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Your reasons for continuing are optimistic and perhaps privileged. For a large amount of people, especially for minorities and other groups in the past, contrib

Your reasons for continuing are optimistic and perhaps privileged. For a large amount of people, especially for minorities and other groups in the past, contribution to the long-term well-being of humanity was not the goal. Some people had to watch as their children or parents were taken from them by war or sometimes trade and slavery. Perhaps those people sought revenge and reunion. Others were born into extreme poverty and prejudice. Perhaps they seek equality. Others were born into abundant wealth and perhaps they seek to amass more wealth and take advantage of a money-driven world. Yet other were born into internment camps and reservations. Maybe they continue out of ancestral pride or out of a sense of justice and reality. Because of nature of humans (i.e., greediness and hatred), in my opinion, the long-term well-being of humanity is a feeble goal meant for Engineers and Scientists for the most part. At the same time, as Stephen Fry points out here, some people continue because others won't allow them to quit. Or, in a lot of situations, they can't quit without throwing the lives of their families and friends into a gambit. Personally, I'm more of an Absurdist or Nihlist, and I don't really see much of a point to life. I continue because I'm seeking some kind of meaningful death. In that journey, I've picked up many people as acquaintances, lovers, family, etc, and if I can at least make some of them happier or better off, then maybe it was worth it.

javajosh 13y ago
> Your reasons for continuing are optimistic and perhaps privileged. Without a doubt - and I would remove the "perhaps". I am incredibly lucky to have been born in the time and place that I was, with the mind and body that I have. Ensuring the long-term survival of humanity, I believe, is the most important but most difficult and demanding goal a person can have, and only the wealthiest in the world would even attempt it. And indeed: if there's any worthy cause for the wealthy, it's this. Consider a world where poverty, cancer, child-abuse, government abuses are totally eliminated. Now a comet strikes Earth and wipes out all life larger than an insect from the surface of the planet. Would that not be a bitter irony?
eshvk 13y ago
> Personally, I'm more of an Absurdist or Nihlist, and I don't really see much of a point to life. I continue because I'm seeking some kind of meaningful death. In that journey, I've picked up many people as acquaintances, lovers, family, etc, and if I can at least make some of them happier or better off, then maybe it was worth it. What is a "meaningful death"? People around you are happy because of stuff in their head; you are merely an external event. E.g. I have a friend who hates dogs, she gets unhappy at the sight of one. I like dogs. The external event is the same, only the belief system changes. Does that inherently render the object (the dog here) worthy or unworthy?
- paranoiacblack 13y ago
  A meaningful death only makes sense in context of a meaningless death, which what we're sort of "destined" to have. In the scope of the majority, the planet, the universe, our lives are fairly unimportant. Similarly, our deaths are equally unimportant. They don't mean anything except for an external stimulus to those who have faint memories of you. A meaningful death would be the opposite of that. It's purposefully nebulous because if I could have meaningful death, it must have meant that my life was meaningful or that I somehow derived the meaning of life. Absurdists believe that there probably is some underlying meaning to life, but that it cannot be comprehended by humankind. Anyways, I agree with you that I'm merely an external event. In your example, the dog is neither worthy or unworthy, since that's subjective and has no inherent meaning. Whether the dog is worthy or unworthy is also irrelevant to its life or death. That's to say that although I truly believe that there's no purpose to all of this, I cannot answer that question until I've died. In that case, my life is spent trying to find a meaning in death.
  - eshvk 13y ago
    In essence, there maybe meaning or maybe not; you probably won't find out till you are dead. By then, you are dead. This is a rabbit hole; a last question: Your goals, your aims, the time you spend deciding who to love, what to do? Why does it matter what you pick?
    - paranoiacblack 13y ago
      > In essence, there maybe meaning or maybe not; you probably won't find out till you are dead. By then, you are dead. This is a rabbit hole. You've got what I'm trying to say perfectly. > Why does it matter what you pick? I don't think it does matter what you pick, honestly. I like to simplify it to a complex game of chess. No matter what, the game will end. If you wish to end the game early, you can choose poor moves or resign. But if you want to see the game out to the very end and possibly learn something in the process, you should choose what you feel to be the best move. It doesn't matter if you pick the best move or not, it only matters that you pick something you believe in. Similarly, in life, you do the best you can. You gather all of your facilities, your mind, your gut, your personality, etc, and you follow that path. No other path is inherently better than another and no other life is inherently worth more or less than yours. That's not to say we're all equal in life, but rather that we're indistinguishable in death.

javajosh 13y ago

> Your reasons for continuing are optimistic and perhaps privileged. Without a doubt - and I would remove the "perhaps". I am incredibly lucky to have been born in the time and place that I was, with the mind and body that I have. Ensuring the long-term survival of humanity, I believe, is the most important but most difficult and demanding goal a person can have, and only the wealthiest in the world would even attempt it. And indeed: if there's any worthy cause for the wealthy, it's this. Consider a world where poverty, cancer, child-abuse, government abuses are totally eliminated. Now a comet strikes Earth and wipes out all life larger than an insect from the surface of the planet. Would that not be a bitter irony?

eshvk 13y ago

> Personally, I'm more of an Absurdist or Nihlist, and I don't really see much of a point to life. I continue because I'm seeking some kind of meaningful death. In that journey, I've picked up many people as acquaintances, lovers, family, etc, and if I can at least make some of them happier or better off, then maybe it was worth it. What is a "meaningful death"? People around you are happy because of stuff in their head; you are merely an external event. E.g. I have a friend who hates dogs, she gets unhappy at the sight of one. I like dogs. The external event is the same, only the belief system changes. Does that inherently render the object (the dog here) worthy or unworthy?

paranoiacblack 13y ago
A meaningful death only makes sense in context of a meaningless death, which what we're sort of "destined" to have. In the scope of the majority, the planet, the universe, our lives are fairly unimportant. Similarly, our deaths are equally unimportant. They don't mean anything except for an external stimulus to those who have faint memories of you. A meaningful death would be the opposite of that. It's purposefully nebulous because if I could have meaningful death, it must have meant that my life was meaningful or that I somehow derived the meaning of life. Absurdists believe that there probably is some underlying meaning to life, but that it cannot be comprehended by humankind. Anyways, I agree with you that I'm merely an external event. In your example, the dog is neither worthy or unworthy, since that's subjective and has no inherent meaning. Whether the dog is worthy or unworthy is also irrelevant to its life or death. That's to say that although I truly believe that there's no purpose to all of this, I cannot answer that question until I've died. In that case, my life is spent trying to find a meaning in death.
- eshvk 13y ago
  In essence, there maybe meaning or maybe not; you probably won't find out till you are dead. By then, you are dead. This is a rabbit hole; a last question: Your goals, your aims, the time you spend deciding who to love, what to do? Why does it matter what you pick?
  - paranoiacblack 13y ago
    > In essence, there maybe meaning or maybe not; you probably won't find out till you are dead. By then, you are dead. This is a rabbit hole. You've got what I'm trying to say perfectly. > Why does it matter what you pick? I don't think it does matter what you pick, honestly. I like to simplify it to a complex game of chess. No matter what, the game will end. If you wish to end the game early, you can choose poor moves or resign. But if you want to see the game out to the very end and possibly learn something in the process, you should choose what you feel to be the best move. It doesn't matter if you pick the best move or not, it only matters that you pick something you believe in. Similarly, in life, you do the best you can. You gather all of your facilities, your mind, your gut, your personality, etc, and you follow that path. No other path is inherently better than another and no other life is inherently worth more or less than yours. That's not to say we're all equal in life, but rather that we're indistinguishable in death.