|
Do you prefer the extended summer thread format? This poll is closed. |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes |
|
126 | 44.21% |
| No |
|
39 | 13.68% |
| I'm Scottish |
|
120 | 42.11% |
| Total: | 285 votes | ||
|
If there is... something, some consciousness, that exists beyond/above the universe, I wonder what they'd think of philosophers. Bunch of carbon atoms got tangled up in a semi-interesting way and now they're claiming they're the reason why poo poo happens? Motherfucker have you *seen* what happens in a supernova? And there's one of them every second, and you fuckers are trying to tell each other that you're more important than that? Philosophy, you might have guessed, is very much not my wheelhouse but from what little I know of it I guess I'm sort of a... positive nihilist? Is that a thing? I'm aware that on the universal scale nothing matters whatsoever, but I'm still going to smile and say hello to my neighbours and send cute animal pics to my family's Whatsapp because these are things that make me feel good, no matter how illusory the good feeling is. I think that's the problem I always had with The Matrix - if I were to suddenly wake up in fluorescent light nutrition paste world I'd be offering to blow the squid robots to get plugged back in. All of our existence is an illusion, so do the things that make you feel good, and avoid things that make other people feel bad, and if you can find something that makes both you and other people feel good then that's a bonus.
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 12:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 21:43 |
|
|
josh04 posted:That's how he saw it, but he can hardly stop us from saying it now. Yeah he wasn't a fan, but from the little I've read and remember he arrives at very similar themes and conclusions so gently caress it, I'm going to use my radical freedom to call him one.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 12:58
|
|
|
goddamnedtwisto posted:If there is... something, some consciousness, that exists beyond/above the universe, I wonder what they'd think of philosophers. Bunch of carbon atoms got tangled up in a semi-interesting way and now they're claiming they're the reason why poo poo happens? Motherfucker have you *seen* what happens in a supernova? And there's one of them every second, and you fuckers are trying to tell each other that you're more important than that? Screw you old man even a bacterium has a more important existence than some unobserved supernova
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 12:59
|
|
|
Josef bugman posted:I don't want to just exist. What I want is to have a positive impact on the world and on people. That requires justification. Everything needs justification, or at least everything a person does and says and is. Even if it's something small it all needs to have a justification for why a thing is done that way. Having read your posts I know for a fact you have a positive impact. Hell, you positively impact me by doing good posts and generally reminding me there are good people out there. I imagine most posters feel the same. Don’t be too hard on yourself and appreciate that just existing as a good person in a cruel world is an act of goodness. In terms of justification, the world just isn’t that simple, and nor are people. People do things without justification, people justify things with reasoning that should do the opposite but to them justifies it, people lie about their justifications to others and themselves… the world will never follow a neat logical causal path and less so will people. It’s just too chaotic and complex a system. Buy the ticket, take the ride, do what good you can along the way and try to enjoy yourself. No one gets out alive 
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:02
|
|
|
Communist Thoughts posted:Screw you old man even a bacterium has a more important existence than some unobserved supernova Well a) the bacterium wouldn't even be there of it weren't for several billion of those "unobserved" supernova and b) that supernova might not have been seen by your worthless monkey eyes but to everything for a couple of parsecs it will have been the most important thing that ever happened.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:03
|
|
|
The supernova can come argue with my monkey eyes in the asda car park if it doesn't like it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:07
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:I blame English supermarkets. If you went to a rural greengrocer's' until quite recently spring onions would usually have a bulb the size of a pickled onion and those thin ones that would never become an onion would be called something regional. Supermarkets just hopped on calling everything that was green and white and not a leek or the Chartist flag a 'spring onion'. Guavanaut is a good poster who really knows their onions
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:07
|
|
|
goddamnedtwisto posted:If there is... something, some consciousness, that exists beyond/above the universe, I wonder what they'd think of philosophers. Bunch of carbon atoms got tangled up in a semi-interesting way and now they're claiming they're the reason why poo poo happens? Motherfucker have you *seen* what happens in a supernova? And there's one of them every second, and you fuckers are trying to tell each other that you're more important than that? Yeah dude cheerful nihilism is where it's at. Everything is hosed and meaningless so we might as well have a good time (and help others to have good times too because why not?) Or at least what seems to create the appearance of having a good time if you want to go all "the guy who runs the universe in H2G2" about it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:10
