1mo ago

I'm not sure that this is truly so unpopular.

151 comments

Humans weren't "meant" for anything. Your particular sub-brand of cell clumps just failed to go extinct fast enough, so now here you are.
- I think you’re agreeing with the premise without realizing it. We weren’t meant to have the norms and expectations that society places on us to just survive. We’re not expected to just retain homeostasis and survival, part of that has been predicated on your “personal productivity” towards the systems that we live under. Access to community and group resources is something we’re made to seek out, but it’s been blocked behind paywalls and monetary requirements effectively.
  
  No, I'm not.
  We're not expected by whom? Weren't meant by whom?
  Who's doing the meaning and the expecting and the making?
  Even beyond the weird metaphysical and iusnaturalist implications, this train of thought is how you end up with people drinking raw water and eating just boiled meat. We weren't "made" to seek out community any more than we were "made" to not have antibiotics or die from appendicitis. Stop it.
  
  No, I'm not.
  👍 my bad sorry
  We're not expected by whom? Weren't meant by whom?
  Not sure what you mean here, to me I’m interpreting this as I was implying some kind of intelligent or intentional design which I think is a misunderstanding of most of the conversations in these comments
  I don’t say “meant” as in there was an intent behind the design, neither did the original post. “Meant” as in what something was adapted for, like wild animals being “meant” to live in their habitat and not in a cage. Their biology and psychology was most suitable for their own habitat and moving them out of it is distressing just as the original post was illustrating. Our bodies weren’t optimized for this environment and it causes some distress in some regards. It’s kind of a neutral statement expressing dissatisfaction that our needs aren’t being met by our environment
  This isn’t my field, but I remember a lot of these convos during Covid about the parallels of zoochosis and what people were feeling at the time, seems similar to the original discussion
  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/bear-in-mind/202106/enculturated-captivity-zoochosis-and-collective-trauma
  Just thought it was interesting and semi-related
  Even beyond the weird metaphysical and iusnaturalist implications, this train of thought is how you end up with people drinking raw water and eating just boiled meat. We weren't "made" to seek out community any more than we were "made" to not have antibiotics or die from appendicitis.
  You lost me here sorry, dunno how we got to raw milk or appendicitis. Obviously these are bad things, but I don’t think we were trying to connect every societal ill to this hot take on twitter.
  Stop it.
  didn’t know I was doing anything sorry bro 😭
  
  Yeah, sure. It's not that I care that much about it, it's just a pet peeve of mine.
  There's this overlap between conservative, traditionalist takes on how things are "meant" to work, as per some intended design and a new-agey, lovey-dovey take on the same thing diguised as progressivism that hides the same restricting, prescriptive attitudes behind a façade of ecologism or pseudoscience.
  I find it annoying. Can't help it. Don't really want to, either.
  Incidentally Dr. Wilkins there is a ringing all the alarms on that front so badly I want to go find a firehose.
  
  You’re so right on that overlap. It’s incredible how this alt-right propaganda machine has like colonized so many ideas into itself. I don’t blame you for having that habit, it’s fucking everywhere and it’s infuriating.
  Also I can def see that about Dr Wilkins, I just thought the concepts were interesting but definitely that’s one of the, not maybe a fallacy but some kind of slope to those ideas
- Humans weren't "meant" for anything.
  Hi, it's me, the creator. Your purpose is to create entertaining content, but your output has been slipping lately. You live in a simulation created by my multiversal corporation, which didn't meet growth expectations this cycle, so we'll be making some cuts to your simulation's fidelity — just a few fingers and toes for now. Try refocusing your civilization on pumping out Boss Baby movies (they're very popular here!) and we can talk again in 172 of your years.
  
  This is how I know you don't exist.
  I've been delightful.
- So true! If you are too depressed to have any offspring you simply quit the game of evolutin and the world goes on. Delicious, delicious nihilism. Keep scrolling ;)
  
  Hey, not thinking you're railroaded by some higher power into having kids or whatever else is not nihilism. You just do what you wanna do, man, nature and fake deities can't stop you.
  But if that's nihilism and you're cool with it, nature can't stop you from doing that, either.
  
  Accepting that there is no meaning of life or that no one is ment for anything is pretty nihilistic. But that is OK, I have nothing against nihilism.
  Back to your point, reproducing should be everyone's concise choice. Going "quietly into th night", choosing extinction, being selected out by evolution has always been an option. Just becouse trillions of your ancestors, dating back to single celled organisms reproduced doesn't mean you have to.
  Putting all tomfuckery aside, depression and extreme anxiety is likely lowering human diversity and we don't even know how dire this will be. Humanity as a whole will probably adapt to this environment, as people too susceptible will have no kids. I did come close to removing my self from the game my self twice. Got lucky; got some good medication; pull my self out of that mass. Though I got old and somewhat infertile, almost missed my window. When you thinkig about stepping in front of a train, you don't think about having kids. That doesn't mean you won't change your mind later.
  But you should make your own decisions. You can read the opinions of internet randos like me, but the decision will always be yours.
  
  I never said there is no meaning to life. I said humans aren't "meant" to do anything.
  There's tons of meaning to life. You just get to choose what it is. There is no single unified thing you're naturally "designed" to do. If your goal in life is to fold a million paper planes and throw them all off a cliff then go nuts. If it is 2.1 kids then go nuts, too.
  Hey, I'm glad you got the help you needed. That's good. That's meaningful. That meant something. To you, almost certainly to the people in your life that care about you. Very likely to the people who helped you. Helping others IS a very popular meaning people get from life.
  That's the stuff that's worth caring about, in my book. Couldn't be further from nihilism.
  Got a bit intense in the "maybe people should take more time off" thread, but hey. It's true.
  
  Good talk MudMan. Sorry that I dumped this on you! I have these episodes sometimes. You are a wonderful person.
  Dedicating your life throwing paper planes down a cliff sounds very nihilistic though... Agree to disagree?
  
  Agreed.

151 comments