Except we have the foresight to know everything will end. Even if we were to produce 100 000 000 perfect replicas of our genes they would still hit the same wall— extinction. Further, whether we have free will or not (prolly not), we’re able to coopt the gene platforms to further non-procreative aims.
It’s a bit like saying the point of a TV show is to earn profit for the people who bankrolled it. Well, yes that’s why it’s here and literally the only thing that will keep it going, but you can do a lot more within those constraints than play out the material reality.
So the question remains.
Even if we were to produce 100 000 000 perfect replicas of our genes they would still hit the same wall— extinction.
Doesn’t matter, had sex.
TIL that we evolved opposable thumbs for feeding our loved ones
Hungry for thumbs
Women looking at this meme: so am I supposed to be a lesbian?
women? on the internet? looking at memes?
Creepy. I just watched this scene seconds ago after not watching the film for years…
Yes I was scrolling while watching, I’m sorry.
Weird, I just watched this year’s after not watching the film for years…
Its crazy how unlikely things happen frequently with enough participants.
Yes I was scrolling while sitting on the toilet, I’m sorry.
Weird, I don’t even know what film this is from. And yet here I am, replying to this comment.
Yes, this is a blatant shitpost. I’m sorry.
In case you aren’t joking: Blade Runner
Here I thought it was some bad homophobia propaganda, with “replicant” being a diagetic slur for straight people
Lemmy silver 🥈
Is it colloidal?
?
The silver
Sorry I don’t understand
(English isn’t my primary language :/)
Old saying in is: In Internet men are men, women are men and children are FBI officers.
Edit: 4chan rules of the Internet:
Rule 29: On the internet men are men, women are also men, and kids are undercover FBI agents.
GIRL
guy in real life
Sounds pretty gay.
Yep. Sorry hetro women, the meme has spoken; you’ve got to be gay now.
Well, at least bi.
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It’s not necessarily a POV…
Way ahead of you
Yes.
Yes, you have to reproduced by impregnating a woman or you are an evolutionary failure.
Yup, we are now gay :3
her eye game is absolutely on-point
No you don’t understand. Women don’t matter.
Join us!
Congrats on one of the gayest usernames I’ve ever seen
Also best pillar
Physicists: the meaning of life is to increase entropy. Global warming let’sssss goooll
That’s the meaning of the universe and everything, not specifically life. Easy mistake to make.
Help, I made conscious life material in nature!
So I was setting up my constants but wasn’t paused so I added energy andand the universe exploded??? in this huge biiigi bang and it won’t stop! Pls help, it’s my first universe, it’s already like 15 billion years old and I can’t figure out how to fix the “material minds” they’re crazy! It’s so depressing.
It’s not meaning. It’s just a mechanism. It’s the canvas to what we do and ascribe meaning to.
Then again, our “meaning” might simply be a mechanism to another system
Getting your finger bitten off by a person who is wearing a lot of make-up? Pls explain, I’m not a biologist. /j
Yes, you nailed it. You really fingered the issue.
Speaking of nailing.
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As another comment identified, that’s itshannahowo. You can find images including her vagina at your own leisure.
It’s only a trap if you’re trying to avoid it…
Some philosophers agree with biologists on this one.
Am a biologist, can confirm.
I’m a philosopher. I can confirm the biologist seems right
Procreo, ergo sum
Pater tuus est?
Ita, fili mi.
The meaning of life is very simple: life has no meaning unless you create meaning. What that meaning is is going to differ from person to person.
The meaning I give to my life is to do everything I can to further human knowledge and to learn as much as possible myself.
For other people, it could be exploring the world, finding inner peace, helping as many people as possible, gaining power/money by any means necessary, etc.
All valid, some more well-intentioned than others. IMO if your goal is to do good by yourself and/or to others without actively seeking to hurt others, there isn’t really a wrong answer.
Here is to existential nihilism. That one set me free because it’s not centered on obligation toward other people aka living my false self. My meaning is inner peace by self actualization.
A hundred percent. I used to just call myself a nihilist, because on paper it applies. But straight up self described nihilists are stuck in a dead end.
I prefer to use nihilism as a reminder that there are no ultimate loci of meaning and that anything I insist on having meaning needs to be justified.
Lol this thread. You can’t just mention the meaning of life on social media without us armchair philosophers crawling out of the woodwork and uhm ackshually-ing all over the place.
We can expand that into our existence doesn’t need to be justified. Nothing wrong with philosophy. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.
Yeah, philosophy is pretty great. I love it.
