So why is seeking ‘happiness’ or ‘satisfaction’ the most important thing? — Possibility

It's a truism. It goes without saying that people don't want to suffer and that they look for ways out of suffering.

I didn’t.

↪baker I imagine you can this being viewed as wanting something for nothing. Do you view a ‘good life’ as getting something for nothing perpetually without worries of ‘burdens’?

Where do you stand on buddhist ideas and nihilism? — I like sushi

Oh! My mistake :D Maybe I thought you were other person.

What does this mean? Just more volunteer at charities and government and non-profit interventions? Oh wait.. that is already the case.. so basically basic stuff that we already do and just more involvement in these things we already do. It's just the progressive/humanist cause reiterated in vague terminology. — schopenhauer1

It seems the point is to have a theory about the matter, a certain mental framework. Hence the vagueness, the abstractness, the lack of concrete examples.

WHAT are you trying to say?? Say it plainly or explain neologistic terms meticulously before using them. Your moral/value recommendation is to "collaborate, connect, and be aware". Besides the obvious that we do this already to get by every day.... — schopenhauer1

The difference is that we do it only when it appears to be in our own best interests, when it helps us to get by, to survive, dominate, or procreate - because we’ve been told that’s what’s important. This means when a new opportunity comes to be more aware of what’s going on, to reach out or to help out, we draw the line and consolidate existing value instead. We remind ourselves how much we’re already doing, especially the stuff we don’t really want to do, ‘to get by every day’. We strive to avoid the risk of humiliation, pain or loss, avoid sitting with this feeling of boredom, dissatisfaction or lack, which is all part of the human experience. We make small, consolidating moves to ignore, isolate or exclude ideas, people, information and we easily justify it to ourselves as pragmatic self-interest, as ‘getting by’, as being ‘forced to comply’ rather than risk death.

But every act of ignorance, isolation or exclusion brings ongoing harm and suffering to ourselves and others that we cannot avoid, because we’re not paying attention to it. And if we value a reduction in suffering overall more than the existence of any single being (which appears to be the essential argument of antinatalism), then we should be willing to endure a little more suffering ourselves, even risk our own death, rather than choose to ignore, isolate or exclude any longer. We just need to be honest with ourselves about this - that nothing we will ever do with our existence is worth more than what we do to reduce suffering for others. And if we’re still alive, then it means we haven’t done enough.

I know...this all seems rather extreme - but this is the argument of Schopenhauer and antinatalism, FULLY applied to human existence. And interestingly, it has Buddha at one extreme, and Jesus at the other. It’s fucking scary to take it this far, but this is basically what it’s saying - we’re just too frightened to apply it to this extreme, if we’re honest. This is why ‘the agenda’ persists - it’s our excuse, our safety net, our illusion, nothing more. And we can’t quite bring ourselves to dismantle it, even though we know it’s harmful. It’s not forced, it’s preferred.

which is all part of the human experience — Possibility

@baker@Possibility
How many times has this phrase been used to gloss over or justify human suffering? Repackage it so it is just inevitable. But it isn't.

And if we value a reduction in suffering overall more than the existence of any single being (which appears to be the essential argument of antinatalism), then we should be willing to endure a little more suffering ourselves, even risk our own death, rather than choose to ignore, isolate or exclude any longer. We just need to be honest with ourselves about this - that nothing we will ever do with our existence is worth more than what we do to reduce suffering for others. And if we’re still alive, then it means we haven’t done enough. — Possibility

So life should be a horror show of extreme sacrifice to reduce suffering.. Then we really really gotta double down on that prevention part...more antinatalism.

I know...this all seems rather extreme - but this is the argument of Schopenhauer and antinatalism, FULLY applied to human existence. And interestingly, it has Buddha at one extreme, and Jesus at the other. It’s fucking scary to take it this far, but this is basically what it’s saying - we’re just too frightened to apply it to this extreme, if we’re honest. This is why ‘the agenda’ persists - it’s our excuse, our safety net, our illusion, nothing more. And we can’t quite bring ourselves to dismantle it, even though we know it’s harmful. It’s not forced, it’s preferred. — Possibility

Yes Schopenhauer was about compassion to the extent of sacrifice. Lessening other people's suffering to a "saintly" extent. The problem is, without proper context it is just doing to do.. I can volunteer at charities all my waking life and give away all my belongings.. Now let's extend this to everyone in existence doing this.. Oh wait.. everyone and no one needs help now.. It is rearranging the chairs on the Titanic as an ethical end.. That doesn't make sense.

