what im saying i suppose is that baudrillard was perhaps great at describing culture.

but he confused language with physics.

i had an old professor who said the postmoderns confused communication with metaphysics.

i don't believe in metaphysics.

but i do believe in entropy.

we dont want nihilism to be possible.

you have to enjoy (so you always have something)

thats why they accused him of trying to be cool.

Sadducee!

but if he decried the capitalistic shredding of values he wasn't a nihilist

i know we are often at loggerheads with this word, but to me the ultimate nihilist is the sociopath, not the boddhisattva

he said "i am a nihilist".

to me, the one who believes in values is an optimistically demented delusional fanatic who sees himself as something like a god.

a sociopath is just a person with a neurological configuration that puts him in the minority position relative to the average neurological configuration of the rest of us. therefore we interpret what he does as a divergence from our average.

if the majority were born with the sociopaths brain, it would be the minority with our brain that were treated as freaks.

now, why on earth do we all seem to think that if we dont "put" values on things we lose any kind of moral dimension? its bizarre.

-

he didnt see himself as some sort of romantic decrying the destruction of a prior state of goodness by an inhuman economic system. he simply bore witness, and wasnt fooled that the system was crushing some sort of brilliant goodness that lurked underneath it and inside of us

not "believing" in "values," but "valuing"

you know what a zen monk chants every time before starting zazen?

a fucking oath to liberate all sentient beings.

ALL OF THEM.

tell me if that's not commitment.

anyway, i need to go sleep, but i hope i can read you tomorrow.

its not commitment, its just words.

what good comes out of our impetus that we all must value the right things? thats just more chaos. thats allowing the possibility we can all be manipulated the "right" way. its not necessary.

That's possibly true!

that's true, in a way, but you realize the implications of those words, right? they're massive.


it's not that it's a must, it's that we all do it.

ironically enough, right here you're valuing: good (what good?), non-chaos (peace? order?), freedom (non-manipulation), and a kind of minimalist thrift (necessary vs. superfluous?).

earlier you said baudrillard is great, upper class academic marxists are shit.

etc.

i.e., you care.

and that's not really nihilism, is it?

to simply debunk stupid social constructs does not a nihilist make. or does it?

even diogenes, who was more radical than any professor of the last few centuries, had his own notion of virtue. i.e. he stood for something.

nihilism is a matter of degrees i suppose. the absolute nihilist would just stop breathing, no?

we can all be like humpty dumpty and decide that a word just means what we choose it to mean, but i think if we want to communicate with some clarity, "nihilism" is one of those words that have too many meanings for their own good and we have to be careful with it and put it into a specific context, e.g., "xix century russian nihilist" or "existential nihilist" or "nietzschean 'passive' nihilism", etc.

in other words, the word alone means too many things at this point to make sense casually on its own. or maybe 'glory' just means 'a nice knock-down argument', after all.

?? I find this hard to believe. Isn't crit theory is way too fragmented for generalizations?


-Read much Delillo? A lot of his stuff is Baudrillard and Jameson in fiction form. Not sure how I feel about that.

-You know what would be really fun? Pretend, for just five minutes, that Baudrillard is wrong about everything.

This is something I've been doing from time to time: pretend to believe in something I ordinarily don't. I mean, really getting into that mindset. It's not merely humoring the idea, it's a full-on psychological transformation.

It's kind of scary. "What if I don't come back?" But it's stimulating, often rewarding, intellectually rigorous, not to mention intellectually honest.

Try it. Just spend a fraction of time thinking of the ways Chomsky is utter bullshit. Or why patriotism is vital to a society. Why US foreign policy has been a force for good. Or why Christianity is the Truth. Or why Baudrillard is a fraud.

Surely you have limits no? Even if it's jut 'pretend' as you say...you don't think shit like this can drive you mad?

I don't have much difficulty adopting that mindset since its the comfortable one where you don't have to worry about all the people your state murdered, or your inevitable death. But it's not based on anything substantial, just delusions that are too flimsy to really work, so it can't save you. I don't even see how it could make you feel better, in the long term. It is not possible for me to be convinced Christianity is the "Truth" or Amerinazism is the "Truth" either because they aren't.

You don't have to think in such black and white terms anyway.

do you really think the non nihilist is NOT gonna just stop breathing either?

Madness is a possibility. But I "come back" rather easily, so maybe I don't go as deep as I should.




Kill your idols. I think that's what I meant. Or maybe I was just trying to push you into thinking originally.

everyone does eventually-- i meant voluntarily. you know, cobain one's self somehow because nothing matters.

i dont see how killing yourself is brought about by the logical conclusion that there isn't any inherent value in anything.

although maybe thinking differently robs you of the illusion that anything you do is ultimately leading anywhere but death.

and this is the last time me and you are going to back and forth on this subject.

