I am aware that there was a thread posted a while back that was similar, but it lacked the direction and thought provocation I hope this thread follows. Would you end humanity? If some deity of sorts gave you the option to terminate the human race in one motion. I don't mean this in a narcissistic or sociopathic sense. I know this forum is full of misanthropes, including me. Your answer shouldn't depend on your personal sufferings. Think of humanity as a whole. Every individual ranging from a small Norwegian boy eating a fish sandwich to a Bosnian sex slave crying in her dark decrepit lodgings. Is all the prosperity and happiness felt in the world worth the suffering and atrocity? The media portrays the human world as a tapestry of suffering and fear, although it is a highly skewed perspective. How ailing is the world we live in today? Apocalyptical rhetoric has been spewed since the dawn of time. Has it in fact gotten worse? Or are pessimistic fanatics just living bound with the ideological manacles of fear? Is the world of humanity in fact a bright place? Is the fickle pleasure brought on by your two door garage and plasma screen TV worth the starvation and ethnic cleansing faced by those less fortunate, many whom are born in the third world? Those of us who are considered "happy", in areas where you are satiated and safe, seem to live capriciously, many still turning to suicide. Would you end all the suffering? The slavery? The ignorance? Would you steadfastly protect those lucky enough to experience the pleasurable nuances of life? I would end it.
I would not. I think the turmoil is worth the amazing creation that will occur by the beautiful, amazing people. Regardless of how outnumbered they are.
People always say that it's unfair because unfortunate people don't get a choise as to the life they get. Well the fortunate people don't get to choose their lives either. It's not our fault we were born in a more civilized and modernized society. What do you expect me to do? Trade places with a poor person from a 3rd world country? Would they do the same for me? Probably not. It probably sounds cynical, but everyone assumes that all of the less fortunate people are kind, altruistic, goodhearted people that deserve a shot at a life worth living. There's got to be at least a couple bastards over there. They're not all perfect little angels. Just as everyone here isn't an evil, undeserving prick. Bad things can happen to good people and good things can happen to bad people. That's a lesson that everyone needs to learn at some point.
None of this has anything to do with the question at hand. I'm not saying you should trade lives or feel guilt. The world is absurd, fairness should never be expected. You were born where you were born. People of all cultures range in their countenances. That second paragraph is sort of ridiculous and it sounds like you have an odd perspective in reference to depictions of the Third World. Less fortunate people are prone to the same behavior as any other human being. Wealth is not a factor. I am just wondering if in this absurd world of pleasure and suffering, is the immense suffering worth the pleasure delved out to a few?
I think existence is laughably pointless, but I'm not going to end it for everyone just because I'm a nihilist. Ignorance is bliss, and a huge chunk of the people on this planet are very, VERY ignorant. I'll let them have their fun.
Ahhh, Nirvana. Yes. Soon. THERE ARE TOOLS TO FIX THE CURRENT SITUATION.... DON'T GIVE UP HOPE JUST YET!!!! [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D293eb12yXI]Terrence Mckenna - Magic Mushrooms[/ame]
I agree. I am a nihilist as well, die hard existentialist. Ignorance is bliss, but it also leads to Holocausts and genocide. I am not saying your position isn't valid, as I am sort of on the fence myself. I just like playing devils advocate and thought my last comment, ending it, would stir up some emotions.
I trust that I'm not smart enough and I don't know enough to go and assume that just because things look bad, everything should end. I trust that there is a point to everything. I trust that if there was no point to existence, there would be no existence. I think that's a fairly rational point of view. If your life didn't have personal meaning would you go on living? Let's say the appendix of a Human is afflicted with appendicitis. The appendix is dying basically. It's suffering and causing the Human to suffer. The Human will be alright once it's removed, but the same can't be said for the appendix. The appendix is suffering. Every cell within it is screaming as their home world is dying and they are dying with it. Surgery is performed on the Human and the appendix is removed. The Human is relieved of pain and can go on living. The diseased appendix has been cut off from it's connection to the Human body and life giving blood no longer pulses through it's veins. Every cell within the organ will die and therefore the organ itself will die, becoming lifeless matter once again. What a tragedy! What a horrible event! An entire world has just ended! What kind of sick God would allow this to happen! The Human God would. For the Human, ending the world of that appendix and killing all life within it was something that needed to happen. It's all about perspective. Just because things seem bad on Earth or maybe just for yourself, doesn't mean there isn't a reason for everything. It doesn't mean life is pointless. It may mean that, but you can't go and make such a presumptuous assumption. Just accept that things will be as they are, and trust that it would make sense for it all to make perfect sense. If you ever had the choice to end life on Earth and decided to do it, that's selfish and wrong. You'd be like a cancer. To think you have the right to kill anyone just for the sake of putting an end to it, that's wrong and that's assuming that it was all for nothing. Where do you get off making such a bold assumption? You really think you've figured it all out? All any of us can do here is try to do what we believe we're here to do. Killing our selves or anyone else is to just assume it's a waste of time and give up.
