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At its core, this piece claims "no life without death, no love without war" - and that there is no more intense experience of all of these than in the midst of

At its core, this piece claims "no life without death, no love without war" - and that there is no more intense experience of all of these than in the midst of war. This is one of the great paradoxes of progress. In the most peaceful age in human history (read Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" for a deep statistical defense of this fact), our deepest fear is no longer death of the body, but death of the soul. Most of us have no need to worry about death in the form of starvation, or bullets, or awful diseases. Their replacement is the fear of an inconsequential life: of dying without having ever really lived. The greatest danger for many of us is traveling the well-sterilized paths, starting on the carefully-monitored playground and continuing through the Ivy League education, the comfortable Google job, the eventual promotions and sensible marriage, the repetition of the cycle through our perfectly-protected children, that allow us to deprive ourselves of all experiences of true intensity or meaning. It's a topic I often wonder about: now there is less war than ever, but also more depression and despair, even among those with peaceful, affluent lives. We humans have always been running from the fires behind us - what if, having outpaced them, we discover that what lies ahead is ice?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
thesagan 12y ago
We may discover that the act of passionate conquering makes men feel that much more closer to "God". The "Immigrant Song" exemplifies the hellish glory of war, to me personally. "And now you better stop, and rebuild all of your ruins. For peace and trust can win the day, despite all of your losing" [Know now, our conquered subjects, that we are your virtuous overlords, so let peace be with you hereafter. We will install our heaven here, for you and with you. Now, come with us.]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- rntz 12y ago
  Of course people who live happy, modern, peaceful, productive lives do not deserve our scorn. The problem is not that there is something wrong with living an ordinary life, in following the comfortable and society-approved paths of success; the problem is that for many people, that is not enough. There is (so the story goes) something in many of us that yearns for chaos, for a purpose beyond the ordinary, even for violence and death. No more do these people deserve our scorn. How do we satisfy this desire? War is one solution, but clearly not a good one.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    How do we satisfy this desire? Extreme sports, video games, and other entertainment.
  - malka 12y ago
    Why do you think people take (illegal) drugs for (at least a part of them)?
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    >There is (so the story goes) something in many of us that yearns for chaos, for a purpose beyond the ordinary, even for violence and death. I think we ought to be asking whether this is a story told primarily by generals, by enlisted soldiers, or by someone else, and also asking how well that story corresponds to reality.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
ZenoArrow 12y ago
"It's a topic I often wonder about: now there is less war than ever, but also more depression and despair, even among those with peaceful, affluent lives." It's an interesting point of view, but here's some food for thought... perhaps there's plenty of despair because there's more to be concerned about than just war and poverty. Seriously, there's absolutely tons of things messed up about the world we live in, and it can feel overwhelming, which leads to paralysis... people feel powerless to find a better way as individuals. Feeling separated from communities in their immediate vicinity doesn't help either. At least with war, which is truly messed up too, there's an us vs. them, a clearer sense of purpose. In our current world the answers are less clear. If you'd prefer I mention something concrete that's messed up, I'd almost not know where to begin. For the sake of simplicity in choosing, this was my most recent discovery... it makes me sad that this exists... http://www.thebigroundtable.com/stories/damage/ http://www.thebigroundtable.com/stories/damage/
- tormeh 12y ago
  Holy shit that one was good. Extremely well written.
- UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
  Um... wow, that was an amazingly well written piece. Thank you for sharing.
  - ZenoArrow 12y ago
    It's a tragedy, a beautifully written tragedy. I found it on this subreddit, perhaps you'll find other engaging stories there... http://www.reddit.com/r/FoodForThought http://www.reddit.com/r/FoodForThought
pron 12y ago
Welcome to the human condition. What you see as a problem is really the cornerstone of who we are. Throughout human history there have always been those who believed in utopias. For a long time those utopias were religious -- people imagined either a humanity living in God's grace or an afterlife in heaven. Then, utopias became about removing injustice; communism is a notable example. Now you see, especially here on HN, people believing in technological utopias, where we don't have to work, a benevolent AI makes the best decisions for us, and extend our life indefinitely or at least spend eternity in a silicon afterlife as non-corporeal rational beings. Whenever I hear someone explaining how to achieve utopia, I ask them to do the following thought experiment: imagine their perfect utopia and all those who live in it and all those born into it, and ask themselves this -- will those people really be happy? A very crude approximation of what people are -- but one that's better than many others -- is this: once they've ensured their survival, people are happy when they get what they want, and what they want is what they cannot get.
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  The only true human utopia is one where we feel most connected to each other and the world we live in, which sounds simple in principal but harder in practice. All the other utopias are just attempts to replace this longing with something easier to achieve.
  - ZenoArrow 12y ago
    Don't just mark me down, respond to the points, if you disagree say why.
    - Intermernet 12y ago
      Nah, that's not how it's done these days. It seems downvotes on HN are used as the equivalent of a child sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "NOT LISTENING!". Oh, and don't be surprised if you find a bunch of your older, unrelated comments downvoted as well. Apparently it's a form of punishment. Or something.
    - 12y ago
thret 12y ago
"that allow us to deprive ourselves of all experiences of true intensity or meaning" It seems that people have a largely irrational, intense fear of something. Public speaking, heights, spiders - whatever your fear is if you embrace it you can still (safely) find that incredibly intense experience you are talking about. For me it was skydiving. I get sweaty palms even thinking about heights, going up in a plane with an open door was terrifying! Leaving it was incredible. If you're afraid of spiders, pick up a big one, public speaking? Join toastmasters. You don't need war to experience the thrill of death.
mariodiana 12y ago
> [O]ur deepest fear is no longer death of the body, but death of the soul. Can we be sure that this is something new? In both Western and Eastern culture, you can go back thousands of years and follow the sentiment right through to now, century after century: warriors (and to a great extent, aristocrats) have always put honor (which I will include under matters of "soul") before mere physical life. If anything, life began to make more of a difference only now, when we are actually able to do something about meaningfully preserving it.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
First thought: oh shut up, you can kvetch about the meaninglessness of your vain, well-designed life after we've abolished poverty and death. Second thought: the correlation between "not having ever really lived" and nonviolence is a false one. The actual issue is "capitalist realism": the increasing cultural hegemony of indoctrinating people to believe that the well-sterilized path of being someone else's worker bee is desirable in the first place (almost nobody in human history has ever actually desired it), and that it has always been this way (the vast majority of human history happened before Reagan and Thatcher, actually), and that there is no alternative except for primitive and nihilistic violence (then what happened throughout all of human history?). Third thought: the correlation between our current lifestyles and depression may well be a causal connection for purely physiological reasons that have nothing to do with any purported meaninglessness of a nonviolent life.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