-

also this is my thread, slavishly worship or get out all of you.

I've read Christian apologetics, right wing blogs and magazines, pro amerinazi stuff. I am familiar with most of what goes on in that scene atm. Dark Enlightenment, New Right, Libertardian, all that stuff. I'm ahead of you already. The quality of their "thought" is so poor that it's not even successful on its own terms. Not much originality either.

oh…. inherent. that's a twist in the plot. nothing has inherent value or meaning, sure. but to give nothing either value or meaning is another story. to me, the latter one is the real "nihilism." the former-- that's just obvious, no? i mean, after establishing there is no god or absolute, concluding that nothing has inherent value or meaning is just kindergarten philosophy. the real question is what to do after that.


really? i don't have that illusion. i'm very aware that i'm heading straight to the soylent green, sped up by disease and old age.


bah... killjoy!


but why so needy?

the worship part was just a token to audience participation. i'd prefer the "get out".

-

i dont give anything value or meaning either. i dont see how i can. i dont care if you do or think you do or whatever. eugh this is just circular semantic wankery.

no more please.

as for suicide, nembutal - when i have the cash i'll have a bottle of this beside me for safe keeping.

fuck all yall living ass niggas.

i think you do give value and meaning to a lot of things. that much is evident in your discourse, in spite of your claims. or to quote emerson, "what you do speaks so loudly that i can't hear what you say".

but i'm sorry to disturb your state of denial-- it is, after all, not my business.

i just needed to state my case for public record, and i'll close with that.

adios, bill.

yeah thanks for the great conversation.

don't know if you meant that sarcastically, but i honestly did enjoy it.

alright.

no i really enjoyed it man, especially the suggestion i want to kill myself and the "bill" reference. classy

You're going to overload
the internet!

it's from the pat garrett & billy the kid movie (peckinpah). it's what pat garrett says to billy the kid before he shoots him. i often say that to people, not as a sign that i'm going to shoot them but as a sort of terminal goodbye. you know, since we won't discuss this again. game over.

i also didn't say that you want to kill yourself. i said that suicide would be the logical conclusion of complete nihilism. being that life is painful, and with nothing to live for, why the fuck endure the punishment? it's an honest question i've honestly asked myself (only inasmuch as these can be "honest" questions). doesn't every thinking person have to face these questions at some point?

anyway, i actually maintain (you're making me say this again by putting the wrong words in my mouth) that you're not the nihilist that you claim to be. well, you're a "nihilist" in that you don't believe in the inherent value of anything, but what rational person does? it's like saying "i'm a rational!". well, sure. there's a label for you, just not as cool.

the fact that you a) stand up for and against things, and b) are willing to fight for something, and c) continue to struggle for survival, tell me that you're not a nihilist in the way i understand that word. but you are a nihilist in the way that you understand that word. which is why i asked for clarifications of the word. to compare definitions. but anyway, we're done talking about that, so i'll see you around.

This thread

suicide is the logical conclusion of existing at all, since all life does is die and we will inevitably go extinct.

collaborating in the production of new generations of life is the true nihilism. that is why i am a nihilist, because i dont bother to try and destroy the entire world and kill all the humans. i certainly feel like it, but im a fucking coward. so when i say im a nihilist, i am making peace with my own evil as a cog in this pointless machine that produces life for the sake of prolonging life for a while - for no reason.

i hate it and i hate the fact i was born. but you cant kill your parents before they give birth to you.

baudrillard in the agony of power is getting at something that only he seems to understand. him and some sci fi writers. but noone has yet been able to make it totally explicit.

if you look at what life does - it dies, it produces more of itself and that dies. but all its doing is dying.

look at chinese slave labourers, they can work for pennies and kill themselves slowly or they can just kill themselves. but as this process continues, the human slaves are being placed by machines.

this process is happening to animals - they are going extinct, as this happens, our technological processes coterminously develop techniques that can clone/reproduce these animals.

we back up their genome, bio data etc. so what we end up with is a world wherein animals go extinct, but we are also able to reproduce them totally with technology. but as this happens, the purpose of reproducing the animals at all is totally lost. why bother to make them, to make environments for them to reproduce and die in? its a waste of time.

the hippie scum that want to preserve them are deranged sickos, the meat eaters are just happy cannibal killers. the animals are just dying. theres no joy in any of this.

so the same process that is happening to the animals and the chinese slaves is happening to HUMANITY AS A WHOLE.

this is why baudrillard said "in the end, humanity will have been nothing but an infantile illness of an integral technological reality that is not even aware it exists".

i have a long answer to this and it's definitely not "but we must choose life!".