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:The supernova can come argue with my monkey eyes in the asda car park if it doesn't like it. Punching a gamma ray burst like some Final Fantasy Boss Battle
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:10
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:The supernova can come argue with my monkey eyes in the asda car park if it doesn't like it. Over a long-enough timescale this will inevitably happen but your monkey eyes will be interesting carbon impurities in the dirt long before that happens. (I really have to get around to re-reading that Phil Plait book about the ways the universe could kill us)
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:12
|
|
|
Say that again about my worthless monkey eyes you upjumped lightbulb
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:12
|
|
|
Ha, look at you all, not even making plans to get uploaded to the SI
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:16
|
|
|
Jakabite posted:Ha, look at you all, not even making plans to get uploaded to the SI Since Brexit we don't use SI, it's good old fashioned Imperial for us.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:17
|
|
|
Imo we're here because we're here and if you don't like it you can just wait and it'll be over shortly anyway As an aside, I personally think humans own particularly hard and I dislike all the misanthropy and doomer stuff in some threads. We won't even be the first lifeforms to mass extinct everything else. Humans aren't at all unnatural in how we approach the world, that's pretty much just how living things roll cause Life is a bizzare and violent phenomenon but also way more interesting that space rocks or those bleeding supernovas Feel free to found some new schools with these piercing insights
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:17
|
|
|
 Absurdism is the guy on the right but also smoking a cigarette, and speaking French
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:22
|
|
|
Communist Thoughts posted:Imo we're here because we're here and if you don't like it you can just wait and it'll be over shortly anyway Yeah humans own, sorry haters. I always enjoy when people say octopuses and dolphins are smart. Like no they really aren’t, they haven’t even invented like the wheel or even really poo poo internet like dial up. Call that smart? Please.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:26
|
|
|
goddamnedtwisto posted:I think that's the problem I always had with The Matrix - if I were to suddenly wake up in fluorescent light nutrition paste world I'd be offering to blow the squid robots to get plugged back in. All of our existence is an illusion, so do the things that make you feel good, and avoid things that make other people feel bad, and if you can find something that makes both you and other people feel good then that's a bonus. mrpwase posted:
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:27
|
|
|
sebzilla posted:Guavanaut is a good poster who really knows their onions  but also 
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:28
|
|
|
So that I contribute something more useful than shitposts to the Camus discussion, I wrote this up for a work chat where someone asked if Sisyphus "accepting the absurd struggle" meant learning to enjoy rolling boulders (a fair question!):quote:Sisyphus doesn't enjoy rolling the boulder; he just doesn't accept that his fate is to be miserable from not reaching the summit. Which is not to say he "chooses to be happy" or something trite like that, it's more that no external force or God or whatever that can determine his nature. Sometimes he will be happy and sometimes he will be sad, but these are human matters and not the result of divine or cosmic intervention. He can be made to spend all day rolling the boulder but he can't be made to care that he never reaches the top - and once he's made that choice, what is the power of the gods or fate to punish him?
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:30
|
|
|
Serious talk for a second, the main reason I keep going back to do shifts at vaccination centres (and why I'll have to find something similar to replace it when it ends) is I've discovered, to my utter surprise considering I've had almost half a century of considering myself an antisocial misanthrope, that I actually like helping people. When I did my first shifts I felt a bit pointless as often the work is stuff you could literally do with some raffle tickets and a couple of bits of cardboard but I've realised that just the human connection of someone pointing you to the right chair rather than having to find it yourself, the occasional little bit of light banter and dad-jokes, or even just being there and looking like you know what's going on takes the edge off of what is even for the most self-reliant person a discomfiting and unpleasant experience. Just little stuff like finding an extra chair if someone has a friend/partner/relative with them for moral support, or taking the all-important pic of them getting the jab - in a tiny, tiny way I've just made that person's life a little bit better, and I get to do that for sometimes hundreds of people at a time. It's an addictive feeling, I've got to say. The thing is though - there's a tiny bit of me that worries I'm sort of negating the altruism there. It's a really weird thing, and possibly some strange suppressed Protestant Work Ethic complex, but I do actually feel a tiny bit of guilt if I have too much fun doing it, like somehow - if there is a Good Place - I'm knocking something off my score because I'm having a good time. I wonder if the RVS have a special model hi-vis that can fit over a hair shirt to counteract it?