Rather, the context is that we were all brought here and have to deal in the first place. Ironically, religion, with all its mythos and bullshit had the function of reorienting people to existential context. Most people in a post-modern mindset only know the context of the small... little screens of discrete information or simply work/home contexts. The whole Big Picture is lost and given perfunctory anything. Yet the Big Picture is what I am advocating we are constantly aware of (to use one of your lauded words). The picture is We are Fucked and to recognize it.. Dark/existential humor is one way to deal with it.. But that's not enough.. It has to be taken to the conference room, the board room, the political sphere and beyond. In other words... We all love to laugh at dark humor until it's time for work or "something X must get done or Y will happen" (getting fired, products being made, output getting outputted.. losing a house).. Banks, and customers, and investors, and consumers, and owners.. need their flesh and they don't give a fuck if you think life is a burdensome whatever.. Our Desires and Demands and Wants and Needs fuck each other over and over.. Humor is lost.. time to put the "nose to the grindstone" and "self-actualize" and "develop one's skills, talents, and usefulness". In other words comply... There is no getting around it.. No Ultimate Compassion Theory that will drowned the situatedness of existence and historical contingency of human life out.

I think Cabrera's understanding of how we are always unethical by our very nature should even be taken into account.. In other words, again, no getting around it.. In a way Possibility, it is similar to your altruistic suicide:

Cabrera develops an ethical theory, negative ethics, that is informed by this phenomenological analysis. He argues that there has been an unwarranted prejudice in ethics against non-being, a view he calls "affirmativity". Because affirmative views take being as good, they always view things that threaten this hegemony as bad; particularly things like abstention from procreation or suicide. Cabrera criticizes affirmative ethics for asking how people should live without asking the radical question of whether people should live tout court. He argues that, because of the structural negativity of being, there is a fundamental "moral disqualification" of human beings due to the impossibility of nonharming and nonmanipulating others. Nonharming and nonmanipulating others is called by him the "Minimal Ethical Articulation" ("MEA"; previously translated into English as "Fundamental Ethical Articulation" and "FEA"). The MEA is violated by our structural "moral impediment", by the worldly discomforts – notably pain and discouragement – imposed on us that prevent us from acting ethically. Cabrera argues that an affirmative morality is a self-contradiction because it accepts the MEA and conceives a human existence that precludes the possibility of not-harming or not-manipulating others. Thus he believes that affirmative societies, through their politics, require the common suspension of the MEA to even function.

Cabrera's negative ethics is supposed to be a response to the negative structure of being, acutely aware of the morally disqualifying nature of being. Cabrera believes children are usually considered as mere aesthetic objects, are not created for their own sake but for the sake of their parents, and are thrown into a structurally negative life by the act of procreation. Procreation is, Cabrera argues, a harm and a supreme act of manipulation. He believes that the consistent application of normal moral concepts – like duty, virtue or respect – present in most affirmative moralities entails antinatalism. Cabrera also argues that a human being adopting negative ethics should not only abstain from procreation, but also should have a complete willingness for an ethical death, by immediate suspension of all personal projects in benefit of a political fight[5] or an altruistic suicide, when it becomes the least immoral course of action. — Julio Cabrera Wiki Article

Sufferings are not only natural, but also social: because human beings are put in a situation of scarce time and space to conduce their lives, they are constantly compelled to hurt the other’s projects with their own and to apart the others from attaining their own objectives. (Sartre’s phenomenological descriptions of human conflicts can be of benefit at this point). This I called “moral impediment": instead of saying that all human beings are "immoral", within a naturalized ontology it is more correct to say that they are all "morally impeded". The narrow space full of pain occupied by human beings has morally disqualifying effects, independently from the calculi of goods and harms presented by utilitarian thinkers.

Concerning the issue of procreation, the main reason for not to make people coming into being is not that, in the balance, "pain prevails over pleasure" (something that cannot be asserted in absolute terms given the usual uncertainty of the results in the Utilitarian calculus), but that coming into being means to put someone in the terminal structure of being, to give him or her a being which is in process of termination from the very beginning, independently of the contents of life, a process monotonously characterized by friction, decadence and conflict.

Procreation is morally problematic in the strict measure that we know perfectly well, before birth, that all these natural and social sufferings will inevitably happen to our sons or daughters, even when we do not know if they will like to study English or live in Brazil or eat chocolates or play chess.

To come into being is to be ontologically impoverished, sensibly affected and ethically blocked: to be alive is a fight against everything and everybody, trying all the time to escape from suffering, failure and injustice. This strongly suggests that the true reason for making someone to come into being is never for the person’s own sake, but always for the interest of his/her progenitors, in a clear attitude of manipulation. “Although the ontological manipulation of the offspring is absolutely inevitable, it is perfectly evitable not to bring him or her into being, and this is precisely which indicates the way for a morality of abstention…” (Critique of affirmative morality, page 61). — https://philosopherjuliocabrera.blogspot.com/2011/05/negative-ethics.html

I do know @_db had a whole blog article devoted to Cabrera I think. Maybe he can shed some light?

