Uhm. "Not giving a damn" doesn't cause depression I think. It's kinda the other way around? You know, caring too much and whatnot, or caring about things you can't change in a way as if you could.
Personally, I find the heat death of the universe comforting. That is, considering human society as it is now: no matter what, there will be no boot stamping on a human face forever. Those who "become one with the dust" cannot loose, those into accumulation of power and posessions can't win. That's kinda neat, after all, like a fail-safe. It's also the only real solid argument for things like compassion and irony I know.
You are here because thousands of generations of humans have found ways to cope and carry on and make today into a better tomorrow.
You could also say I'm here because hunger feels bad and fucking feels good. "Better tomorrow" sounds so self-righteous, and while maybe people in the past were that high-minded, I'm currently not seeing it. The US can't even close Gitmo because the people they abducted and tortured might take it out on them, wtf? We still live in the stone age in so many ways, and that's the supposedly advanced west. A few years ago in Germany, a girl was raped in the inner city of a small town while people just walked by. And so on. It could be argued that even one look at a flower justifies all suffering in the world, but it could also be argued that just one kid dying in terror and pain does not justify existence of life on the planet. It really depends on the mood, and for me on wether I had breakfast yet.
Remember when TV was thought to bring culture and information to people? Hah, me neither, but I take it there was a time when you could express such hope with a straight face. Then came the internet... yet the way 99% of the people talk on the web would get one hellbanned within 5 posts here. For every person with a book I see, I see 20 with their dumbification phone out. In the economy we consider shifting money to those who least deserve, but most desperately want it, as making money and admirable, and watch helplessly as our media, our food, just about fucking everything gets more and more consolidated into fewer and fewer trees of corporations and the corporations they own. All most people care about is what they need to do to get along, they just accept everything as given and go from there.
And yeah, then there's the people dreaming of actual immortality in all this mess. Just look at them. They've been creeping me out since I was a kid, not once have I seen a scientist talk about this who seemed to be a balanced human being.
Anyway, as Kafka wrote in his notebook, "Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made." But then again he also wrote this: "You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."
But that's not what you're talking about, children dying in Africa, is it? Or people who just want to feel like they have some agency in their life playing Farmville? No, the universe is oh so exiting, it's an awesome ride... bleh. Don't get me wrong, I sometimes still stare at clouds or my hand or whatever and am simply amazed. But a sense of wonder is only one part of the story, the other part is human society, which is nowhere near the awesome complex miracle the universe is, but often rather banal, predictable, suicidal on good days and murderous on bad ones, with ads everywhere, just in case someone has an actual thought in a quiet minute.
I still agree that one should not give up, if that can be avoided. But I disagree that "if they figured out a way to give a damn, you can, too." -- so many people didn't figure anything out (how many natives are basically dying from depression in reservations?), and if they couldn't, why should I be able to? We live on a planet where Stalin and Hitler and Mao actually happened, where the US is actually a thing, and where there is no reason to believe power, control and deception will not be absolute and insubvertible one day -- until the heat death of the universe, that is.
People who don't give up do that for themselves; they don't don't owe it to anyone. Maybe to the people who love them, maybe to themselves, but not to any old random schmuck of the past. I think there is no logical argument you could make for why people "have" to be happy and not just mope or become criminals, and hugs are really as good as it gets.
Your [excellent] post was essentially written over 2000 years ago in the short old testament book of Ecclesisates. "Everything is meaningless, there is nothing new under the sun, nobody is completely righteous, etc." It is the height of folly to think that people a hundred generations ago didn't have the same frustrations.
Thanks, I was aware I was rambling more about being frustrated about society than existential depression, and probably being unfair to the poster I replied to, but I couldn't help myself. I love me some cherry picked OT, there is so much wisdom in it! I also love this:
When people no longer fear the power of government,
a far greater empowerment appears,
the Great Integrity,
which never needs to enforce itself.
Then, we will never again be driven from our homes
or be compelled to labor for the benefit of others.
