You Are Insignificant...

[Kasami]

This is a quote from this thread.



As a matter of fact, you didn't. It's from the second page as well

You're telling me this one quote speaks for all of us?

[Thes]

Nobody told you that you shouldn't care, especially when you already have built-in empathy. It's just an observation. The reason why you don't kill people is because you acknowledge that they want to live, because YOU know how it is to want to live yourself. This is what empathy is, and nihilism does not affect it in any way, shape or form.

Is empathy really built-in? The way see it, empathy is something you develop, not something you are born with. At best, such empathy would only apply to close relatives.

[Flanito]

This is a pretty good picture of how I see things: http://i.imgur.com/8uEkW.jpg

So I'm with OP on this one. I never understood why so many people out there have this rose-colored view of the world. Not that it's a bad thing per se to have optimistic bias, but it blocks progress, and most people don't have initiative to improve their behavior or actions, when they only do what most of the people in the society do. People are very conservative in their views. If you present a more negative view on the world, or when you tell them how everything we do is very futile and meaningless, people call you depressed or nihilistic. But I think the worse here is actually the optimistic bias. We never improve on global problems, such as climate changes, lack of resources, overpopulation and the associated problems(lack of food, clean water and jobs etc.), and of course all of the suffering from the very unsuccessful nature of biological life.

The sooner we realize this, and not live with this rose-colored view that the world is a "good" place to live in, and that everything is going to be "okay", the sooner we are going to make successful changes. It's not that hard to come up with solutions if you ask me. We could for example just stop breeding. This would solve every single problem that any future human would otherwise have faced, if they was going to live.

With all these problems we are going to have, and the inescapable fact that biological life is very successful in creating life with the capability of experiencing extreme suffering and defects. This is not to say, that life cannot be enjoyable. I still have many things I personally enjoy. But there is no reason to continue this endless cycle of meaningless existence by breeding, when in the end, we are all gonna die, and nothing really matters.

[Adam Jensen]

As far as I'm concerned, we've scoured the universe for more life and still not found it. Like matter is made up of almost entirely empty space, so is the universe. Empty space and dead planets made of some swirling gas and rocks. HERE is life. This tiny blue planet holds the only life in the universe, and that makes it, and what's on it, pretty damned special.

We haven't even come close to scouring the universe. We barely know what's beyond our solar system.

Hell, we barely know what's in our solar system.

[Mehbooba]

What if humans and all life force can be compared to stars and planets. Trees, animals,birds, bacteria etc

From birth we grow and have a period of time in our prime to procreate, same with the formation of stars, planets, galaxies solar system, cosmos. Let's look at the human life cycle from conception to death. I was talking to a lady yesterday who looks after older people on a graveyard shift and she said some of them sleep but others don't, so I asked why (i thought insomnia). So she said elderly will revert back to child-like state at the end of life, to the point where they live for the second and don't sleep.

So we compare to a molecular level and go forward to infinity....getting bigger and bigger....expanding, procreating....new stars and planets forming (natural selection)

[Grizzly Willy]

We haven't even come close to scouring the universe. We barely know what's beyond our solar system.

Hell, we barely know what's in our solar system.

Also, I don't think taking cursory glances at planets counts as scouring.

[ImpTaimer]

Significance is a fallacy. Insignificance is a realization.

[Celltrex]

You're telling me this one quote speaks for all of us?

I am telling you to re-read what I wrote in my previous messages because you are the one who is twisting words right now.

[Murphlord]

I close my eyes... ONLY FOR A MOMENT, AND THE MOMENTS GONE!

[MrHage]

Thanks for the information, have a nice day

[Ratyrel]

Good thing there is no such thing as an objective standard for significance.

[Felir]

Significance is a fallacy. Insignificance is a realization.

Optimistic.

[Letmesleep]

Good thing there is no such thing as an objective standard for significance.

Correct! 'Meaning' is subjective, which means when someone says "life is meaningless", they're right! When someone says "there's meaning in everything" they are also right. The individual views the world through their own lens.

[WarpKnight]

Good thing there is no such thing as an objective standard for significance.

bingo

I'm the most significant thing in my life

[Gothicshark]

I've seldom seen such an incredibly unnecessary post. 100% atheist propaganda, too.

Incorrect, it is existential nihilist propaganda. It does not hinge on a belief in God. In fact many existential nihilist have some belief in God, but they believe God made the universe and left.

However on to the OP, reverse your logic and you become the most important person in the Universe. Since to define and perceive things is what gives them importance. ie a thing is only as important as we say it is. It is better to not assign value to anything and to live happily knowing nothing has any value and we as humans are absolutely absurd in our pursuit for meaning in a meaningless universe.

---------- Post added 2013-01-17 at 06:50 AM ----------

It's a counter to the idea that every human being is special and uniquely loved in God's eyes.

It is sad to me that people had the need to invent someone to universally love someone. I wish I could invent a way to store every human conciseness that has ever existed though out all of human history. It upsets me greatly when people die, because they are gone. each unique thought each moment of love and beauty that they saw is lost. I get very upset just thinking about the loss of all the wonderful humans that have existed from the dawn of humanity. Sure some humans came be monsters, but if I could build a time machine, and nano machines that could record every human thought and the corresponding DNA to match the unique human. I am sure I could make the storage location a persistent Massively Multi-person World with rewards and punishments based on how they lived.

OMG this is a great Idea for a book, the Heaven Server.

[Ailerist]

This thread is Insignificant imo

[DieFichte]

This thread is Insignificant imo

No it's not, it's a significant waste of storage space!