How many times has this phrase been used to gloss over or justify human suffering? Repackage it so it is just inevitable. But it isn't. — schopenhauer1

You’re right, it isn’t inevitable and it isn’t justifiable, but nor is it entirely avoidable. Those of us who do exist are going to suffer to some extent, purely because we interact as dissipative structures. The point is to arrange this dissipative structure in such a way that it effects a reduction in suffering overall, instead of just for this illusion of ‘individual self’. I’m not saying we MUST do this - I’m saying this is how we put the philosophy into practice.

So life should be a horror show of extreme sacrifice to reduce suffering.. Then we really really gotta double down on that prevention part...more antinatalism. — schopenhauer1

Life IS a case of sacrifice to change suffering, either way. But you orchestrate the overall direction and depth of focus.

Yes Schopenhauer was about compassion to the extent of sacrifice. Lessening other people's suffering to a "saintly" extent. The problem is, without proper context it is just doing to do.. I can volunteer at charities all my waking life and give away all my belongings.. Now let's extend this to everyone in existence doing this.. Oh wait.. everyone and no one needs help now.. It is rearranging the chairs on the Titanic as an ethical end.. That doesn't make sense. — schopenhauer1

You’re trying to predict an endgame, but in the end you’ll always come face-to-face with a contradiction. Have another think about your prediction: ‘everyone and no one needs help now’. Regardless of whether or not it makes sense, how is this a bad thing?

Rather, the context is that we were all brought here and have to deal in the first place. Ironically, religion, with all its mythos and bullshit had the function of reorienting people to existential context. Most people in a post-modern mindset only know the context of the small... little screens of discrete information or simply work/home contexts. The whole Big Picture is lost and given perfunctory anything. Yet the Big Picture is what I am advocating we are constantly aware of (to use one of your lauded words). The picture is We are Fucked and to recognize it.. Dark/existential humor is one way to deal with it.. But that's not enough.. It has to be taken to the conference room, the board room, the political sphere and beyond. In other words... We all love to laugh at dark humor until it's time for work or "something X must get done or Y will happen" (getting fired, products being made, output getting outputted.. losing a house).. Banks, and customers, and investors, and consumers, and owners.. need their flesh and they don't give a fuck if you think life is a burdensome whatever.. Our Desires and Demands and Wants and Needs fuck each other over and over.. Humor is lost.. time to put the "nose to the grindstone" and "self-actualize" and "develop one's skills, talents, and usefulness". In other words comply... There is no getting around it.. No Ultimate Compassion Theory that will drowned the situatedness of existence and historical contingency of human life out. — schopenhauer1

I get this, but what I’ve been trying to explain is that there’s an even bigger picture than what you’re describing. It’s one that explores beyond our desires and demands and wants and needs. And I get that you don’t think there’s anything ‘real’ about that, but the reason we can even describe this Big Picture you’re referring to is because we have the capacity to not only perceive it, but replicate or recreate its political/ideological arrangement using language. And if we can replicate its arrangement, then we can rearrange it, too. The trick is to not just be aware of the Big Picture, but to understand it - how each aspect connects and collaborates, but also where it fails to connect, where it’s ignoring, isolating or excluding information, and how this relates to our desires and demands and wants and needs fucking each other over. Because the problem is that there are serious logical and structural errors in the Big Picture that we’re afraid to dismantle, and it has to do with how WE structure politics, money, potential, value and significance in relation to our desires and demands and wants and needs.

The truth is that NO ONE except you gives a fuck if you think ‘life is a burdensome whatever’ - not even those who say they agree with you. The trick is not to ‘drown out’, but to recognise that our desires and demands and wants and needs are ours alone - they have nothing at all to do with objective reality. Our situatedness, at the end of the day, is the only thing that is NOT shared. This is what the Tao Te Ching is all about: the most useful description of objective reality consists only of everything that wouldn’t give a fuck how we feel about it or how we might affect it - including this aspect in ourselves and in other people. Once we identify this aspect, then we simply relate to it from an understanding of our own unique situatedness (ie. affect), and accept that everyone and everything else will do the same. The Tao Te Ching refers to this aspect as ‘the Way’: not a set of specific instructions, but an inherent directional structure to reality, logical and qualitative, through which all energy (affect) naturally flows.

