Most people share your belief that the majority of the focus should be on systems, culture, and politics to resolve suffering and raise our quality of life. That is true in places that lack stability. For instance, in a war torn country, that is the proper approach.

However, let me point out something obvious. Pain and suffering is experienced and located within a body. You are focused on the triggers of that suffering by looking for the problem externally, centered around systems. I am pursuing something more substantial than that by focusing on what is actually being triggered within the individual. Follow the exact location of the pain and suffering if you truly want more than band aids.

why? and how do you know?

Well that’s what we’ve been stuck on. Presumably OP is not living in a war torn area. Still you were arguing in favor of working the current system to achieve greater status. I was arguing against working the current system.

It seems like you’re shifting focus from your initial proposition. You appear to be moving on to something resembling more of an eastern philosophy. Which I’m fine with exploring. I’m curious where you’re headed with this.

If someone pokes you with a stick, the pain and suffering you experience is also located within the body. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop them from poking you with the stick.

I used to have intense video game competitions with a group of friends. One of those friends was a business owner. He ran a small but successful local restaurant where he was able to make a decent living and support his family. It allowed him plenty of time for leisure. One day he told me that he’d decided the restaurant was doing well enough to expand.

Motivated by his success, I began research into the restaurant business. I found that my friend’s particular style of food was the easiest to setup and the most profitable in the industry. I also found that if I were to farm my own food instead of going through a wholesaler I could dramatically increase my margins and charge a lower price. This would give me a big competitive advantage while at the same time lowering the cost to consumers. I would be doing the community a service!

I opened as quickly as possible. My restaurant turned out to be a great success. I was making money hand over fist and saving people money in the process. I was even able to expand, opening several locations throughout town. Unfortunately my friend’s restaurant was unable to compete. Eventually he had to close for good. He works full time at starbucks now.

He will no longer speak to me. I can’t figure out why. It was a competition just like the video game. I mean c’mon dude get over it already.

Obviously the reason he won’t speak to me is due to the consequences that the monetary component had on his life. The video game was completely voluntary and the only thing at stake was status. We would yell, throw ****, and argue, but at the end of the day it was just a game. The closure of his restaurant impacted his whole life. He has to work more hours at a job he does not enjoy. He has no disposable income for leisure. Even his family is impacted. He can’t spend as much time with them and is unable to provide in the same way. He’s rather miserable.

Now this whole story is BS, but it illustrates the difference between compartmentalized voluntary games of competition and the non-voluntary in our current system. This kind of thing happens all the time. Sure that brings us stuff at a lower price. But what is the cost?

It’s happening on a much larger scale with big corporations out-competing smaller stores. Money is being syphoned away and funneled to the top winners. There are innumerable factors that go into becoming a top winner. Yes, some of it is hard work, but most of it is just luck. Included in that luck is being born intelligent enough to come up with a winning idea, or having the temperment to stick through tough times and work hard.

If we had a redistributive system in place that provided security from those lucky people to those not-so-lucky people, then the impact on my friend from the story wouldn’t be so dramatic. Those who are unable to work the system and properly care for themselves would be taken care of. And the people the people who are feeling like they are, as Craig puts it, “suffering at an incrementally unbearable level”, would be able to do what they want and find something meaningful.

If we could establish a working version of a redistributive system there’s no question it would work for this exact problem. The only question is, could it work?

I quoted your post in the politics forum.

I don't have a problem with your thoughts as long as the redistribution leaves enough incentive for people to devise methods that help everybody. Those who are specifically harmed should be reimbursed fully. That would cost a lot less though than having a system where the innovators are dissuading from innovating.

And I don't like some of what you say about "luck". Innate intelligence is luck. But once you ascribe the ability to stick to things through tough times as being due to luck, you give an awful lot of people an excuse to not living up to their potential.

Im not sure how this story supports your claim that

At the end you say

Your initial claim was a confident assertion, in contradiction to your claim of not knowing whether it would work

The story was supposed to help answer the why. I thought you and Craig might be having trouble understanding the difference between the effects of chasing status through voluntary compartmentalized games and the current system at large.

I can see that on the wording. Good point. Perhaps I should’ve added “it appears” to the beginning of the statement- “It appears the clear path is through redistribution of wealth.” It is meant to be a confident assertion that a working redistributive system would solve the issue at hand. That is to say it is contingent on the system working.

You make some good points. I didn't really want to get into the politics of it. I don't mind you posting it over there though. I know they've already had some discussions on universal basic income.

The original point was that gaming the current system for status is not a very ethical/effective approach for eliminating the suffering causing nihilism.

Maybe it would provide an excuse. Although would you agree that the ease of which some people handle difficulties compared to others has just as much to do with luck as innate intelligence? Is it the same for a clinically depressed person to find motivation to solve a complex task as it is for an average person with a healthy brain? There is an incalculable spectrum of neurophysiological composition. It is not just depressed and healthy.

that doest clarify. A confident assertion is not contingent on something. A confident assertion is saying "I am confident that this is true"

Adding "working" to your assertion adds nothing. All you are saying is "If system A works to solve problem B, then we can use system A to solve problem B". It doesnt actually mean that system A would work, or that you know it would work.

I understand the confusion. If system A works then I am confident it will work to solve problem B. It might also work to solve problems C and D. There is distinction between the system working and the system working to solve this specific problem. I am confident that if the system works, i.e. redistributes money without collapsing the economy, it will work to restrict the quest for status to voluntary games, or at least mitigate the effects of competition to a level where I would consider vying for status as a possible ethical solution to nihilism given the will to power premise.

