Once you have rejected the existence of God and the supernatural, nihilism is the only credible philosophical path.
Atheism is reverse-theism, a petulant nerd’s clandestine desire for a daddy figure to swoop down from the heavens and spank him for being a bad boy. The way to kill God is not to hate Him, but to ignore Him.
No ideology survives contact with reality.
The history of the human race can be read as one gradual shift to extremes of belief and behavior and back again. Identifying these shifts and acting at the right time can allow you to make off with maximum profit.
A slave who successfully wheedles favors from his master is still a slave.
You will have more success converting others to your point of view if you frame your arguments in the myths that they believe in then if you try to force your mythology down their throats. If you can’t figure out how to do this, your argument is not worth making.
Low-level hypocrisy is a constant of human nature. If you’re constantly checking yourself to see if your behavior matches up with your moral or political code, you’re a freak.
Perpetual happiness is a myth. Contentedness is the most you can ever achieve out of life. No drugs or self-help books can change this.
A misogynist is a jilted romantic.
Stability and progress are diametrically opposed. Each has their advantages, but if you have one, you cannot have the other.
It is better to be the king of one tribe and hated by the rest than to be an outsider nipping at the edges of all of them.
If you look at data points in isolation while ignoring the lines that connect them, you will always draw the wrong conclusions despite having all the right answers.
When you’re in a relationship, improve your sex life by getting rid of the TV in your bedroom. Your room should only be for sleeping, fucking, and getting (un)dressed.
If you’re unwilling to take the first step to improve yourself, you don’t deserve sympathy, and you won’t get it.
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apatheism. I don’t care if there’s a god or not.
I like this concept, I hope you make it a recurrent feature.
Many misogynists are jilted romantics, but not all jilted romantics are misogynists. Misogyny includes a great dose of helplessness. Helplessness and displaced blame are my biggest beefs with MRA.
I think you should get rid of your TV in all rooms. That shit turns the mind to overcooked oatmeal.
At least I didn’t comment on each “snack.” :)
Nihilism: you welcome it too easily. Even in assumed absence of God, men remain social creatures and follow transcendent values. Nihilism is the province of the moral retard, the cognitive retard, and a petulant nerd Raskolnikov-wannabe. It is also the province of the desperado, but most of us aren’t there.
[You're talking about fatalism, not nihilism. The two are not the same. - ed.]
TV: you mean people have those in their bedrooms? I haven’t watched TV in over a year. Not on principle, just too busy, and nothing good being on once ‘Two and Half Men” made Charlie into Chelsie’s simpering beta.
There may be something to the point of TV turning your mind to cooked oatmeal. It may be the commercials. And the sitcoms.
They are engineered to demoralize. How do I intuit this? When I catch a glimpse of TV programming at a friend’s house or at the gym, I am overwhelmed with the TV’s power to make me angry, to actually wound me psychically, and I can’t continue watching. I probably react so strongly to what I see because I’m “un-innoculated” by virtue of watching it so rarely.
“Pragmatism triumphs ideology.”
I agree with your statement that nihilism is what a man comes to when he moves past self-delusional ideologies.
This is intellectual honesty. It is natural.
The issue arises in the personal and social implications of accepting nihilism.
Let’s be honest: Very few outright nihilists have identifiably contributed to the enrichment and growth of humanity. Very few identifiable nihilists I know even contribute to the enrichment of their own lives, anymore — Finding hedonistic abandon their new code to live by.
This is all well and good in an American culture that seeks to insulate individuals from the rigors of life experienced by other peoples, but it very rarely sustains a man in his later years or in the event of social change or catastrophe.
It is a wise thing to realize that our existence is ultimately meaningless and that the Universe really has no intent or preservation for us — but without giving ourselves purpose, this realization doesn’t help in itself.
I guess what I’m trying to say is — it is MORE pragmatic to invest in one’s circumstances and society — to be subtle about one’s “intellectual honesty” while being masterfully overt in playing ‘the GAME’.
Nihilist: We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your chonson.
The Dude: Excuse me?
Nihilist: I said
[shouting]
Nihilist: We’ll cut off your johnson!
Nihilist #2: Just you think about that, Lebowski.
Nihilist #3: Yeah, your wiggly penis, Lebowski.
Nihilist #2: Yeah and maybe we stomp on it and squoosh it, Lebowski.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZiIbKlO8bk
“Once you have rejected God and the supernatural path, nihilism is the only credible philosophical path.” This might be correct, but why? If free will is a gift from God and supernaturalism is super nonsense, then does the awareness that free will is an illusion lead to the hamster-wheel philosophy of life? When God and the supernatural are dead, does that merely mean that Money has elbowed aside our imaginary true friends? Do we merely make a choice between imaginary true friends and imaginary false friends?
