If your point is that American pandemic payouts have now devalued the dollar, I don't think it works that way.

Does the word 'legacy,' hold any importance to you? — universeness

Not to me, but I know that's the answer that some come to. Brian Green said he went into physics because he came across Camus, I think, as a young person.

You know dealing with our pain, our suffering, while well-intentioned often only prolongs it. Rather, a slight turn of the mind toward consent may have the effect of extinguishment. — ArielAssante

As long as you aren't lying to yourself. Some things you have to face and deal with.

I think you agreed with what I just said. Right now the world is choosing to use the dollar. The perception of political stability is probably one reason. Prior investment is another.

Well, both Americans and we foreigners likely don't understand just how much of that wealth and awesomeness of the US economy is based on the position the US dollar enjoys — ssu

That's not controlled by the US, though. The whole global economy is doing that, much of it by the will of the Chinese.

It's all integrated.

The Universe doesn't hand out meaningfulness. It just is, and we are part of it. Though considerable effort over time I have come to the conclusion that life is meaningless, but that isn't a terrible thing, It means that we can provide a measure of meaning in our own lives--by doing meaningful, as Banno said.

We are here for a short time; some as little as 15 minutes, others as many as 115 years. As we age and get smarter, there is less time left to exist. Time is shorter. At 75, I figure the end of my life is maybe just around this or the next corner.

I'm happier now than I have ever been. I'm busy, I'm reading a lot of history. I listen to great music on the radio and internet. There's the small house and weedy lawn to look after.

Death, like an over-flowing stream
Sweeps us away; our life is but a dream,
an empty tale, a morning flower
cut down and withered in an hour. — Bitter Crank

I agree. Embracing pointlessness brings your attention into the pointless Now. A person might be resistant to doing that if the Now is a painful wasteland. You have to make Now into a blooming garden, which you won't do if you're focused on an external purpose.

A point is a valued end and since we humans are agents, it makes sense for us to want our acts, efforts, projects, and enterprises to have a point. Valued ends provide justifying reasons for our acts, efforts, projects, and enterprises. Ends lie separate from the acts and enterprises for which they provide a point (e.g., you build a hut because you value the shelter provided by the hut and you value the shelter because you value yourself and others). Since there can be no end external to one's entire life, since one's life includes all of one's ends, life as a whole cannot have a point. This doesn't mean that the acts, efforts or projects within a life can't have a point.... But life as a whole, which is a separate effort and enterprise of its own, cannot.

Since we live our lives and structure our living-a-human-life efforts both in parts and as a whole, it is fitting to be sad to recognize that bothering to live is pointless. — Chisholm

All well said, thank you.

Rather, the solution is to make sure vulnerable people have a way of getting to cooling centers so their core temperatures don't reach fatal levels. — Bitter Crank

I see. Being less dependent on AC would require more social integration, or socialized medicine.

Out of interest how do you arrive at a pointlessness of existence? — Tom Storm

No offense, but I was looking for the thoughts of people who are familiar with this particular issue.

Hence, it's not at all surprising that who has talked about the issue most clearly is Vladimir Putin: he genuinely has nothing to lose on this, and will be happy about the possible demise of the dollar / the Western financial system. — ssu

A lot of Americans feel the same way. 'Let it all go up in flames and start over, or not even that, just let it all be ended'. It's the nihilism @Olivier5 was talking about in the Ukraine thread.

How is human existence "all for nothing"? My wife and children's and friends' existence is not all for nothing. Their existence everything to me, and if one's existence is everything to just one, then their existence cannot be all for nothing. — Harry Hindu

I'll put you down for "I don't understand the question."

And we are back to the still unanswered question: constructed from what? — Banno

Physicists arrive at the same question. What are strings constructed from? Apparently at some point you're supposed to stop asking.

I'm probably not as ancient as your old woman, but when I was growing up (memories from the early 1950s) we did not have air conditioning or even window fans. We were not wretched from heat. Maybe it wasn't as hot back then. There were lots of shade trees in the small town.

We went swimming in a meandering stream which was shared by cattle. Not very clean. We didn't get sick. — Bitter Crank

Do older people have a harder time dealing with heat? Just wondering.

I think we would all adapt pretty quickly if air conditioning disappeared. It's just that no one is going to give it up until they have to.

We need a new energy source. That's the only solution from where we are now. Do you agree?

Joe Manchin isn't looking so stupid all of the sudden.

Self awareness is sometimes accompanied by pain, physically or emotionally. Maybe the first step is to deal with those things?