This was just meant to be something funny to make people chuckle and then continue on with their day. I find my meaning in being an existential jester. To laugh at everything. May I be from joy or mockery or grim determination. So much so that I’ve told my wife that if she feels the need to give me a memorial plaque after my death it can only have one of two quotes on it. The first is attributed to Shakespeare’s Marc Anthony: “Have I played the part well? Then applaud, as I exit.” Or from Darkest Dungeon: “He will be laughing still, in the end.”
I too revel in the absurdism that results from a mind evolved to fuck and throw big rocks trying to understand anything beyond the five little sense peepholes it’s looking through. Hello out there, fellow pervert! I wonder what the outside looks like through your peepholes!
When I’m not looking out, I build logical graphs in my head that represent social concepts and how I fit into the world, especially along the 1 time dimension, and sometimes the graphs make me happy or sad, usually because of how well rested or caffeinated I am.
I hope your mind graphs are happy today (or whatever abstraction applies to your thought process).
life still has no meaning. life is absurd.
Yeah.
I am curious what meaning, if any, you’ve pinned to your own life, though. Anything intentional?
yes. agreed. also, ugh. i’ll guarantee you whoever downvoted your post is some fucking theist.
but yes. 100% agreed. and once people realize this, it comes with the understanding that there is no objectively true answer. to each their own.
BUT, here’s where we get into the freewill part of giving individual meaning to life - if you decide that your meaning is to extract your own pleasure at the misfortune of others, then i am going to decide to end your life. AND… when enough people join together to stop those that would create suffering for others, that’s when humanity is on its way to my version of a glorious moral union. a moral union not based on some book of ancient goat herders but on a democratic agreement about what we want the world to be like.
yes. agreed. also, ugh. i’ll guarantee you whoever downvoted your post is some fucking theist.
Nah, just a pretentious person who’s calling other people pretentious because they don’t like who they are as a person and they take it out on others who do. No need to feed the troll.
The last point is just the paradox of tolerance. I don’t tolerate intolerance, although I am also a strictly non-violent person except for self defense. What does work is public pressure/shame, and imprisonment in the case that they commit crimes.
Public shame doesn’t work. And sometimes there aren’t any laws. I’m not sure public pressure works either. The us is an example.
The Nazis were buried underground since the end of WWII until Gamergate due to the fact that being a Nazi was viewed as unacceptable in society.
They’re coming back up… like herpes.
Funny thing is there are both cures and vaccines in human trials from Moderna and BioNTech for herpes but the best cure for Nazis remains the methods from the 40’s.
They never left, only shrank, but now they’re spreading and destroying everything around them… like cancer.
You’re what an internet turtle philosopher describe as “the pretentious dude at a party who thinks he’s got everything figured out. Really now? You figured out the meaning of life and you’re certain of it?”
Okay, then why do you care about human knowledge and want to learn as much as possible? What about the application of that knowledge?
Do you care about knowledge or wisdom?
To what end do you apply that knowledge?
To what ends will you acquire that knowledge?
Exactly. If there is a reason for our conscious existence, it is to observe and imbue with meaning. Otherwise the world just is.
42
Well, now I should take this meme down. You’ve given me a counterpoint so complete I have no retort. I will now go grab my towel.
If you suck on the end it’s lemon flavored.
Universal Sereal Bus
That’s what she said
Zark that, it’s actually about finding a place to eat
Where all the hoopy froods meet!
that’s not the meaning of life, that’s the answer to the ultimate question about life the universe and everything…
The meaning of life is when catholics do a song and dance number about how every sperm is sacred.
But what’s the question?
Hmm, that requires Deep Thought.
if you haven’t read that book yet, i won’t spoil it
This meme was made better for me by provoking the thought that all the great philosophers were just aces
What, cannibalism?
We all eat each other in some ways
Bust a nut, pass your genetics and perish. Thats it. What you do in between that is up to you.
No, social behavior has always been a party of biology. Even after you reproduce how you care for your young and your extended family has a huge impact on the species. Herd animals or anything that flocks can’t function solo. If all the adults just left after they reproduced the species wouldn’t survive. Reproduction is key for the individual, but it’s never that simple. The version you’re told in school is always a highly simplified version of the truth.
Honestly the entire idea that the only purpose of humanity is to make the next generation or support that process in some way just feels gross in a very eugenics adjacent way. If you start with that premise, it’s just too easy to conclude that anyone who isn’t working towards that end is disposable.
Evolution is just natural eugenics.
Yes, but also it’s more complicated than that. Most species die off before being grandparents, and certianly they don’t participate in the rearing of grandchildren. We specifically live long enough and have emotional connection to keep being part of a family structure past that point. It helps retain and pass on knowledge that proved valuable for us. Likewise, younger siblings are more likely to be homosexual, and it’s hypothesized this was to build redundancy into family structures. If both parents die off in a hunting accident, you have a gay aunt/uncle who can step in; much better than being an orphan.