i have my own reasons not to kill myself, but i don't think they can be universalized and turned into a sermon, and i don't want to go into a long explanation of things that won't/wouldn't apply to others anyway. besides, i hate the confessional genre.


i think at last i can distinguish your nihilism as yours. not clearly, and i'm not really sure actually i "get" it, but i think i see some of it. it's not like i could put it into some preexisting box, so i'll need to think about it to understand it.

i'm going to read the shit out of that paragraph. i hope you don't mind.

what seems like a load of fucking sick ass horseshit to me is the aggressive obligatory demand to enjoy life, to value things, blah blah blah, be happy about it!

even when i go so far as to make people think about WHY they might be so keen to say this, they get mad.

they dont show it because its not cool. your ambition today is supposed to be to be the last man alive sneering at everyone else.

noones happy about being grinded up in this sick process. maybe the vampiric rich are. anyone who the system gives a comfortable carb flow to march around policing everyone. "be a happy nazi or prepare to face the consequences". the consequences are cruel, but cruelty with a smiling face.

meanwhile the whole sick show goes on.

i admire terrorists because they make their suicide into a weapon against others. i dont have any better ideas and there are none.

im not happy about any of this and i escaped forced SSRI zombification.

its not even possible for any of you to respond to this without personalizing it as a failing of mine. you will not be able to respond to this without mentioning ME. thats why id rather you didnt respond at all.

i have no first-hand knowledge of the gnostics, but if i recall my borges footnotes they saw the continuation of life as the greatest sin.

okay i'll have to chew on this for a while. thanks for the material.

alright.

yeah go ahead mang.

there are big holes in what im saying.

baudrillard said humanity was "disappearing". he meant this in a positive way. i think maybe its the best we can hope for.

i dont have any other ideas. if there was some perspective we could grasp on this all that could allow us to recapture the good then i'd be all for it, but i dont think there is.

thats why i am so sick and outraged and unhappy. there isnt anything good at all about any of this.

one perspective i tried was the idea that existence might be redeemed by the eventual evolution of life and the technosphere towards something that could destroy both itself and the conditions in this and every other universe for life to start again.

if that is even possible then all it does is make life sad and tragic.

i dont have any other ideas.

i wish...

i hope you don't take me for a pain in the ass using the socratic method, but when you get a chance please see if you could explain what you see/define as "good". when you say "recapture the good," do you mean it as a category of possible things, or do you mean it as an unattainable ideal? you know, like, if we could get "heaven" again. (there is no heaven but we used to have it as an ideal). or do you mean that good is possible, and if so what would it be--what would be "good"?

thats my point. there is none. or rather, what good is possible is never final.

the way i see it is like flowers. the more beautiful and healthy a flower is, the more enticing it is to infestations which will feed off it and destroy it.

you can make a good and just society to a certain extent. the nazis will shout you down until they can start a war, when its lost they'll retreat to their houses and become survivalists and dream of murdering you and stealing your shit once the state collapses.

if you aren't the most powerful country, the others are gonna invade/exploit you. you CAN go with good intentions and try for peace.

isn't that the story of america? escape the english empire, become the american empire. here's some hp lovecraft, just remember the rest of the world is like the tribespeople cuthulu eats and you'll feel better.

theres war and violence and abuse and suffering.

the good is tormenting because its possible, for a while and with certain conditions at least.

religion tried to make hetero man a mystical supernatural object of worship, since he's gonna exploit you you must be grateful. its one big truce pact with man himself.

intentionality is also supernatural. the will, the self etc. all that isn't real. fact. i wont be drawn into a "debate" about this, you can go find evidence of it or you can all be quiet. evidence of the part of the brain where we have magical pre causal access to reality before it happens.

we can all imagine a good society. fair distribution of resources, warmongers jailed. the existing warmongers and murderers locked up. instead i get my dole or work and pay my taxes so middle eastern people can be slaughtered. yay enjoyment. if i get upset about it i can just sneer or make funny gifs that turn it into a cartoon because theres no obligation to give a shit except for when you have to for the national interest/self image.

as a poor person i am basically just a machine to move coins around for this system to continue. i am destroyed and my body is harvested for addictions. i struggle not to be homeless.

its not fun.

noone wants to care anymore, because caring is just a way to dissapoint yourself. its a route to despair. so we are literally sneering at ourselves, trying to enjoy ourselves to death. its pretty sick. how can you resist?

i think its safe to say based on what neuroscience is finding out that what makes us feel good about ourselves is totally entwined with lifestyles that destroy others.

so even our own brains are immoral.

its worse than religion because in religion you can repent unless you are the devil.

IRL i think we're literally locked inside darwinian replicator machines that we can't stop.

give me enough money or carbs or whatever and i wont even feel bad about this shit anymore.

we cant even trust our own minds.