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>why not strive to transcend our need to be motivated by suffering? If you can do so in a way that does not lead to stagnation, I am willing to hear you out. T
by nemo1618 10y ago
>why not strive to transcend our need to be motivated by suffering?
If you can do so in a way that does not lead to stagnation, I am willing to hear you out. The only people I'm aware of who have transcended suffering are Buddhist monks, and... well, they are exactly models of trans-human progress. They mostly just sit quietly and keep to themselves.
- lisper 10y agoThe buddhists have the wrong idea. Their attitude is that suffering is inevitable and so we should just accept it. (They go on to say that when you accept suffering it stops being suffering. Yeah, right. Tell that to the kids in Syria who were gassed by Assad a few days ago.) I'm not talking about accepting suffering, I'm talking about eliminating it, or at least striving to eliminate it even if complete eliminate is not actually possible (c.f. Sisyphus) or desirable. It might be that the optimal level of suffering is not zero, or that the optimal level is lower than the lowest attainable level. But it is clear that both of those are significantly lower than what have now. I don't think any reasonable person can look at what is going on in Syria or South Sudan or Bangladesh and not believe that we can do better without violating the laws of physics.