But the English language doesn’t lend itself to an unaffected description of reality. So, when I use the term pairings of awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion, you immediately want to position them somewhere in a SUBJECT-PREDICATE-OBJECT structure. Each of these pairings, however, refer to a relation of quality in a logical structure, and it simply needs our affect. When we add affect to the first structure, for instance, all energy flows naturally either from ignorance to awareness or from awareness to ignorance. You just decide which way you align with it, and it’s pretty clear which is the recommended ‘way’, but it’s easier said than done.

I was hoping to steer away from that topic and address the OP. Looks like that is no going to happen.

@baker Anyway, I never said buddhism was nihilism. I asked what @schopenhauer1 thought about buddhism and nihilism.

As for the other response you gave I will say the same thing I said to Schopenhauer fellow here … ‘no’ is not a helpful answer for me if am I to understand your position. Why no?

No because …

I was hoping to steer away from that topic and address the OP. Looks like that is no going to happen. — I like sushi

There's boredom, but there's also fulfillment (especially when one learns to restrict unnecessary desires). If harm is inherent in being, then so is benefit and cooperation. I don't think that affirmation is always justifiable, but neither do I think that universal negation is a good idea. Nonetheless, people do need to stop blindly reproducing and actually start addressing problems such as climate change and extreme inequality. Hope everybody here has a wonderful day!

but nor is it entirely avoidable. — Possibility

In a future orientation, yes it can be.

Life IS a case of sacrifice to change suffering, either way. But you orchestrate the overall direction and depth of focus. — Possibility

I don't though. You seem to be overlooking the superstructures already in place. The situatedness of the current political, economic, and social arrangement. We went over this. I cannot just will whatever arrangement I want. I am always working on something that is a system that is not what I would have wanted.

You’re trying to predict an endgame, but in the end you’ll always come face-to-face with a contradiction. Have another think about your prediction: ‘everyone and no one needs help now’. Regardless of whether or not it makes sense, how is this a bad thing? — Possibility

Because the endgame is the only one. It is what Schopenhauer's thesis is (and my OP) from the start. That is, it is all dissatisfaction all the way down. It is at the heart of why we are here, why we need help, why there cannot be a utopia. And in my conception, why we can't meditate our way out.

Because the problem is that there are serious logical and structural errors in the Big Picture that we’re afraid to dismantle, and it has to do with how WE structure politics, money, potential, value and significance in relation to our desires and demands and wants and needs. — Possibility

Again, dissatisfaction rules everything. There is no way out. Not in theory, nor in practice. Hence consolation through communal recognition of the situation. Here is a thought experiment:

Scene 1:
"I want bread. I don't want just any generic bread, but a special kind that this store has"..

You go to the store... There is no bread. In fact, the whole shelf is missing bread. You go up to the employee and ask, "Excuse me sir/mam, do you know where I can find the bread?". The employee says, "Hey lady, you seem really nice, so I will tell you.. The bread is in the a box in the warehouse somewhere. I just didn't want to do shit today".. You leave confused and pissed at not getting your bread.

Now one part of you (the rebellious free spirit) is like, "intellectually yeah.. fuck that job.. fuck life's boundaries". The other part of you is like, "Fuck that employee, he's gotta do his job.. if everyone did this, nothing would get done.. which is code for (in this instance).. "Wah wah, my needs and wants will not get met if no one pitches in.

Scene 2:
"I want a house, but I don't want to pay the mortgage"..
Months go by and a bank calls you:
"Excuse sir/mam, we are notifying you of your delinquency in paying the mortgage.."
You tell the bank.. "Hi sir/mam, you sound like a nice loan collector person, but with all due respect to your company.. FUCK OFF!!!"..
A couple more months go by and now they have a lean on your house and an officer enforcing it. You are essentially homeless.
One part of you is (the free spirited rebellious part) goes, "Yeah you tell em!!".
The other part goes, "That was stupid of you.. Now you are homeless and your needs and wants of shelter from the elements, and a place with comfortable surroundings is gone".

Scene 3:
The boss man and a few shitty coworkers harrass you for X, Y, Z..
You say, "You all can go fuck yourselves.. I quit!".
You have no money coming in.. You slowly lose any money you had. You are poor on the streets.
One part of you is, "Yeah free spirit and rebellion"..
The other part is, "That was stupid.. Now you can't pay for the goods and services you need and want".

In other words, all our needs and wants as a consumer, producer, are inextribly tied up in other people doing work. Work that you wouldn't do otherwise unless cohersion from your own needs and wants.. There is a "lack" at the bottom of things that we are all unfortunately a slave to. No rearrangement makes this go away..

Dissatisfaction is the rule.. It is the comply or die in one word. The social-economic-historical arrangement is simply how it is carried out. But the core is still there, putting a proverbial gun to our heads. Cultural mores, expectations, and are simply epiphenomenal social "memes" that simply make it easier to accept the situation. Nothing more.

