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Children as your legacy are no less consequential or meaningful than this man's stone walls. In the end you are grasping for empty meaning and purpose in the sa
by mrphoebs 5y ago
Children as your legacy are no less consequential or meaningful than this man's stone walls. In the end you are grasping for empty meaning and purpose in the same way the farmer is, your children will perish, their children will perish, you will be forgotten and so will they like the rest of human existence. Our lives have no larger purpose or meaning beyond what ever we pretend gives meaning to your life, like children or stone walls.
We are mere Spatiotemporal blips of information in the infant universe with delusions of grandeur. So if you have to tell yourself deep in the night that you actualising your reproductive prerogative makes your sad little life more meaningful than the farmer, please grasp at those straws.
- tacitusarc 5y agoWhat if you're wrong?
- Tddddd 5y agoHow much do you rally know and remember from your ancestors which is more than a handful and always the same stories? How did that really influence you? We can look back, we are not a magic generation unique to all the other generations before us. We know what's going to happen with us and our legacies.
- lukeck 5y agoOne difference between the current and previous generations is just how much information is recorded by and about us. There will be a lot more evidence of the existence and experiences of people alive today than people of a century ago. Whether people will care to look is a different matter.
- daniellarusso 5y agoOne large-scale EMP incident, and that is no longer the case. We have alot more data now, but I am not sure how durable it all is. I have quite a few DVDs and hard drives that no longer work.
- jll29 5y agoCDs/DVDs typically oxidize after 15 years. Print the book version on vellum, and you'll preserve it for a few thousand years (or ANSI paper with the infinity sign, which supposedly lasts for at least 750 years).
- busymom0 5y agoWe do have a lot more data however we don’t have enough time to absorb it. Until something like Neuralink improves that, I don’t think it would be much different. So many of us take pictures all the time but how many of us really go back and look at the old pictures? And do we really have the time to view all pictures from our own time let alone previous generations?
- Tddddd 5y agoTrue and that makes it even more visible how little the future cares for you. My mum is the only one who likes to look through our holiday pictures. They will be there and no one will care. Only some ml tool to potentially tell my future Familie members that I might have been depressed based on pictures and the ml notes it down for potential medical relevant information. No one will know what I liked and disliked. No one will see that my life had ups and downs. I really thought Facebook would be a great thing. Sharing and seeing what my Familie is up to but no one is using it for sharing family pictures. And I myself I'm sometimes annoyed by too many WhatsApp pictures. I do get why it is like this but realizing and accepting it took a bit
- mrphoebs 5y agoI don't know what specifically you are referring to but, the sun is going to be a red giant in 4.5 billion years, earth cannot sustain life. Deep into the future, all the stars will eventually burn out and there will be no more new ones born. The night sky will be dark. The only radiation emitted will be black holes slowly evaporating on a time scale so huge we can't even meaningfully comprehend it. There is no energy to sustain life. Then there is the heat death of the universe to look forward to. Humans might survive past earth, but oblivion will come for us all the same. We just get to play around in our little imagined worlds of purpose and meaning a little longer all to no avail beyond living one's life. And that's all any of us can really do, chose how to face existence knowing there is no grand scheme in which each of us is some how important or matters. Choosing to live is equally as valid as choosing not to. We are evolutionarily engineered thinking emotional machines where certain states make us feel good(love, friendship, self actualisation food...., accomplishment) and certain states make us feel bad (sickness, loss, pain...) All we can do is live a life we are happy(good state) with, be it building stone walls that last or having kids and raising them.
- JackFr 5y ago> We are evolutionarily engineered thinking emotional machines where certain states make us feel good(love, friendship, self actualisation food...., accomplishment) and certain states make us feel bad (sickness, loss, pain...) Certainly this could lead one to be a little more circumspect about grand pronouncements. It seems like you’re saying some people are being tricked by our brains, but others (like yourself) are able to pull aside the veil and truly understand our place in the universe. Perhaps we’re all being tricked. Regardless, in a universe where nothing matters, truth and knowledge have no more value than children or stone walls.