In the 1970s the Fed raised rates, tanked the economy, then lowered them again, probably due to political pressure.

That's supposed to be one of the factors that led to stagflation. We'll see if they repeat it or learn from the lesson.

I wonder if it will take a decade to recover from it like last time.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”(C)

3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?(D)
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.(E)
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.(F)
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.(G)
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,(H)
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;(I)
there is nothing new under the sun.

None of you are fooling me

Fine. Have it your way.

What is meaningless about human existence? — Harry Hindu

That it's all for nothing.

When the Federal Reserve doubled it's monetary base from September 2020 to December 2021, you think that isn't a lot of extra money? — ssu

I just meant they borrow it, they don't print it. Maybe that's not an important distinction?

It's not the foreigners who have continued to buy it: — ssu

I think American banks have always been the primary lenders, haven't they? But yes, the Fed was buying too. The Fed was probably damned either way.

Stagflation, here we come.

Try Twitter if substantiating your claims and opinions is so unappealing to you. — Tzeentch

I just don't know you, man. I have no stake in what you think about Russia's military practices. Think whatever you please.

:yawn:

What proof do you have that Russia is bent on "annihilation"? — Tzeentch

Read the news. 90% of the buildings in Sievierodonetsk have been destroyed by the Russians.

Actually, it seems distraction is precisely what makes existence *seem* meaningless. — ArielAssante

Could you expand?

Fascinating read. I was just thinking the other day that a group of Americans is presently prepared at a moment's notice to bomb Russia to dust while sending up anti-missile missiles over Canada. 24 hours a day, they're waiting.

Gotcha

Distraction is the only way as I see it. — enqramot

Do you see passion as a kind of distraction? Or is it something different?

Do we put "passion" in a different category from distraction?

I don't think the US government prints a lot of extra money. They sell treasury bonds to pay for things like the COVID response. The Fed was slow to respond to early warnings that inflation was ticking up, supposedly to protect the economy during the pandemic. When they finally got around to responding, it was too late, so I think the Fed is being blamed. We could just as easily blame the pandemic.

The current RF preferred tactic as seen in Ukraine is to seek the complete annihilation of the enemy's civilians and military. — Olivier5

Pundits have commented that wholesale destruction is what they did in Syria. It's the only thing that works for them.

NATO wouldn't engage Russia in a nuclear conflict over the Balkan states, therefore being in NATO is meaningless for them. Can they afford a nuclear arsenal and a few missiles?

There are plenty of other illegal drugs to keep them funded. It will definitely prevent the courts and jails from being bogged down with small time marijuana cases.
8h — Merkwurdichliebe

True. Marijuana is more of a benign cottage industry though. No gangs necessary.

Supposedly, NATO serves little purpose to the Baltic states if they won't get protected by NATO from a Russian attack, so NATO should aim to defend the Baltic states from a Russian attack. — Olivier5

The Baltic states are NATO members but NATO isn't committed to defending them?

highly doubt that. The abortion issue has much deeper ethical implications than recreational Marijuana. Not to mention, criminalizing Marijuana puts a much greater burden on the justice system in comparison to criminalizing abortion. — Merkwurdichliebe

A lot of small time police departments are substantially funded by drug related property seizures. I wonder how that pans out when marijuana becomes legal.

But you may be right. We'll see. Women can get an abortion pill through the mail if they catch it before 10 weeks.

I agree with the SCOTUS that the reasoning behind Roe v. Wade was legally dubious ( — Paulm12

I agree. It will probably be like marijuana. Little by little states will legalize it except for a few hold outs, not to mention any names Mississippi.

My point was that it's not just somebody else's fault. If you're adapted to an American lifestyle, the problem is you.

What's the complaint?

I wonder how much this will matter though. — Hanover

I don't hear anybody talking about it. They're more focused on gas prices.

All the great epics start with those assumptions. Well, actually that's not true.

You could start a great epic with that assumption, though. Except it might all end up being for nothing. Pointless adventures.

I’m saying what we call third personal , like physiological concepts, and ‘inner’ concepts like sensation, are the same ‘stuff’, and by stuff I don’t mean substances , either objective or mental. What I mean is that all experiences are interactions that are neither purely subjective nor objective They are inextricably both perspectival and about something. Every experience is a performance or act that is personally situated as relevant to me in some way , and the introduction of an outside element. — Joshs

Third person data is is things like "The moon orbits the earth." Would you agree that this statement is true from any perspective?