thesagan 12y ago

We may discover that the act of passionate conquering makes men feel that much more closer to "God". The "Immigrant Song" exemplifies the hellish glory of war, to me personally. "And now you better stop, and rebuild all of your ruins. For peace and trust can win the day, despite all of your losing" [Know now, our conquered subjects, that we are your virtuous overlords, so let peace be with you hereafter. We will install our heaven here, for you and with you. Now, come with us.]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rntz 12y ago
Of course people who live happy, modern, peaceful, productive lives do not deserve our scorn. The problem is not that there is something wrong with living an ordinary life, in following the comfortable and society-approved paths of success; the problem is that for many people, that is not enough. There is (so the story goes) something in many of us that yearns for chaos, for a purpose beyond the ordinary, even for violence and death. No more do these people deserve our scorn. How do we satisfy this desire? War is one solution, but clearly not a good one.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  How do we satisfy this desire? Extreme sports, video games, and other entertainment.
- malka 12y ago
  Why do you think people take (illegal) drugs for (at least a part of them)?
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  >There is (so the story goes) something in many of us that yearns for chaos, for a purpose beyond the ordinary, even for violence and death. I think we ought to be asking whether this is a story told primarily by generals, by enlisted soldiers, or by someone else, and also asking how well that story corresponds to reality.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