- mrphoebs 5y ago> It seems like you’re saying some people are being tricked by our brains, but others (like yourself) are able to pull aside the veil and truly understand our place in the universe. Perhaps we’re all being tricked. I make no such claim. We interpret and navigate the world with the mental models and toolsets we have. If you can do math, you can calculate, estimate, plan, budget....etc. Similarly, some toolsets give you access to insights and paradigms eg: religious toolset might make you interpret the world differently. I merely have a certain toolset which lets me look at the world in a certain way, does not mean this toolset is exclusive, leads to authoritative interpretations or it's acquisition is special in any way. I could just say "In my humble opinion" >Regardless, in a universe where nothing matters, truth and knowledge have no more value than children or stone walls. As always value is in the eye of the beholder, there is no objective value beyond what a subject is able to get out of it. So if you feel truth and knowledge are important, they are. If you feel faith is more important than truth, it is, to you at-least.
- scared2 5y agoDoes it matter if they are not forgotten?
- mrphoebs 5y agoLegacy implies transmission of information. So forgotten not in terms of memory, but a total loss of information (genetic, memory or otherwise).
- krimbus 5y agoYet, our very existence is a consequence of reproduction, even if we may have forgotten our ancestors. The only true delusion of grandeur is thinking that dwindling others' experiences against the vastness of the universe is enlightenment: If we don't experience our existence in geological/cosmic time scales, why waste time believing we are mere blips?
- mrphoebs 5y agoI'm not dwindling others experiences against the vastness of the universe. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of the parent comment that somehow elevates the meaningfulness of having kids over building a stone wall. My position is neither is any less or more meaningful beyond individual experience.
- oblio 5y agoA stone wall has no chance to beat its fate. Humanity, however unlikely that might be, does stand a chance. We're very far from where we started. We're here because of both people that had kids and because of people that built stone walls. In many cases they were the same people.
- mrphoebs 5y agoAgreed, and no matter if we manage to beat our fate or not, doesn't make this thing called life any less precious.
- kaladin_1 5y agoHmm... Since when did we reach this height of "enlightenment" that children (humans) are now being compared to a stonewall in relevance, no matter how sophisticated the wall might be? Yes, it is more meaningful to have kids than to build a stonewall. Aren't walls inventions of man, as such, an effect caused by man. How can an effect (invention) of man be equated to the inventor? Do you compare the effect of human freedom to the effect of unconscious matter in history?
- randallsquared 5y ago
- noir_lord 5y agoI made a conscious choice to not have children for personal reasons (deeply fucked up family and while I know I'm not callous and cruel like my father I simply couldn't rule it out enough to be willing to risk it). I'm completely at peace with the thought that a century from now no-one will think about me one way or the other. I mean statistically the chain of events that led to me ever existing as me was so small that after winning that hand, it's time to leave the table and enjoy it.
- podgaj 5y agoAs a descendant of the Saami, I agree. We leave our heritage in everything we touch. Child or stone, no difference. Our ancestors are everywhere.
- akudha 5y agoA different perspective is - why do I need to leave something behind (children or otherwise)? What matters is how I spent the little time I have on this planet, while I am alive, isn't it? Why do I care what happens after I am gone? There are enough things to think about, to work on, while I am alive. As long as I am happy and helpful while I am alive, that seems more important to me than anything else.
- mistermann 5y agoThe human species relies to some degree on people leaving things behind, new discoveries being one of the more important ones. You don't need to leave something behind of course, but the species benefits from it.
- erikpukinskis 5y agoYou don’t need to. But entire worlds are destroyed every day, and if you should fall in love with one, you might find yourself interested in it’s preservation.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoSome assert that life has meaning. So assert that life has no meaning, as alluded to here. These are axiom-like statements that cannot be proven. Everyone has a faith as to which of these assertions is true.
- tomrod 5y agoExistentialism to the rescue! Life can have meaning because we choose to give it such.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoThat relies on a supernatural belief as well (free will).
- tomrod 5y agoNah. I just choose, regardless whether the choice is apparent or real.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoApparent choices happen :) (Passive voice is more apt.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- usgroup 5y agoI can't tell if you're trolling, but in case you're not and unless you think there's a mathematical certainty to your argument, you might do well to spread your bets.
- axiomattik 5y agoStrikes me as a fallacy that in order for something to be meaningful it must persist. Meaning can exist and perish in a moment.