All of this implicit and inherent forms of dissatisfaction aren’t even touching on the contingent suffering off all the harms that befall us while just contending with the inherent dissatisfaction.

@schopenhauer1 What do you make of Ernst Becker?

I've never read his works in detail but can agree with the gist of some things.. For example this:

Immortality projects are one way that people manage death anxiety. Some people, however, will engage in hedonic pursuits like drugs, alcohol, and entertainment to escape their death anxiety—often to compensate for a lack of “heroism” or culturally-based self-esteem—a lack of contribution to the “immortality project”.[4] Others will try to manage the terror of death by “tranquilizing themselves with the trivial” i.e. strongly focusing on trivial matters and exaggerating their importance — often through busyness and frenetic activity. Becker describes the current prevalence of hedonism and triviality as a result of the downfall of religious worldviews such as Christianity that could take “slaves, cripples... imbeciles... the simple and the mighty” and allow them all to accept their animal nature in the context of a spiritual reality and an afterlife.[5] — The Denial of Death WIki

I'd have to read more to be convinced we are in a perpetual "denial of death". Rather, I still think Schop's idea of constant dissatisfaction is at the root of things mainly. But I really like Becker's phrasing "tranqualizing themselves with the trivial". Talk about most of modern workaday and home life!

But again, all stemming from dissatisfaction.. A basic feature of the sentient being. Lacking can be another word for it. Survival-habits can take basic drives (hunger), but then for humans it takes on the form of the enculturation process for sustaining one's metabolism (aka working in an economic system ranging from hunting-gathering to what we see in the "modern"). Comfort-habits.. Wanting to not feel discomfort.. pain in your toe, too hot, too cold, not soft enough pillow, not hard enough bed, not hot enough water to shower, not cold enough water to drink, not clean enough house, not clean enough clothes, not pleasant smelling enough, too much smell... etc. etc. And of course, Entertainment-habits.. I'm bored, I'm going to fiddle around in the garden.. I am going to weed, read, smoke weed, plead, bead, knead, lead, etc. etc. etc. keep mind focused, in flow state, off of bare nothingness.. Mediation is entertainment too.. All of it. Dissatisfaction.

I reckon there are several points Becker makes where we would be fairly understanding to each other’s attitudes and ideas. I have not read him myself but hope to soon. In terms of existential stuff Camus and absurdism is more my kinda thing.

Do you listen to podcasts? Philosophize This is a really nice series. Well presented and gives a nice overlay of different philosophical thoughts and works.

Philosophize This is a really nice series. Well presented and gives a nice overlay of different philosophical thoughts and works. — I like sushi

Yes I like that one and the The Partially Examined Life. Another good podcast. That one goes a little more in depth and tries to do a lot of deep dives in the primary sources.

Me too. The only other one I listen to regularly is Mindscape (my first love was physics after all!)

Nice..
My latest posts with @Possibility (still waiting for a response in last post), is that our dissatisfactions create for each other the de facto forced situation of having to at all comply with the agenda of a society (going to work, paying bills, anythign we do for survival and comfort and entertainment within a broader socioeconomic framework..in our society's case), because if we don't, we will die (through slow starvation and depredation or outright suicide). This inextricable nature of life makes it inescapable. There is no end-goal we can achieve here.. Only collective understanding of the dissatisfaction we are all brought into. There is no way out of it. Best not to bring people into it to also be forced to comply or die. That is misguided and potentially immoral to create this situation unto yet another.. To give someone else burdens of life, should be examined and we should all recognize the tragedy of the situation. Instead, we couch birth in terms of "hopes" and "what they will accomplish", "memories they will cherish" and the like.. If life was only this, there would be no problem. But there is always inescapable and significant collateral damage. This, I contend is dangerous because it hides/downplays the costs of birth.. The burdens (the overall dissatisfaction), that will be started upon another person to contend with.. The dictates of life that they will deal with, the contingent harms that are circumstantial but inevitable at various degrees and times..It's a political agenda (of living out life in a certain society) that is being forced unto yet another.. Who either must comply with it, or die a slow death (or kill themselves). This to me is misguided, and callous and disregarding other people's dignity that one feels they should make others endure it.

I basically lay out the stakes of life and being-born-in-the-first place in my profile:
Life has necessary and contingent suffering. Necessary suffering is often considered "Eastern", similar to how Buddhism defines it. That is to say it is a general dissatisfaction stemming from a general lack in what is present. Relief is temporary and unstable. If life was fully positive without this lack, it would be satisfactory without any needs or wants.