T.S. Eliot:
(1) Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
(2) Where there is no temple there shall be no homes.
“No ideology survives contact with reality.” An alleged fact might survive against reality, but does an ideology require a human anchor in an inhuman universe? Does money ultimately fail as an ideology?
Ezra Pound:
Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.
A decent plan executed immediately and violently is better than an excellent plan executed later.
Screw nihilism. Embrace simulationism! http://www.xamuel.com/simulationism/
hmm.. maybe I should start publishing my more misanthropic articles.
othing good being on once ‘Two and Half Men†made Charlie into Chelsie’s simpering beta.
Wait, there was a time when Two and a Half Men was actually worthwhile!?!
The earlier seasons of Two and Half Men stuck to their premise of caddish/alpha Charlie and nerdy/lesser beta Alan. They were not only funny, but sometimes it seemed as though the show’s writers were reading Roissy.
In later seasons Charlie started becoming beta while engaged to Chelsea, a ball-busting arrogant cougar. At first, I bore patiently through the episodes, assuming they aer a cautionary tale of “no beta deed goes unpunished.” But then it dawned on me that Charlie really did become a beta, and teh writers saw that as a good and proper thing.
So hows Iraq working out?
That’s funny, I always thought that sympathy in America is directly related to Social Status and having Money. Your theory that this “effort” thing has an effect is interesting. I’ve never actually observed it though.
Can you have instability without progress?
That’s what I thought.
This reads like Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”. I’m totally delighted.
You should check out the Christian aplogist Francis Schaeffer. I believe Silas recommended him to me last year.
While I’m not Christian, Schaeffer argues something similar to what you’re saying. When Nietzsche said “God is dead,” he didn’t necessarily mean that God doesn’t exist, he just meant that we have crossed below what Schaeffer calls ‘the line of despair’.
Civilization has long been moving towards pushing every facet of the culture under the line of despair. It started with philosophy and moved to literature and art. Basically, it becomes impossible to rationalize absoluteness and universality if we cease believing in an absolute. Nihilism results.
Schaeffer aims as much scorn at atheists as he does ‘new age theologists’. These new age Christians, based on the philosophical teachings of Kierkegaard, have a compromised view of theology. God becomes an empirically observed entity, and it becomes impossible to rationalize God – which takes a lot of power away from the argument. Basically, most Christians believe in God but on the wrong philosophical foundations (because they’ve been told or because it fits their worldview rather than because they’ve logically come to that conclusion).
If you believe Schaeffer (I don’t, but he at least makes a compelling argument), there has to be a God because there has to be a first cause. After that he fills in the blanks of why, if there must be a first cause, it would manifest itself in the form of the God of the Bible.
Anyway, reading Schaeffer is most interesting because he tackles the nihilism that has developed in society; he talks about Hegel and the dialectic and provides a good historical narrative. I recommend “The God Who is There” and “How Shall We Then Live.”
Very nice. I concur w/ each except for the TV in the room.
Just be the master of it’s programming.
I’ve enhanced several sexual situations (even in LTRs) by selecting content I knew she’d find ‘hot’.
These days it’s Spartacus (a show worthy of some dissection as it’s clearly written by feminists or calculating men to indulge their fantasies)
So insisting that Santa Claus could be real (agnostic/nihilist) while ignoring him makes one a sophisticated wise person.Someone who flat-out denies Santa
(atheist) has a “clandestine desire for a daddy figure”?
[You're talking about fatalism, not nihilism. The two are not the same. - ed.]
No, I’m talking about nihilism. I know the difference between teh two.
["Nihilists who aren't of the kiddie anarchist variety tend to draw a distinction between nihilism and fatalism. Nihilism says that nothing has meaning. Fatalists say that nothing has meaning, so nothing will have meaning for them personally. It's the difference between having no authority figure to tell you what's right, and giving up on the idea of doing anything since no one will affirm that what you've done is right."
http://www.anus.com/zine/articles/prozak/belief_in_nothing/ - ed.]
Low-level hypocrisy is a constant of human nature. If you’re constantly checking yourself to see if your behavior matches up with your moral or political code, you’re a freak.
I guess I’m a freak, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. Anyway, everyone should read Robin Hanson on smart sinceres.
One of these is impossible but i am having trouble deciding which one. Eternity or lack of eternity? Consider the universe. In some remote place does the universe come to an end? Is there a fence? What is on the other side of the fence? Nether is possible, but that is impossible.
“”"Atheism is reverse-theism, a petulant nerd’s clandestine desire for a daddy figure to swoop down from the heavens and spank him for being a bad boy. The way to kill God is not to hate Him, but to ignore Him.”"”
This is an amazingly tortured intellectual construct (black is white/white is secretly black)…congratulations :)
Your own belief in the supernatural is so strong that you are unable to imagine anyone not believing the same.