People honestly need to read and understand threads before they post. Like I said, this is NOT an act of narcissism or sociopathic behavior. This is NOT a decision brought on by my human experience or perspective; I live in a wealthy area. I am trying to take a macro perspective, which I said may be flawed, as all perspectives are. How am I being the selfish one? Isn't it selfish to let people be born and know only tragedy and death? Speak for yourself. I don't claim to have ANYTHING figured out, I believe it is you who is in fact the presumptuous one. My post is largely filled with questions, not answers. Your initial paragraph is laughable to me because I am an existentialist, to me, reality as we know it has no objective meaning. Life can exist without meaning. Why can't existence in it self be justification? Humans are so full of themselves that they believe there HAS to be meaning, usually centering it around their own paltry existence. We are here due to the absurd process we call evolution.
I understand that you're trying to take a macro perspective, and you're saying that just because life on Earth isn't all peaches and cream that it may be pointless and it may as well end. I disagree. No, I was born as well, I could experience those things as well. I accept that it can be bad and I'm okay with that, that's why I'm not going to kill myself like a bitch. The strongest people see negative experiences through to the end, even if they never end, it's called hope. It's selfish to kill other people even if you had good intentions. You're saying you would end the world. You would kill everyone. That is selfish. Some people who are suffering don't even want to die. They love themselves and those who love them enough to want to see it through. That's what life is about. Maybe life doesn't have any objective meaning, but it definitely has subjective meaning. Killing the Earth is selfish, but trying to save the Earth, like most people want to do, is selfless. You claim to have a whole lot figured out when you say you're an existentialist. Where do you get off saying there is no objective meaning to reality? There very well may not be, but you don't know that, so I'd think twice before killing the planet. And your questions ask whether or not it's a good idea to kill the whole world just because people are suffering and not enough people are happy. The answer is no, my friend. Life is good, and should be fought for not fought against. I don't know why anyone would disagree with that. Don't you like being alive? Don't you want those people who are suffering to have a fighting chance? They'll have no chance at happiness if you kill them all. Sure, life can exist without meaning. It could exist without meaning or it could have meaning. I choose to guess that it has meaning and it has nothing to do with being full of myself. It just makes sense to me, and it makes no more or less sense than saying it has no meaning. But even if life has no meaning objectively, subjectively it means a lot. You could think of it like, reality is just a mesh of subjectivity that makes up the objective. We as Humans have some objective goals. We collectively aim to be a space faring species one day I imagine. We collectively aim to figure it all out. These are the things we're here to think about, I think.
You argue in a cyclical nature. First off, you haven't experienced SHIT for suffering. Were you ever a young child being tortured by Nazi scientists? Have you seen your parents torn limb from limb in Rwanda? Some of those individuals become psychotic due to their experiences. I'm not talking about your weight problems or your failure in your career. I am talking about serious suffering. Suicide doesn't make one a "bitch", you are an IDIOT for saying that. Many individuals lack the chemical coping mechanisms; many people on this thread know suicidal individuals, and would take offense to that. Your lack of understand does not surprise me though. Yes, strong individuals can cope and find a way to overcome, but I don't think things should be looked at in such a simplistic manner. Some people were put in situations in which one can't just "cope" and overcome. When someone hacks off your arms with a machete, as to prevent voting during tribal conflict, overcoming becomes difficult. When you get thrown into a death camp and are forced to watch your family brutally murdered, and you know you are next, you can't just "cope". By stating I'm an existentialist, I do NOT claim to know a lot. I claim to know NOTHING outside my own subjective perspective. Individuals who claim objectivity force others into their perspective. There is NO evidence of a world of inherent meaning, but there is overwhelming evidence that the world is absurd. Making simple claims like "Life is good", does absolutely nothing for this debate; that is an opinion. You seem to keep making simple claims based solely on your opinion. I get it. You love life! There is meaning to you. I don't care. I don't necessarily want to "kill" everyone, stop making me out to be malicious. Making a motion to terminate humanity could mean a lot of different things, for example, humanity never existing to begin with. You are taking this way to literally. It's just an exercise there tiger, relax. THIS IS ALL HYPOTHETICAL BY THE WAY. I just wanted people to think of the world in a different light. You couldn't handle it. I was playing devils advocate by the way. To upset individuals like you. I was hoping it would stem more intellectual discussion, rather than your garrulous rambling. I don't think I would honestly do it, but I don't think you can just discredit the idea because you get a boner for human egotism.
I believe there are blatant cases that exist. There have been numerous cases in which individuals have stated "I would have preferred death" in regards to atrocity. Although suffering and even pain is hard to index.
Yeah, I mean it seems counter-intuitive to claim that there is suffering in the world, and then suggest that the best course would be for me alone to make the decision for upwards of seven billion people, to end their lives. I vote for this BTW: The sensation of fear is similar to the sensation of sexual arousal, and who doesn't like sex?
i would spare humanity, not because i think it deserves anything from me but just the fact that someone would be able to help this nice planet through something natural. I think thats the only way that we can truly solve the biggest issues, but thats a different subject all together.... I would def trade u humanity if i could take out a choice few...for.....my own reasons
For the sake of Mother Gaia... I would be willing to die so that the survival of the Earth continues... look what the FUCK we're doing to her [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyc12-neTjM]YouTube - Joe Rogan's Theory on Life and People[/ame]
the only thing humanity can truely harm is ourselves , if we fuck up this planet then we are the ones that die , the earth will endure , animals will endure , mother nature will endure i love the quote 'to care about the envirorment is a selfish thing"