We will all work naturally to fulfill ourselves,
and to meet our community needs.
In the Great Integrity,
we will all love ourselves and all others,
not as compensations for ego deprivations and defilements,
but as natural expressions of our humanity.
Laozi, "Tao Te Ching", Verse 72
"work naturally to fulfill ourselves", or "ego deprivations and defilements", those are very few words for a whole lot of issues. When I was younger I was scared out of my wits of the idea that we might lock ourselves into them via technology without even realizing it, and now I do find consolation in two facts, that even if we do, it won't be forever, and that if we manage to get out of the solar system, given enough distance, at least diversity might once again flourish, that the dice will be rolled again so to speak, and more than once.
>I was aware I was rambling more about being frustrated about society than existential depression
Actually, I think you were more on target than not, as it is very difficult to delink the two. The article discusses frustration about society or the "less-than-ideal" state of things as some of the preconditions leading up to the existential depression that some gifted kids experience.
Sure, there remain issues of our smallness, purpose, etc. However, I have often wondered what the Laozi quote you referenced crystallizes so well: what if we weren't all induced to participate in this "Matrix" of a society that pushes many of us into a life of subsistence while others profit from our efforts? What if instead we were more community than competitors and were more free to pursue what fulfills us and betters humankind? Would we feel as small and hopeless? Or would we be empowered and enlightened by our hand in creating and participating in a just society? And would the discoveries and progress that ensue as a result of so much effort and brainpower dedicated to causes other than personal economic benefit actually offset at least some of our sense of lostness and insignificance? That is, would we be more evolved and literally more significant or aware of our significance? Perhaps we humans are actually far, far more powerful and significant than any of us presently realize.
The world's resources would surely support such an arrangement if our mechanisms for allocating them were more evolved than "mere economics".
Surely, when gifted kids have such thoughts but are instead forced headlong into the Matrix, the temptation towards a more hopeless state and subsequent existential depression becomes highly possible if not probable.
But neither is there a reason to believe they will be.
Yes, I agree with that, I just didn't know how to put it.
But still, the idea of complete autocratic slavery for a million years is such a bad scenario for me, that even just a small likelihood would be enough for me to welcome the fact that nothing lasts forever. Having that idea in a world where chickens are stuffed into dark rooms and have their beaks singed off so they don't peck each other to death doesn't help.
Maybe the universe doesn't tend towards evil, but power sure does. And newborns don't change; that is, humans get born as blank slates, but are faced with and molded by structures that can be arbitrarily old, complex and twisted. We no longer know what our parents know by the time we're 10; most of us wouldn't find out half of what is going on if we lived to be 1000. And it really only takes one sufficiently isolated generation to rewrite history into anything you want. And those who would want to do that, will make sure it's nasty and sticky. That doesn't mean it will come to that, but it really only takes one singularity event, doesn't it. So if it came to that, chances might be good it will not come to anything else ever again.
The Roman Empire didn't collapse because they thought "let's do something else instead, this is really petty and dumb", but because there was an outside, and because communication got slow as it grew in size. That communication changed a lot is obvious, and I would argue if you consider it from a class perspective, not from a nation perspective, there is no outside either, it's one huge blob. There may be an "outer lower class", but plenty of it identifies with and loves big brother dearly, and when push comes to shove, you don't really need that many faithful, you don't even need the smartest, they just need to be really dedicated and obedient and have the best weapons money can buy. And then there is robotics. I really fear that in a few hundred years tops it'll be _over_, if we keep on sleepwalking like we do.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, and surely I read and watched too much dystopian science fiction; but I kinda think the reason we don't live on conveyor belts in a world made out of cast iron is because we're still building that world; but not because that's not exactly the world power wants, must want. Of course, such a blind lust for power is also by definition lacking in awareness, if not to say stupid. So there's that hope always, too, that it might trip over itself.