Contingent harms are the classic ones people think of. It is the physical harms, the emotional anguish, the annoyances great and small. It is the pandemics, the disasters, the daily grind of a tedious work day. It is the hunger we feel, and the pain of a stubbed toe. It is any negative harm. It is contingent as it is contextual in time/place, and situation. It is based on historical trajectories and situatedness. It is based on the "throwness" (in Existentialism terminology). It varies in individuals in varying amounts and intensity, but happens to everyone nonetheless.

Philosophical pessimism deals with the fact that life has negative value and thus examines the human condition understanding these features. It is similar to atheistic Gnosticism. We are exiled in a way. Antinatalism is often an ethical response to philosophical pessimism, but is not the same thing. Philosophical pessimism often goes with pessimistic dispositions but is also not the same thing. Technically, you can have an optimistic disposition hold claims of a philosophical pessimistic nature such that there is much suffering inherent in life, and can generally agree with such philosophers as Arthur Schopenhauer and their works regarding the striving of human existence and the struggles of negative experiences.

I am against antinatalism and, in part, against buddhism.

I have no wish to say much more than that on those topics in this thread.

You seem to be overlooking the superstructures already in place. The situatedness of the current political, economic, and social arrangement. We went over this. I cannot just will whatever arrangement I want. I am always working on something that is a system that is not what I would have wanted. — schopenhauer1

What you want isn’t as important as you seem to think it is, and is certainly not a reliable foundation on which to structure anything to last. We’re continually constructing a political, economic and social arrangement based on the idea that what we want matters - but it doesn’t matter in the way we’re commonly led to believe. It has meaning, but only relative value. And the problem is that most of us can’t tell the difference, or more likely don’t want to.

The thing is, I am at least potentially capable of choosing my actions according to whatever arrangement I want (and many people do), but it isn’t necessarily going to align with the political, economic or social arrangements that most people are working with. Depending on the differences, my actions might come across as rebellious, ascetic, destructive, criminal, pathological, or just plain nuts.

We’re taught from a very young age to align our conceptual structures with those of our parents, broadening to our social group and influenced by the educational system and prevailing cultural, political, economic and social arrangements, etc in which we are situated. But in reality this current arrangement is only a temporary situatedness - it’s so amorphously constructed that any attempt to render it it may be already outdated to some extent before the ink dries.

The most accurately simple way for me to describe this conceptual reality, interestingly, seems to be, as you say: ‘not what I would have wanted’. It’s a linear relation of value between my conceptualisation and the one in which I am ‘situated’ - much like observable ‘time’ is a linear relation of change between observer and observed (or ‘not what I measured’). But the linear relation is not as accurate as we think. It’s just enough to get by.

So, when we’re done with just getting by and want to get at the truth, we need to recognise that what seems to be a linear relation is in reality much more complex. And I could try to explain this, but I don’t think you’re interested in the complexity, because you don’t seem to want to DO anything.

Because the endgame is the only one. It is what Schopenhauer's thesis is (and my OP) from the start. That is, it is all dissatisfaction all the way down. It is at the heart of why we are here, why we need help, why there cannot be a utopia. And in my conception, why we can't meditate our way out. — schopenhauer1

The only one what? it’s not a bad thing to reach a point where everyone and no one needs help. This is neither utopia nor a way ‘out’ - it’s just a more accurate understanding of reality that isn’t focused on suffering or dissatisfaction as if they’re some affront to all sensibilities.

When your relation to reality is linear, then it always looks like there’s an endgame. Like heat death, or utopia, or escape, or zero value. But the linear structure at this level is heuristic only, like time, or the line we draw to render a beam of light. It’s just an oversimplified indication of direction. Describing the endgame as ‘everyone and no one needs help’ seems meaningless to you because this contradiction appears to have no real logical value. But someone can still act on it, if they choose.

In other words, all our needs and wants as a consumer, producer, are inextribly tied up in other people doing work. Work that you wouldn't do otherwise unless cohersion from your own needs and wants.. There is a "lack" at the bottom of things that we are all unfortunately a slave to. No rearrangement makes this go away.. — schopenhauer1

We don’t need to be a slave to lack - we feel it, sure, but it doesn’t own us unless we let it. Lack is just an awareness that ‘individuality’ is false at any level of existence. Any sense of completion is always in relation to something else. And we’re not forced to see ourselves as ‘consumer’ or ‘producer’ - this is all part of an arrangement to which we keep binding ourselves in ignorance - feigning completion in ‘community’ through isolation or ‘teamwork’ through exclusion, with the false notion that we might ‘individually’ appear to suffer less. Rearrangement isn’t about making lack ‘go away’, but about rendering it as a tool, instead of being led around by our own needs and wants as if they have ‘individual’ value to anyone but our ‘selves’.

