The system works for trillionaires.
The system works for trillionaires.
The system may favor the extremely rich, but ordinary people also contribute to bad policies by resisting technology and assuming that older or more “natural” ways are automatically better.
i'm sure it was always this way in some sense. we get imperfect systems from imperfect people. society is kind of like a function that is emergent from its constituent parts. and there were all sorts of horrible ways people managed things thousands of years ago, i think we do have an improvement from that
in our own time and space, the challenge isn't physical danger, or even a rival tribe or country. it is the hulking magnitude of billions of people in a complex and indifferent factory assembly line. i don't care to look up the statistics at the moment, but the amount of people being drugged to cope with reality in america is somewhere between 25 and 50 percent for women. people are coming apart at the seams from the level of indifference
this is also why we are seeing a resurgence of christianity in america. people are desperately trying to lock onto meaning in (as corny as it sounds) this post-richard dawkins framework. because really when atheism hit the internet in like 2006, it flipped half of our generation. and people need meaning, honestly let them have that if you believe in it or not
and humans aren't even really as smart as they think they are. we have something like 100 billion neurons on average, and the average person is going to have some trouble doing calculus. but even on the smart end of things, let's say you are a few standard deviations up, you're still like a monkey with 100 billion neurons. we are very limited in our intelligence, and if we scaled up by a few trillion neurons, we would see our own folly. but since that is impossible, i think there is some room to say we don't really have it all figured out
i'm sure it was always this way in some sense. we get imperfect systems from imperfect people. society is kind of like a function that is emergent from its constituent parts. and there were all sorts of horrible ways people managed things thousands of years ago, i think we do have an improvement from that
in our own time and space, the challenge isn't physical danger, or even a rival tribe or country. it is the hulking magnitude of billions of people in a complex and indifferent factory assembly line. i don't care to look up the statistics at the moment, but the amount of people being drugged to cope with reality in america is somewhere between 25 and 50 percent for women. people are coming apart at the seams from the level of indifference
this is also why we are seeing a resurgence of christianity in america. people are desperately trying to lock onto meaning in (as corny as it sounds) this post-richard dawkins framework. because really when atheism hit the internet in like 2006, it flipped half of our generation. and people need meaning, honestly let them have that if you believe in it or not
and humans aren't even really as smart as they think they are. we have something like 100 billion neurons on average, and the average person is going to have some trouble doing calculus. but even on the smart end of things, let's say you are a few standard deviations up, you're still like a monkey with 100 billion neurons. we are very limited in our intelligence, and if we scaled up by a few trillion neurons, we would see our own folly. but since that is impossible, i think there is some room to say we don't really have it all figured out
Religion does not provide actual certainty, and people do not all need the same things from life. Genetics, brain development, conditioning, and experience shape differences in social needs, reward sensitivity, threat response, and tolerance for ambiguity.
Some people may find religion appealing, while others function better with atheism, nihilism, privacy, technology, or fewer social obligations. Religious interest therefore does not prove that secular modernity created a universal void.
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7/15/2026 1:12:09 AM
yeah, some people function better thinking they are stardust, how wonderful it is for them to be a bunch of predetermined chemicals
Thrall to the Wire of Self-Excited Circuit.
yeah, some people function better thinking they are stardust, how wonderful it is for them to be a bunch of predetermined chemicals
I would describe us as physical organisms produced by preceding biological conditions. Earlier organisms reproduced with variation, and successive populations eventually produced humans. Each present body and brain then develops through inherited DNA interacting with its current environment. I think the idea of past/future and gradualism gets people confused on how these systems work such as spatial repeating that line meant to mock the truth of nihilism and science about "coming from monkeys/nothing."
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7/15/2026 4:01:05 PM
yeah, some people function better thinking they are stardust, how wonderful it is for them to be a bunch of predetermined chemicals
I would describe us as physical organisms produced by preceding biological conditions. Earlier organisms reproduced with variation, and successive populations eventually produced humans. Each present body and brain then develops through inherited DNA interacting with its current environment. I think the idea of past/future and gradualism gets people confused on how these systems work such as spatial repeating that line meant to mock the truth of nihilism and science about "coming from monkeys/nothing."
the reason they have such an attack, is that if you really believe people are just a bunch of particles running around, your mind actually doesn't have a good response to that. if you're a bunch of particles, why are you doing your 9-5? why does it matter if you shoot up drugs, instead of participating in society? why do you even keep yourself alive, when you will just die in some horrible way at some random point?
i think that if you believe that reality could be such a thing, it's not really a compelling reason to live. especially not after you see the people around you dying. even if it is all a complex flow of chemicals, there is still the reality that this whole thing ends in your death
the reason they have such an attack, is that if you really believe people are just a bunch of particles running around, your mind actually doesn't have a good response to that. if you're a bunch of particles, why are you doing your 9-5? why does it matter if you shoot up drugs, instead of participating in society? why do you even keep yourself alive, when you will just die in some horrible way at some random point?
i think that if you believe that reality could be such a thing, it's not really a compelling reason to live. especially not after you see the people around you dying. even if it is all a complex flow of chemicals, there is still the reality that this whole thing ends in your death
Being made of particles does not leave the brain without a response. The brain still produces desire, aversion, attachment, habit, pleasure, pain, and predictions about consequences. Those processes explain why someone may work, avoid drugs, or preserve their life without needing an objective purpose.
Nihilism does not say every action feels identical or has identical effects. It says none of those preferences is cosmically required. Death ending the organism does not erase the fact that, while it exists, its nervous system responds differently to comfort, injury, boredom, dependency, and enjoyment.
A religious story may feel more compelling to you, but feeling compelled is itself a brain state not evidence that existence must provide a reason to live.
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7/15/2026 4:48:22 PM
yes, there is a self-preservation instinct. your brain stem keeps you going, and there are all of these pathways to maintain homeostasis. but what i mean is that describing things in terms of functions becomes inadequate. and people handle this in all sorts of ways, even by avoiding it entirely. and that does not mean just become religious, though i wish it were that simple. but it does mean you have to find a reason to be here, and not just that you are alive