ZenoArrow 12y ago

"It's a topic I often wonder about: now there is less war than ever, but also more depression and despair, even among those with peaceful, affluent lives." It's an interesting point of view, but here's some food for thought... perhaps there's plenty of despair because there's more to be concerned about than just war and poverty. Seriously, there's absolutely tons of things messed up about the world we live in, and it can feel overwhelming, which leads to paralysis... people feel powerless to find a better way as individuals. Feeling separated from communities in their immediate vicinity doesn't help either. At least with war, which is truly messed up too, there's an us vs. them, a clearer sense of purpose. In our current world the answers are less clear. If you'd prefer I mention something concrete that's messed up, I'd almost not know where to begin. For the sake of simplicity in choosing, this was my most recent discovery... it makes me sad that this exists... http://www.thebigroundtable.com/stories/damage/ http://www.thebigroundtable.com/stories/damage/

tormeh 12y ago
Holy shit that one was good. Extremely well written.
UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
Um... wow, that was an amazingly well written piece. Thank you for sharing.
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  It's a tragedy, a beautifully written tragedy. I found it on this subreddit, perhaps you'll find other engaging stories there... http://www.reddit.com/r/FoodForThought http://www.reddit.com/r/FoodForThought

pron 12y ago

Welcome to the human condition. What you see as a problem is really the cornerstone of who we are. Throughout human history there have always been those who believed in utopias. For a long time those utopias were religious -- people imagined either a humanity living in God's grace or an afterlife in heaven. Then, utopias became about removing injustice; communism is a notable example. Now you see, especially here on HN, people believing in technological utopias, where we don't have to work, a benevolent AI makes the best decisions for us, and extend our life indefinitely or at least spend eternity in a silicon afterlife as non-corporeal rational beings. Whenever I hear someone explaining how to achieve utopia, I ask them to do the following thought experiment: imagine their perfect utopia and all those who live in it and all those born into it, and ask themselves this -- will those people really be happy? A very crude approximation of what people are -- but one that's better than many others -- is this: once they've ensured their survival, people are happy when they get what they want, and what they want is what they cannot get.

ZenoArrow 12y ago
The only true human utopia is one where we feel most connected to each other and the world we live in, which sounds simple in principal but harder in practice. All the other utopias are just attempts to replace this longing with something easier to achieve.
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  Don't just mark me down, respond to the points, if you disagree say why.
  - Intermernet 12y ago
    Nah, that's not how it's done these days. It seems downvotes on HN are used as the equivalent of a child sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "NOT LISTENING!". Oh, and don't be surprised if you find a bunch of your older, unrelated comments downvoted as well. Apparently it's a form of punishment. Or something.
  - 12y ago

thret 12y ago

"that allow us to deprive ourselves of all experiences of true intensity or meaning" It seems that people have a largely irrational, intense fear of something. Public speaking, heights, spiders - whatever your fear is if you embrace it you can still (safely) find that incredibly intense experience you are talking about. For me it was skydiving. I get sweaty palms even thinking about heights, going up in a plane with an open door was terrifying! Leaving it was incredible. If you're afraid of spiders, pick up a big one, public speaking? Join toastmasters. You don't need war to experience the thrill of death.

mariodiana 12y ago

> [O]ur deepest fear is no longer death of the body, but death of the soul. Can we be sure that this is something new? In both Western and Eastern culture, you can go back thousands of years and follow the sentiment right through to now, century after century: warriors (and to a great extent, aristocrats) have always put honor (which I will include under matters of "soul") before mere physical life. If anything, life began to make more of a difference only now, when we are actually able to do something about meaningfully preserving it.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

First thought: oh shut up, you can kvetch about the meaninglessness of your vain, well-designed life after we've abolished poverty and death. Second thought: the correlation between "not having ever really lived" and nonviolence is a false one. The actual issue is "capitalist realism": the increasing cultural hegemony of indoctrinating people to believe that the well-sterilized path of being someone else's worker bee is desirable in the first place (almost nobody in human history has ever actually desired it), and that it has always been this way (the vast majority of human history happened before Reagan and Thatcher, actually), and that there is no alternative except for primitive and nihilistic violence (then what happened throughout all of human history?). Third thought: the correlation between our current lifestyles and depression may well be a causal connection for purely physiological reasons that have nothing to do with any purported meaninglessness of a nonviolent life.