Not so much of the universe, but of human history, yes. We have increasingly bigger and supposedly smarter structures we are embedded in, and the individual people move into the opposite direction. We are for the most part petty, alienated and deluded, and as long as we can inject other humans to numb ourselves from seeing that, I think we will.
No need to thank me for indulging myself, thanks for reading it, and even more importantly, for getting something positive out of it :) And to be fair, HN is also the first place I've personally experienced on the web where breaking out into rather large ad hoc rants that go all over the place does not lead to eye rolling automatically. So instead of being frustrating and pointless, letting out a bunch of associated and bottled up thoughts in this way actually feels good, and helps me order my own thoughts as well. So I'm not just being polite when I thank you instead; I have these thoughts either way, but actually being heard means more to me than I would have thought.
"So I'm not just being polite when I thank you instead; I have these
thoughts either way, but actually being heard means more to me than I
would have thought."
Well, it's like a hug, having someone that really sees you and shares
your feelings. :)
Personally, I find the heat death of the universe comforting. That is, considering human society as it is now: no matter what, there will be no boot stamping on a human face forever. Those who "become one with the dust" cannot loose, those into accumulation of power and posessions can't win. That's kinda neat, after all, like a fail-safe. It's also the only real solid argument for things like compassion and irony I know.
You are here because thousands of generations of humans have found ways to cope and carry on and make today into a better tomorrow.
You could also say I'm here because hunger feels bad and fucking feels good. "Better tomorrow" sounds so self-righteous, and while maybe people in the past were that high-minded, I'm currently not seeing it. The US can't even close Gitmo because the people they abducted and tortured might take it out on them, wtf? We still live in the stone age in so many ways, and that's the supposedly advanced west. A few years ago in Germany, a girl was raped in the inner city of a small town while people just walked by. And so on. It could be argued that even one look at a flower justifies all suffering in the world, but it could also be argued that just one kid dying in terror and pain does not justify existence of life on the planet. It really depends on the mood, and for me on wether I had breakfast yet.
Remember when TV was thought to bring culture and information to people? Hah, me neither, but I take it there was a time when you could express such hope with a straight face. Then came the internet... yet the way 99% of the people talk on the web would get one hellbanned within 5 posts here. For every person with a book I see, I see 20 with their dumbification phone out. In the economy we consider shifting money to those who least deserve, but most desperately want it, as making money and admirable, and watch helplessly as our media, our food, just about fucking everything gets more and more consolidated into fewer and fewer trees of corporations and the corporations they own. All most people care about is what they need to do to get along, they just accept everything as given and go from there.
And yeah, then there's the people dreaming of actual immortality in all this mess. Just look at them. They've been creeping me out since I was a kid, not once have I seen a scientist talk about this who seemed to be a balanced human being.
Anyway, as Kafka wrote in his notebook, "Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made." But then again he also wrote this: "You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."
But that's not what you're talking about, children dying in Africa, is it? Or people who just want to feel like they have some agency in their life playing Farmville? No, the universe is oh so exiting, it's an awesome ride... bleh. Don't get me wrong, I sometimes still stare at clouds or my hand or whatever and am simply amazed. But a sense of wonder is only one part of the story, the other part is human society, which is nowhere near the awesome complex miracle the universe is, but often rather banal, predictable, suicidal on good days and murderous on bad ones, with ads everywhere, just in case someone has an actual thought in a quiet minute.
I still agree that one should not give up, if that can be avoided. But I disagree that "if they figured out a way to give a damn, you can, too." -- so many people didn't figure anything out (how many natives are basically dying from depression in reservations?), and if they couldn't, why should I be able to? We live on a planet where Stalin and Hitler and Mao actually happened, where the US is actually a thing, and where there is no reason to believe power, control and deception will not be absolute and insubvertible one day -- until the heat death of the universe, that is.
People who don't give up do that for themselves; they don't don't owe it to anyone. Maybe to the people who love them, maybe to themselves, but not to any old random schmuck of the past. I think there is no logical argument you could make for why people "have" to be happy and not just mope or become criminals, and hugs are really as good as it gets.