Yes reproduction is the GOAL as far as evolution is concerened, but contributing does not require direct participation.
Is it though? Because evolution is only really concerned with a thing living long enough to reproduce. It’s not planned like eugenics would be.
That’s why there’s tons of examples of dumb as hell stuff in biology because as long as an organism is “good enough” to keep reproducing and spreading their genes that is fine and that species will continue to evolve.
Eugenics would be more like if evolution somehow could select only for specific traits and then made sure to only let things with those traits reproduce. Evolution is much messier than that.
From a biological point of view everybody is disposable
Not just humanity. That is the purpose of all living things, insofar as we can be said to have a purpose at all.
No, it’s not purpose. It’s just a process that perpetuates itself.
It’s how you make the next generation, but if that generation doesn’t have a purpose, then neither does yours, nor the act of reproduction.
I’m in the “there is no purpose,” camp. It seems like a bit of a mental disorder to me to (without any evidence) assume that oneself or one’s species isn’t just hanging around by random happenstance. Wouldn’t that simply be narcissism? People have long asked the question, “why are we here?” Yet there’s never been and never will be a definitive answer.
…well in the long view, that’s how we got here and eventually that’s all that matters: it’s a bit nihilistic but that’s the essence of nature in the cosmos…
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We did evolve grandmother’s. That was an evolutionary pressure response. Deep knowledge and long growth have lead us through doors of perception far beyond the reach of all life we have yet precieved.
Tangential nitpick—the phrase “evolutionary pressure response” evokes the idea that there is an intelligent or benevolent purpose behind the process. When a beneficial trait randomly occurs and gets passed on, that is a release from evolutionary pressure, not a response to it.
We did evolve grandmother’s.
Grandmother’s what? What’s implied by the “'s” after “grandmother”?
You probably haven’t been off reddit long, but breath easy friend, no one proofread’s around here.
Apple pie.
The entire purpose of life and evolution up to this point was to evolve grandmother’s apple pie.
How about I do something which will make life better for people who are actually alive already instead of increasing total human suffering by making new people.
Having kids can be extremely fulfilling, doesn’t increase human suffering at all. Having kids subjectively improved my life and the lives of many people adjacent to me, e.g. the lives of my family members and friends and my kids’ friends.
I don’t understand how the Internet is so anti kids, it’s pretty baffling.
You say it’s improved your life and the lives of those adjacent to you, your family members, friends, and your kids’ friends. But you haven’t said its improved your kids life. I think that’s what the OP was talking about. A being who doesn’t exist doesn’t desire to exist so making new life isn’t doing them a favor and only exposes them to harm.
Don’t project your own depression onto others, and non-existent beings.
If you think existence “only exposes [living things] to harm” and nothing else, nothing even potentially good?
If you truly believe that, I’ve got no nice way to say this: You need therapy.
I mean I’m not depressed and I love living, so I wouldn’t be projecting depression on to others.
I agree that people can experience good things as well as harmful things, but it’s not a risk worth taking. Giving birth is gambling with human life. You never know if someones life experience is going to be overwhelmingly positive or negative, but if they are never born, that’s not even an issue to worry about.
I don’t understand how the Internet is so anti kids, it’s pretty baffling.
Because people who are chronically online are chronically online because they had shitty childhoods which gave them chronic depression. Thus they associate the creation of children with the creation of suffering.
Source: me
Virtually every sentient life experiences a non-zero amount of suffering. Progeny that doesn’t exist categorically doesn’t suffer; progeny that does exist is virtually certain to suffer to some degree. The hedonist argument that progeny may get to experience some joy falls apart because progeny that doesn’t exist categorically doesn’t experience any lack of joy (i.e. that would-be joy is not mourned by that which does not exist).
Ensuring the certainty of the sum total of suffering in another person’s life just for one’s own self-fulfillment is incredibly selfish. Procreation is a cycle of blithe selfishness that perpetuates universal suffering and is at best wrought by apathy for others’ suffering and at worst wrought by enthusiasm for others’ suffering.
I’m anti-kid because I didn’t consent to the sentience that I have experienced and I have the empathy to want others not to suffer.
I’m anti-kid because I didn’t consent to the sentience that I have experienced and I have the empathy to want others not to suffer.
Maybe you should find the empathy to see that your experience is not everyone’s experience, then?
Refer to the first sentence of my comment.
Non 0 amount of suffering is a meaningless statement.