I think this is getting bogged down in irrelevant detail. If it helps to continue the discussion i will retract my statement.

In your mind, the disconnect is that I am unaware that people go out of business and face adversity within our economic system? Please.

There are two different issues:
1) The amount of adversity, struggle, and chaos
2) The way we respond to that adversity as individuals

You obviously believe that #1 is the bigger problem. I believe #2 is the bigger threat when taking into account the medium/long term and not just the short term. Further, if we don't do better at #2, then #1 is going to eventually get so extreme to the point of impending existential threat. That will be the case no matter how much we focus on limiting #1.

Power has a tendency to centralize, no matter the system.

Technology's liberating potential enables more equitable outcomes across society. I dont have to be rich anymore to take a dump in the sky while soaring through the air and communicating this message.

A focus on redistribution, for the large part, is unnecessary. Technology rules the day. Every day.

The disconnect is at your failure to recognize the overreaching impact of the quest for status through competition in our economic system. It is not just that “people go out of business and face adversity”. It is oppressive.

At some point you’re just running past the lift up the hill to train for running up the same hill again. What is the end? Don’t create real adversity just to practice handling adversity.

Of course I agree that #2 is important. We disagree on how to go about learning. I don’t think suffering is an appropriate mechanism.

Your third-last sentence here says it all--apparently unbeknownst to you, there is no 'intention' in the grand scheme. You otherwise occasionally pay decent lip service to nihilism, but your teleological bias outed itself in that third-last sentence above. Nihilism is reality, and reality entails no purpose. So although I somewhat appreciated this post and the first post you made in this thread, you've demonstrated a lack of understanding of what a true nihilistic worldview entails.

(unneeded disclaimer: I am a nihilist)

For those who don't understand what 'nihilism' actually means: it is the commonsensical yet near-impossible (for all but a select few humans) acknowledgement that the universe is devoid of purpose and that all systems of morality are ultimately arbitrary. Life is meaningless. It is most certainly not a position of illogical defeatism/fatalism--it is a position of hyper-logical inability to construe 'what one's path forward should be' by virtue of the fact that there is no logical basis on which to determine this irrational plan of utmost psychological importance (but complete insignificance from a universe-level standpoint).

That my path forward is ultimately based on something other than logic really doesn't bother me. That I could be in denial about that, also doesn't bother me. That I could be too stupid to be bothered by it, also doesn't bother me.

If it bothers you, you should probably do something about it.

I'm curious if you think this is sound and if not where the mistake is:

1) The universe has no purpose as a whole.
2) Therefore, no part of the universe has a purpose.
3) Humans are part of the universe.
4) Therefore, no human has a purpose.

I can unequivocally say that if one inhales chlorine gas for any period of time that the moral tone of the event will become evident. The fact that one may, in some manner, state that the moral consequence is the creation of the subject involved ( the inhaler) doesn't pass the window test .

That to which the subject is immersed, not being the creation of the subject himself, is if nothing else, the morally creative that meets the human soul in this life and unto the next.

The obverse of this is that that to which man is immersed, is in some manner, directly consequential to his moral activities again, of his past through recurrent lives.

To obverse again, its not all about past errors, as man can and does through these lives become renewed through his own effort and the effort of others . Man brings the "new" into the world and in this the morally cosmic is refreshed and renewed.

I agree with this for the most part, and I knowingly strayed outside of speaking to nihilism because I am no longer a nihilist. Truth passes through nihilism, so when I said nihilism is true I meant it. But nihilism is not the ultimate truth. As a nihilist, that means nothing to you, but I felt it was important to state.

Moral skepticism and the paralysis that results is not a full commitment to nihilism I would say. Nihilism is more than a belief system or worldview. I don’t care how the dictionary defines it or what conventional wisdom says. To be fully nihilistic means to also be nihilistic at the level of sense experience and feeling. That activates the Will, and the Will in combination with the conscience has meaningful desires, which I mentioned previously.

Are non nihilists, nihilists, when it comes to chimps?

A nihilist defines themselves by denial of overarching narrative. A sensible person looks at overarching narrative as not merely unnecessary, but burdensome; restrictive of his freedom; undesirable.

That sounds like a fairly delusional definition, especially the "all but a select few humans" part.

First of all nihilism is not a tricky prospect, it is a very easy proposition. By invoking skepticism towards all things you deny that meaning is possible, since it's "just arbitrary anyway". An average 5-year old will understand that if the terminology is fitting: After all, if you ask why to every answer, you'll at some point either end up with a question you can't answer or go into a loop, and nobody knows that better than kids.

The problem is that it is a way of understanding the world that simply doesn't work. If you lived your life as if the the underpinning logic of nihilism was true, you'd just die in some incredibly stupid accident. And I have to this date never seen a person live their life like that. Oh, they might go about things as if their life does not matter, but (barring extreme medical conditions) I have yet to see a person live their life as if pain does not matter.

The world does indeed act very much as if choice matters (illusion or not), so perhaps hand-waving that aside and discussing the merits of nihilism isn't all it is cranked up to be.

I picture a movie.

Opening scene repeats at the end of the movie.

"He lived as he died...

...dissapointingly".

I'm curious now. Are there any well-known or accomplished self-described nihilists?