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:30
|
|
|
Where do you all find the time to read all this philosophy? I started and stopped at Stoicism and I've been trying to find time to integrate it (or any other kind of self-improvement thing ever) into my life ever since.Guavanaut posted:Scallions are green onions, Welsh onions, bunching onions, Allium fistulosum, they grow in bunches and will not form large bulbs no matter what time of year it is or how long you leave them in the soil.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:33
|
|
|
goddamnedtwisto posted:
So - you do a good thing, it gives you a glow. It 'negates' the altruism a little. Instead - you do a good thing and have to wear a hair shirt to counteract it - that, in itself, is a glow. "I did good thing and boy did I suffer after" emitting glow of virtue because it was pain instead of pleasure. I think absolutely perfect altruism is probably 99.9999999% unachievable by a regular human. Except - you didn't do the good thing to GET the glow, that was just a pleasant side effect. So if you knew there was going to be no glow, and neither would you be beating yourself with a spikey chain afterwards, would you STILL do the thing? Did you do the thing to get the human contact? If you could get the human contact a different way by NOT doing the good thing, would you have? Or would you still do the good thing even if you were essentially invisible to anyone else? Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Jul 7, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:34
|
|
|
Altruism doesn't exist anyway, just enjoy the serotonin.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:41
|
|
|
Contrary to popular belief there is not a fourth law of thermodynamics that says there is a finite amount of joy in the world and all actions can only redistribute it, not create it or destroy it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:42
|
|
|
Communist Thoughts posted:Imo we're here because we're here and if you don't like it you can just wait and it'll be over shortly anyway i agree. also i think a lot of people jump to criticise something simply because they've noticed it, without really thinking about it at all
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:49
|
|
|
Pistol_Pete posted:2,500 years and people are STILL sitting round stroking their chins and saying stuff like; "Hmm, yes but how does one define what 'being good' is?" And (c) the psychotic libs who are too dumb to see through (b) and so promote it in the name of being fair to both sides. sebzilla posted:Yeah dude cheerful nihilism is where it's at. I think a lot about the idea that consciousness is just the universe experiencing itself, and in that light it helps round off a lot of the more difficult issues. Be nice to other people, because they're you. Be nice to animals because they're you. Find a thing you can do that makes others happy, or at the very least doesn't make their lives worse. * Just don't go full Dali and start wanking over your dinner guests.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:51
|
|
|
Have you ever had that friend at the party who can't have fun unless everyone else is having fun? Imagine that but extended across everyone. It's not even as if I particularly like or understand people and/or myself, it's more that there is a feeling that any happiness gained is not deserved unless it is helping people. That and there seem to be so many things that are expected of us and, from a purely personal perspective, I don't know how to do that. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Jul 7, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 13:54
|
|
|
goddamnedtwisto posted:The thing is though - there's a tiny bit of me that worries I'm sort of negating the altruism there. It's a really weird thing, and possibly some strange suppressed Protestant Work Ethic complex, but I do actually feel a tiny bit of guilt if I have too much fun doing it, like somehow - if there is a Good Place - I'm knocking something off my score because I'm having a good time. I wonder if the RVS have a special model hi-vis that can fit over a hair shirt to counteract it? knox_harrington posted:Altruism doesn't exist anyway, just enjoy the serotonin. Catholics don't have a monopoly on guilt
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:00
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:Sometimes the self checkouts try to compel you to shoplift when you're buying multiple lightweight items, like you'll scan it, add it to your bag, and it will beep and say "add your item to the bag" and not let you scan the next one. I think if you don't obey the computer in those cases that's a computer misuse act crime? Always obey Friend Computer. Anyway I don't have anything to add on the whole philosophy debate except that anybody who hasn't yet should watch A Serious Man.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:01
|
|
|