As a result you imagine others secretly believe exactly what you do perhaps so that you can be sure you aren’t missing something important?
“No ideology survives contact with reality.”
Communism would like to have a word with you.
” improve your sex life by getting rid of the TV in your bedroom. Your room should only be for sleeping, fucking, and getting (un)dressed.”
Really, it’s a no brainer, isn’t it? Never ever occured to me to have a tv in the bedroom.
Tv’s good for watching football matches…. but NOT in the bedroom!
Why does one need a tv in the bedroom when one can engage in some REAL life scrumming between the sheets ;)
.
“Once you have rejected the existence of God and the supernatural, nihilism is the only credible philosophical path.”
Maybe. Would a nihilist even bother to type that?
“Atheism is reverse-theism, a petulant nerd’s clandestine desire for a daddy figure to swoop down from the heavens and spank him for being a bad boy. The way to kill God is not to hate Him, but to ignore Him.”
Mostly true. I used to be an atheist in college. Now, in my mid-30s, I told a friend of mine who had moved the the Deep South that he should go to church to meet women.
“No ideology survives contact with reality.”
Depends on the ideology. All science starts with abstract causal models (which we could call “ideas”), and data provide no insight if they aren’t being used to test ideas. So there is no reasonable way to interpret reality without ideology.
“The history of the human race can be read as one gradual shift to extremes of belief and behavior and back again. Identifying these shifts and acting at the right time can allow you to make off with maximum profit.”
Overstatement.
“A slave who successfully wheedles favors from his master is still a slave.”
If you believe this, then you must oppose Game. Game is all about being what somebody else wants you to be.
“You will have more success converting others to your point of view if you frame your arguments in the myths that they believe in then if you try to force your mythology down their throats. If you can’t figure out how to do this, your argument is not worth making.”
False. When you frame your arguments in the form of myths people believe in, it seems to go well at first, and then you hit that wall where it becomes obvious that your point of view violates the mythology. Worse yet, you’ve validated the mythology, so you’re really hosed. You have to patiently push your mythology. It’ll feel like banging your head into a wall at first, but then if your mythology is better, people will start to face reality (if they have to), the dam will break and you achieve swift and total victory.
“Low-level hypocrisy is a constant of human nature. If you’re constantly checking yourself to see if your behavior matches up with your moral or political code, you’re a freak.”
False. If you check your behavior against a moral code, you are superior.
“Perpetual happiness is a myth. Contentedness is the most you can ever achieve out of life. No drugs or self-help books can change this.”
Overstatement. Varies by person.
“A misogynist is a jilted romantic.”
False. Most misogynists are just people who never outgrew adolescence, so they’re trapped in status obsession. They went from one status orientation to another, but their overall inferiority (inability to outgrow status obsession) remains.
“Stability and progress are diametrically opposed. Each has their advantages, but if you have one, you cannot have the other.”
False in the global sense. Stability and progress both reinforce one another at a macro level. At a micro level, progress does require a lack of stability. The state can strengthen people’s willingness to put up with micro instability by providing social insurance.
“It is better to be the king of one tribe and hated by the rest than to be an outsider nipping at the edges of all of them.”
Overstatement. Varies by preference. You have to pretty boring and slow to like being king of the same group all the time. I’m more of an alpha risk-taker, so I’ll happily trade status for variety.
“If you look at data points in isolation while ignoring the lines that connect them, you will always draw the wrong conclusions despite having all the right answers.”
Not completely true. You can take any data and use it to connect any lines you like. A manly man must be willing to test his “connecting lines” against fresh data, with the realization that the data may falsify the connections he thought were true.
“When you’re in a relationship, improve your sex life by getting rid of the TV in your bedroom. Your room should only be for sleeping, fucking, and getting (un)dressed.”
True but obvious.
“If you’re unwilling to take the first step to improve yourself, you don’t deserve sympathy, and you won’t get it.”
Close enough to true.
Indeed, TV and coitus do not mix well.
In any case Television..
…is for Helots.
Or to quote Thomas Icom, Man in Black
“..they call it programming for a reason..”
Atheism is a growing trend for the same reason that believing the earth revolves around the sun was a growing trend a while back. Like it or not, holy books are constantly being invalidated by facts, and no gods have shown themselves to counteract this. THIS is one of many reasons that I cannot sincerely believe any of man’s concepts of god.
I’m one of those rare “atheists” that acknowledge the good religion had done in the past, especially in regards to creating strong families and communities. As for men and women, I see “game” taking the place of enforced religious expectations, and the problems this creates. I believe that given too much freedom and not enough direction, people and civilizations can stagnate, possibly disintegrate.
But realistically, religions time is up.
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