Sure, life is imperfect, but is that really a reason to espouse something as radical as nonexistence? I find that the imperfection and thereby dualism of existence is part of what makes it beautiful; we get to experience both the good and the bad, pleasure and pain.
I guess in some sense what I understand you’re saying is that to you, being thrust into the pain inherent of becoming and being alive, is the consequence of a bad moral or ethical (selfish) action and therefore wrong even if the children are able to adapt, because there is always more potential suffering throughout the course of a life. I get that, I think most of us would love to be in situations where we could have no-suffering-guarantees for our children.
Maybe the point of friction is that it seems to me like you believe that there should be no suffering at all for it to be ethically permissible to have children (lest it be selfish) while many of us believe that the “base level” of suffering inherent to life (eg. death of parents, the setbacks of infancy, social interaction, etc.) is permissible, and it then falls on us as parents to make sure that there is no or as little additional or unnecessary suffering as possible by means of safe environment, education and tools to cope and overcome so that what could potentially be suffering doesn’t become so. When it comes to that I believe it to be more reasonable to discuss who ought and who oughtn’t be a parent than whether it’s ethical or not to have kids.
When it comes to that I believe it to be more reasonable to discuss who ought and who oughtn’t be a parent than whether it’s ethical or not to have kids.
Eugenics is not going to reduce suffering in the world.
Human suffering is caused in part by overpopulation (as is the suffering of all creatures - we are invasive, destructive and afflicted with a superiority complex) and in part by religious indoctrination, so while you procreate, as long as you don’t force offspring into a single and restrictive belief system, I suppose it’s okay, and all the best to you.
Come on, it’s worth it but it certainly brings a lot of suffering that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Telling my teenager that he needs to shower 5x, every day that he does sports, is suffering for both me and him.
That’s the philosophy group to the left
If reincarnation were real, I’d hope that people who think the meaning of life entails procreation end up getting stuck as mayflies forever
Wait, where do I recognise her from, I’m sure I’ve seen her face before
Somewhere in your area is a doorway. Please walk through that, and do not return. Thank you.
uWu
asking for a friend I see
Pynchon from Gravity’s Rainbow:
“Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as a spectacle, as a diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled “black” by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks, continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hersey bars.”
I struggle to read these days and I couldnt get through gravity’s rainbow. Worth a read? Should I get the audiobook?
It’s one of the more difficult books to get through frankly but it is rewarding. The thing to appreciate when attempting it is that mid-30s Pynchon was inventing his own English grammar. Some sentences are a full page long and it will challenge your memory. So the best approach I think is to just let it wash over you. After a while your mind adapts. You’ll miss a ton the first time through and that is OK. I think I had to start it three times before I eventually got through it and I was younger then. I have reread it a few times since, once with a companion book that annotated each chapter and offered commentary on the book’s structure which is actually impressively plotted. But don’t let it intimidate. Just let it wash over you and enjoy the funny parts. There are a lot of funny parts. The audiobook route sounds less fatiguing. Fickt nicht mit dem Raketemensch!
The thing to appreciate when attempting it is that mid-30s Pynchon was inventing his own English grammar. Some sentences are a full page long and it will challenge your memory.
He always seemed like a more modern take on James Joyce or something (coming from someone who’s never read Pynchon)
They’re similarly complex for sure. Even encyclopedic.
…god wants dollars, god wants cents, god want pounds, shillings, and pence; god wants guilders, god wants kroner, god wants swiss francs and god wants french francs; god wants escudos, god wants pesetas, don’t send lira, god don’t want small potatoes…
I’ve read nothing by Pynchon, so I have no real context… Is this meant to be in his voice? Or is this a character in the novel speaking? Thx
Its been years so I dont specifically recall. My guess is that it is the voice of a sort of omniscient narrator. It does seem to be a stand-in for Pynchon’s perspective to some extent. It’s such an exuberant novel. There is definitely a sense I recall that this (at the time) young man was stretching to the limit of his prodigious ability and wanted to show that ability off.
It wasn’t until I got to the cigarettes and cunts as currency that I realized this was not a particularly hardcore monologue from Gravity Falls, a popular show I had not watched, but Gravity’s Rainbow. Great excerpt though.
So who is that on the right
Ok, so who’s that on the left?
The skeleton? Well, that would be me. I am a bit underweight.
Seconding, source (NSFW) is an onlyfans post on 2022-05-24 titled wish it was u? ;D
Saved this for later
No clue. Saved it to my meme folder back when I was on Reddit and decided to put it up here to keep the community going.
Thank you for your service
Someone about to be strangled by a ghost’s hand.