Dissatisfaction is the rule.. It is the comply or die in one word. The social-economic-historical arrangement is simply how it is carried out. But the core is still there, putting a proverbial gun to our heads. Cultural mores, expectations, and are simply epiphenomenal social "memes" that simply make it easier to accept the situation. Nothing more. — schopenhauer1

You claim to be rebelling against this ‘forced agenda’, but all I see here is you perpetuating it, only with a pessimistic slant. We’re helpless, it’s hopeless, we’re powerless, all we can do is accept the situation, or die. This, to me, is the voice of the agenda, the very cultural illusion we keep arranging to protect ourselves in fear of non-existence.

But perhaps our positive vs negative evaluation - this process to render, criticise, redesign and redevelop - is precisely how we’ve been evolving conceptual reality all along, together. Some of us are focused on rendering and criticising, and some of us on redesigning and redeveloping...:smile:

We don’t need to be a slave to lack - we feel it, sure, but it doesn’t own us unless we let it. — Possibility

This I believe is just not true unless death. Comply or die. Anything besides immobility would be acting on it so de facto X would be acting on it, and it "owning us".

Lack is just an awareness that ‘individuality’ is false at any level of existence. — Possibility

No that doesn't go together. Lack is an awareness of a feeling of what one doesn't have at the moment. The fact that we are a social animal in order to meet needs is not entailed in that point, though it's entailed in being a human animal.

feigning completion in ‘community’ through isolation or ‘teamwork’ through exclusion, with the false notion that we might ‘individually’ appear to suffer less. Rearrangement isn’t about making lack ‘go away’, but about rendering it as a tool, instead of being led around by our own needs and wants as if they have ‘individual’ value to anyone but our ‘selves’. — Possibility

No context or examples so can't say anything one way or another what you are trying to say.

This, to me, is the voice of the agenda, the very cultural illusion we keep arranging to protect ourselves in fear of non-existence. — Possibility

I'm protecting nothing from non-existence. How am I doing so?

But perhaps our positive vs negative evaluation - this process to render, criticise, redesign and redevelop - is precisely how we’ve been evolving conceptual reality all along, together. Some of us are focused on rendering and criticising, and some of us on redesigning and redeveloping...:smile: — Possibility

Into what?? It is all the same, no matter what form. Your words have the appearance of meaning, but no context to chew into.

Give me a glimpse of a vision of what your recommendation how to live looks like? Start there. You give me something, I'll show you where it breaks down into the same. That will be this dialogue over and over. You clearly haven't found some way out.. You too are living in the situatedness as much as I am.. You can write here like you are a sage that knows a different way but you don't have one.

But every act of ignorance, isolation or exclusion brings ongoing harm and suffering to ourselves and others that we cannot avoid, because we’re not paying attention to it. And if we value a reduction in suffering overall more than the existence of any single being (which appears to be the essential argument of antinatalism), then we should be willing to endure a little more suffering ourselves, even risk our own death, rather than choose to ignore, isolate or exclude any longer. We just need to be honest with ourselves about this - that nothing we will ever do with our existence is worth more than what we do to reduce suffering for others. And if we’re still alive, then it means we haven’t done enough. — Possibility

There is an old inside joke in Buddhism about Mahayana heaven:

Outside of the heavenly gates, crowds of bodhisattvas bowing to eachother, making a gesture with the hand, saying, "After you!"

I imagine you can this being viewed as wanting something for nothing. Do you view a ‘good life’ as getting something for nothing perpetually without worries of ‘burdens’? — I like sushi

As for the other response you gave I will say the same thing I said to Schopenhauer fellow here … ‘no’ is not a helpful answer for me if am I to understand your position. Why no? — I like sushi

This has already been addressed earlier in the thread. E.g.

the idea is that any kind of existence is burdensome. It's about a dissatisfaction that would persist even if one had all the health, wealth, beauty, fame, family, friends, etc. in the world. — baker

Again, dissatisfaction rules everything. There is no way out. Not in theory, nor in practice. — schopenhauer1

At least theoretically, there is a way out. Early Buddhism proposes it.

My latest posts with Possibility (still waiting for a response in last post), is that our dissatisfactions create for each other the de facto forced situation of having to at all comply with the agenda of a society (going to work, paying bills, anythign we do for survival and comfort and entertainment within a broader socioeconomic framework..in our society's case),

because if we don't, we will die (through slow starvation and depredation or outright suicide). — schopenhauer1

This is actually an overstatement. You're assuming a general model, an abstract notion of life -- those 75 years or so that one must somehow get through.

But you don't actually know whether this scenario applies to you, you just take for granted that it does. And perhaps in doing so, you actually make it happen.

