Earth after, nothing changes. That's why Camus considered suicide to be the only really serious philosophical problem.

Now of course, nihilists aren't necessarily suicidal (although it's not uncommon). The nihilist philosophy tells us to reject meaning and to pursue personal pleasure and satisfaction and self actualization i.e. the Will to Power, not because that is the meaning of life, but because in a meaningless universe there's no reason to do anything else. The person who can achieve this becomes the Übermensch, able to overcome the limits of religion and reason to pursue ambition and no longer burdened by the sorrows of ordinary people.

And again, this isn't something that gives life meaning. It's a supposedly rational solution to the question "should I kill myself" i.e. the Übermensch wants to live for life itself and does not need a reason to do so or to find meaning for life to be worth living.

All of this is to say that, yes, real people believe this stuff and they should be discouraged from doing so whenever possible.

[+] MovingThrowaway@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

[deleted]

[–] lil_tank@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Agree. Nihilism is often the baby steps of philosophy. Yes morality is constructed and socially useful, that's why we need it duh. The absurdity of the "capitalist individualism vs communist collectivism" is that for your own selfish happiness you need to be loved and cared about and helped and supported by a greater structure. But I guess it's a lot easier to feel good about being edgy than accepting that the world needs to move forward

[–] DictatrshipOfTheseus@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

Yes. This. This is exactly what I was talking about in my other comment in this thread, posted before seeing this one. I was calling it scale instead of scope, but this is spot on.

People will pick and choose how things function at one scope and pretend it applies at others. A lot of people, even good well-meaning ones, will do this and fall into this trap, but particularly shitty people will do this as a way to justify their garbage beliefs or justify hurting and demeaning others. Exactly like OP image "you don't matter 'cause the Earth doesn't give a shit if you're here or not as one person. You're a loser for thinking you matter at all." FUCK that. You absolutely matter, just not necessarily at the scale/scope of an entire planet orbiting a star, that doesn't invalidate or make meaningless the just as real scale/scope at which you DO matter. Their application of how things function at scale is always used in whatever way is beneficial to them at the moment or to prove whatever flawed, even sadistic point they're trying to make. Capitalists, politicians, and of course the mass media under their control do this constantly and it infuriates me to no end.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

What you are referencing is usually called a 'framing problem' or 'reference issue', usually the latter. I've never heard of it called a 'scope problem', but that probably works as well.

[–] DictatrshipOfTheseus@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It really is a matter of scale. Even at the scale of society as a whole, you as an individual don't "matter" in that your presence (or lack of it) isn't going to impact its course or functionality. It's literally why we have to organize in order to even have any hope of achieving our aims. We certainly don't "matter" on a global scale. However, what the person in the OP image said is entirely true. At the scale of our families and social group, and absolutely at the scale of our individual experience, each of us matters profoundly. At the scale of our individual experience, each of us is a universe unto ourselves.

It is infuriating to me when people refuse to understand that what is true at one scale may not be (and usually isn't) true at another scale, but that this does not invalidate how true things are at any other given scale. The fact that your impact on the galaxy as a whole is so small as to be effectively insignificant does not mean that your impact on the world you live in, literally your sphere of experience and influence, is insignificant, because the truth is that it is extremely significant at that scale.

Western culture and society is pathological in how it simultaneously acts as though the only reality is what exists at the scale of the individual when it comes to blame and "rEsPoNsIbiLitY" but will utterly diminish and demean the experience of any individual that doesn't spend their existence on this earth in service of the great evil god of capital. It's Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women and families." Meanwhile every single one of those individual men and women (rather the ones who don't own or control capital) are treated as nothing more than a cog in a machine, a sliver of utility to be used as such then expended and replaced as such. It's a philosophy that cherry-picks only the convenient truths of how things work at various different given scales and applies them across the board as if they're true at all other scales, all of course to serve the interests of the ruling class. It is a source of many of the philosophical contradictions of capitalism and the diseased society that results from it.

https://htwins.net/scale2/

[–] QueerCommie@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

Dialectics - transformation of quantity into quality

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

One of the most existentially calming things is learning just how subjective fame is.

As long as I got my friends and family, I won't lose sleep about not being a celebrity. Would a little bit of recognition be cool? Absolutely, but I don't think I can handle being under public scrutiny 24/7.

[–] spacecadet@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I actually think both Twitter posts could serve to reduce suicidal ideation depending on the individual.

[–] Pentacat@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

I like feeling small when I feel like I have big problems. The ocean and/or the stars are good for me at those times.

[–] autism_2@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago

The world exists because I perceive it. You're welcome!

Chapotraphouse