goddamnedtwisto posted:The thing is though - there's a tiny bit of me that worries I'm sort of negating the altruism there. It's a really weird thing, and possibly some strange suppressed Protestant Work Ethic complex, but I do actually feel a tiny bit of guilt if I have too much fun doing it, like somehow - if there is a Good Place - I'm knocking something off my score because I'm having a good time. I wonder if the RVS have a special model hi-vis that can fit over a hair shirt to counteract it? Bobby Deluxe posted:wanking over your dinner guests. That's why even Puritans (actual ones) were so focused on simple pleasures, if you're getting joy from tilling the field or building a barn or tending the sick at least you can be mostly sure that you're doing good, the work ethic wasn't that you should be miserable all the time just in case you had fun once and went to hell immediately, it's that the simple pleasure should itself be joyful and so protect from getting piss drunk all day and Bobby Deluxe posted:wanking over your dinner guests.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:02
|
|
|
Just talked to my SO frankly about what I fear may be my legacy alcohol abuse after years in law firms in my 20s and 30s (just turned 40). It went poorly! Guess for yourselves how I’m handling the conflict  E: She is of course quite entitled to handle however she likes; it’s not her that has a problem and I will respect any decision she makes up to and including the kids should live with her not me (disclaimer: I don’t think that is even close to on her mind). Same time, I just wish we could communicate about it. I would love for her to just understand how addiction works. Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Jul 7, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:21
|
|
|
Oh no! Is there anything we can do bud?
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:22
|
|
|
what's legacy alcohol abuse. lasting damage from when you drank a lot?
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:25
|
|
|
Josef bugman posted:Oh no! That’s tremendously kind. Not really. Either I get through this and give kids a decent parent and wife a decent husband, or I don’t! Apparently Naltrexone is now quite well established as a good blocker for excess boozing, am looking into that. Any goons with experience?
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:27
|
|
|
roomtone posted:what's legacy alcohol abuse. lasting damage from when you drank a lot? I learned to drink a fuckton in my 20s because that was what City Lawyers Did. I kept it up in my 30s even after leaving the profession because it was what I did. Now I don’t really want to do it any more but it’s pretty ingrained.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:29
|
|
|
goddamnedtwisto posted:
sounds like the methodists have got to you Beefeater1980 posted:Just talked to my SO frankly about what I fear may be my legacy alcohol abuse after years in law firms in my 20s and 30s (just turned 40). thats rough, hopefully things cool down and your concerns have been noted. I often find that if you're having a difficult discussion with an SO or anyone really that you have to expect pushback/defensiveness/aggression because peoples emotions get up and then you've gotta wait for the physical chemicals squirted into their blood to be processed and recycled before they (and you) come back down. you can only hope that given some time whatever you said percolates in there
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:30
|
|
|
Beefeater1980 posted:That’s tremendously kind. Not really. Either I get through this and give kids a decent parent and wife a decent husband, or I don’t! I know just a voice on the internet but you keep safe. And it's good to be honest with your partner. I don't want to suggest the bleeding obvious but have you considered AA or is that a bit too religious and/or shite?
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:31
|
|
|
Josef bugman posted:I know just a voice on the internet but you keep safe. And it's good to be honest with your partner. I don't want to suggest the bleeding obvious but have you considered AA or is that a bit too religious and/or shite? Yes to both? I’m religious enough to believe in God but not irreligious enough to believe that He would be terribly exercised about my relationship with the vine. AA creeps me out. Either I win this on my own terms or I lose it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:33
|
|
|
Communist Thoughts posted:sounds like the methodists have got to you Thank you, that’s helpful. I’ve worked for years to take the ego out of when we argue and until this it has worked really - like, amazingly - well. Maybe I just have to wait for her to be ready to have the Big Talk about it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 21:43 |
|
|
If you've got a church then they might be able to help with stuff too. I am sorry, this is probably very "teaching your grandma to suck eggs" territory, but it might help. Keep safe beef.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:38
|
|