An airplane engine could fall on your house and crush you tomorrow. An aneurysm in your brain could burst and off you are in the following hour. You could die in a hundred ways long before you reach those 75 years of age.

Comply or die. Anything besides immobility would be acting on it so de facto X would be acting on it, and it "owning us". — schopenhauer1

Actually, even if you were a deaf, mute, and blind tetraplegic, you could still be in compliance mode. The comply-and-die is first and foremost in the mind.


I want to say more, but I am in too much pain from complications from my injury. I'll try to get back to the forum in a few days.
So much for people easing eachother's suffering.

So there is no ‘good life’.

@baker The OP is asking what one should do. If you have no answer you have no answer I guess.

If you have an answer then that would be a ‘good life’ of a sorts right? Is a ‘sort of good life’ better than a ‘no sort of good life’? If so and your response is it doesn’t matter because we suffer anyway, then you have not made any meaningful distinction between the two.

We don’t need to be a slave to lack - we feel it, sure, but it doesn’t own us unless we let it.
— Possibility

This I believe is just not true unless death. Comply or die. Anything besides immobility would be acting on it so de facto X would be acting on it, and it "owning us". — schopenhauer1

There’s no point in saying ‘unless death’, because death is undeniable. This whole mantra of ‘comply OR die’ is false: rather it’s AND, and both terms are highly variable in context. When you speak to young people today, they KNOW this. Many of them live daily with suicidal thoughts, so trying to convince them that death is NOT an option only reveals the lie as an attempt to control. And the more we try to control them with this ‘comply or die’ crap, the more they demonstrate just how wrong we are, and in the simplest way available to them. We need to stop pretending these are THE options, and acknowledge that ‘comply’ is just as frighteningly varied, valuable, filled with potential and available as ‘die’ appears to them. Then we can begin to understand just how ignorant we have been.

No that doesn't go together. Lack is an awareness of a feeling of what one doesn't have at the moment. The fact that we are a social animal in order to meet needs is not entailed in that point, though it's entailed in being a human animal. — schopenhauer1

So, you’re saying that it’s possible to BE ‘complete and whole’, wanting for nothing as an individual human animal? Do you really think that’s true? Lack is a basic quality inherent to EVERY existence. Any feeling in relation to this is based on expectations with regard to ‘individuality’.

It is all the same, no matter what form. Your words have the appearance of meaning, but no context to chew into.

Give me a glimpse of a vision of what your recommendation how to live looks like? Start there. You give me something, I'll show you where it breaks down into the same. That will be this dialogue over and over. — schopenhauer1

I’m not going to recommend ‘how to live’ - that’s as ridiculous as recommending ‘how to die’. Of course you can reduce any observable action to an arbitrary binary value structure of ‘comply or die’. You might as well say 1/0. So, you describe ‘reality’ using 1s and 0s, but that’s a virtual reality that has nothing to do with actual being. Because how you ‘die’ has as much complex and differentiated value, potential and significance as how you ‘comply’. So the relation between 1 and 0 is different for each of us, which effectively renders this basic ‘language’ arbitrarily useless in determining ‘how to live’. It just describes ‘how life appears to be’.

The way I see it, our only universally useful information on ‘how to live’ is a relative sense of direction in a state of ongoing flux. Whenever you come to a crossroad that you recognise as between awareness and ignorance, with whatever time, effort or attention available, turn towards awareness.

You clearly haven't found some way out.. You too are living in the situatedness as much as I am.. You can write here like you are a sage that knows a different way but you don't have one. — schopenhauer1

I’m not looking for a way out, just a more useful description of ‘the way’, because it’s obvious that ‘comply or die’ is NOT it...

Actually, even if you were a deaf, mute, and blind tetraplegic, you could still be in compliance mode. The comply-and-die is first and foremost in the mind. — baker

I notice you’ve written it as ‘comply-AND-die’ - the difference in relation to ‘comply OR die’ is important.

But every act of ignorance, isolation or exclusion brings ongoing harm and suffering to ourselves and others that we cannot avoid, because we’re not paying attention to it. And if we value a reduction in suffering overall more than the existence of any single being (which appears to be the essential argument of antinatalism), then we should be willing to endure a little more suffering ourselves, even risk our own death, rather than choose to ignore, isolate or exclude any longer. We just need to be honest with ourselves about this - that nothing we will ever do with our existence is worth more than what we do to reduce suffering for others. And if we’re still alive, then it means we haven’t done enough.
— Possibility

There is an old inside joke in Buddhism about Mahayana heaven:

Outside of the heavenly gates, crowds of bodhisattvas bowing to eachother, making a gesture with the hand, saying, "After you!" — baker

:ok: