>Read Conspiracy against the human race
>Nihilism
>Sounds like me in high school before zoloft
>Put the book down and realize that if I enjoy my life and maintain a social circle that appreciates my presence and contributions
Why doesn't Thomas take medication?
>>6400452
>taking medication to hide from reality
>>6400452
He does take his medication, it's just worn its effects because he's old and a drug addict.
>>6400456
But the reality of my life at least is pretty damn swell. Good job. Good friends. Good family.
Was there something that happened to Thomas to make him hate life? Someone he know die?
I mean there's so much a person can do to be useful and give their life meaning. I read to kids at the library. I work at a soup kitchen. Sure these things won't last and I'll die and everyone will die and the universe will die. But why do things have to be permanent to have value?
I love the impermanent things of my life. I'd never give them up.
>>6400477
2deep4me
>>6400477
>I love the impermanent things
>I'd never
>impermanent
>never
Not that I believe in nihilism though. Motion requires meaning, and motion is eternal.
>>6400477
I feel that even in a world with a God and souls and an afterlife Ligotti would still be a nihilist. Some people just don't like living. You admit that life has value and suddenly you have obligations and responsibilities to use that life in a productive way.
Nihilism is the -out-. "I don't have to work because it doesn't matter" Its why so many first world kids like it so much.
You don't find a Nihilist in Sub-Saharan Africa for instance. They're too busy trying to live to bitch. It's all well-fed white kids.
You mentioned earlier that a bad drug-related experience was a forecast of your anxiety-panic disorder. Do you think your drug use precipitated the onset of your panic/anxiety disorder and depression?
That’s possible. Then again, there’s a definite history in my family of these conditions.
http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=420
Good thing he's antinatalist. I wouldn't want genes that could give me a life like his.
Why do people get their philosophy from a guy with mental sickness? Shouldn't you have a clean bill of health before you start talking about life?
>>6400477
reading his books probably helped some people who already felt the same way
>>6400602
I'm not sure what you're saying anon...
>>6400520
>Am I supposed to care that life requires effort on the part of the living to justify itself?
Your shallow demands for the passive and agreeable are born from a shallow appreciation of life.
Most people in the West are like you. Secularist types who crave this illusory bourgeois notion of "security" because they've become comfortable with their materialist complacency and lost the ability to accept suffering and live alongside it.
They only live half of life because they find the other half distasteful.
![Thomas-Ligotti-2[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/XsmC9s2.jpg "Thomas-Ligotti-2[1].jpg")
>>6400477
pssh... nothin personnel.. kid
Fuck medication. If he truly believes life has no meaning, who are you to suggest he take pills to get away from that? It wouldn't really 'cure' him, just numb the pain.
I should say that I do NOT subscribe to Ligotti's beliefs. In fact, I am a Christian. I believe that God created the world and filled it with meaning, and that the end of life is only a gateway to an even greater existence. But in that vein I believe that one should not try to run away from what one sees as the truth about life.
If Ligotti did what you suggest, wouldn't he just be conforming to the life described in >>6400640 ? And if so, what kind of life is that? Better to feel pain, to suffer, to feel as though a massive microscope of nonexistence and futility is gleaming down on you, than to simply be meek and quiet. Better to shout feebly into the night than to make no noise at all.
>>6400640
Well, I'm not sure exactly what you are anon. But atleast you don't sound like a nihilist, so there's that!
I don't see how me expecting life to give me responsibilities and obligations means I have a shallow appreciation for life.
>>6400663
There's feeling pain and then there's unbalanced brain chemistry that prevents you from functioning and forming meaningful relationships to other people.
Taking the pill means taking the challenge of having a social existance beyond yourself and being accountable to other people.
>>6400630
Thomas Ligotti is one of the better horror writers out there. I mean, his writing has major flaws, like pushing his nihilist and antinatalist ideologies in the text, but he is usually competent in writing a good horror story that leaves one unnerved. However, his philosophy seems nothing more than a rehashing of E.M Ciorans' own take on nihilism; Ligotti's nihilism seems facetious in light of better writers who tackle the subject of meaninglessness.
>>6400674
I can agree to an extent, but there's something to be said for a philosophical approach to depression PROVIDED that you recognize from the outset that you can't cure it. Because really, medication doesn't cure it either.
Or maybe the best option is to combine medication with philosophy. I don't know. I just feel like running from despair, retreating into medication, isn't the answer. Time after time I see it only make people more miserable in the long run.
>>6400674
Basically what I'm saying is not taking the pill is like voluntary autism. It's shutting yourself in a small painful box of self-satisfaction. "I feel pain but it's okay because by liking my pain I exert some sort of autonomy over it."
>>6400674
>Taking the pill means taking the challenge
You're a witless dilettante who only likes to play pretend at asking himself difficult questions.
Go and live your agreeable life with your passive concerns. Seriously. Just go.
>>6400707
I ask the difficult questions. You just don't like that I have answers that don't agree with you.
Sometimes mental sickness isn't a badass mark of distinction. Sometimes its an actual disease that needs mediation.
Sense when did philosophy became a dick measuring contest of who can feel the most pain?
![41n0bSC941L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/RgfFbwf.jpg "41n0bSC941L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_[1].jpg")
Is there anything nerdier than combining speculative realism and antinatalism with weird fiction?
>>6400452
>people thinking Ligotti's wrote a good essay
His book is lame for any philosophical or pessmist standard. Just a compilation of what other people thought.
>>6400726
Man, Lovecraft was played out back in the thirties. When can this hipster weird ficiton nihilism do its duty and shoot itself in the head?
>>6400724
That's right.
Paint over everything with a nice glossy bourgeois sheen of security.
Take the pill. Take the challenge.
>>6400738
I was more in security before I took Zoloft and got a social life. I didn't have to worry about keeping appointments. I didn't have to worry about meeting new people. I didn't have to worry about -doing- anything. Life felt meaningless and I felt a smug satisfaction at imagining I was superior to everyone else that actually got outside and did things.
>>6400738
wow dude yr pain is so authentic! you really let nothing get past you!
>>6400752
>I try hard to be nonchalant in pessimism threads
You've probably given up asking yourself why you do this, haven't you?
>>6400785
Why would you assume that anon? Maybe he just has a point about other anon acting 2cool4school.
Ligotti, like many extreme Buddhist philosophers, starts from the position that life is an agonizing, heartbreaking grave-bound veil of tears. This seems to be a somewhat hyperbolic view of human life; as far as I can see most of us round here muddle through ignoring death until it comes in close and life’s mostly all right with just enough significant episodes of sheer joy and connection and just enough sh-tty episodes of pain or fear. The notion that the whole span of our lives is no more than some dreadful rehearsal for hell may resonate with the deeply sensitive among us but by and large life is pretty okay generally for most of us. And for some, especially in the developed countries, “okay” equals luxurious.
To focus on the moments of pain and fear we all experience and then to pretend they represent the totality of our conscious experience seems to me a little effete and indulgent.
Most people don’t get to be born at all, ever. To see in that radiant impossibility only pointlessness, to see our experience as malignantly useless, as Ligotti does, seems to me a bit camp.
http://www.blastr.com/2014-9-12/grant-morrisons-big-talk-getting-deep-writer-annihilator-multiversity
It's got to suck to get called out by the guy that writes Batman.
>>6400804
>other anon acting 2cool4school
Just fuck off to Reddit already there are plenty of agreeable milquetoast circlejerks there you'll feel right at home.
>>6400841
I don't go to your boogeyman Reddit. And as for circlejerks I think you're being cranky that this isn't one for zero-accountability philosophy.
It's too late anon. The idea of meaning and significance is already planted in your head.
I take antidepressants and antipsychotics. I fully agree with Ligotti's nihilism and antinatalism. If I could end it all right now I would. Right now I'm just biding my time till I get some heroin so I can go out painlessly. Life sucks. Consciousness is a disease. The modern world is twisted beyond all belief. Man was not meant to leave the wilderness. I have a loving family. I have funny and sympathetic friends. I go to school and work. But none of that matters. None of that matters because I am fucked up. I am worthless. I am crazy. I am useless. I've done every drug and nothing has ever changed my views. Even DMT was just pretty colors and short-lived euphoria. Weed and booze and cigarettes are how I self-medicate these days and I take comfort in the fact that they're slowly killing me. If God is real I wouldn't blame him for sending me to hell. I just hope reincarnation isn't a thing. Or if it is, I hope I'm not so fucked up next time. But don't listen to me, I'm just a mentally ill druggie.
>>6400875
Anon, if you're for real, don't. There's too much in for the world for you to do to just abandon yourself like that.
>why isn't everyone me?
i've taken medication and it doesn't help. stop thinking that things that help for you help for everyone.
>>6400875
Your family loves you. That's not useless.
>>6400838
Ligotti should have gambled a stamp.
>>6400875
You need to gamble a stamp as well.
>control+f
>search "The Sickness unto Death"
>no results
This board is too plebbity
>>6400956
>Kirkegard
But speculative realists hate him right?
...Or am I wrong?
>>6400854
>zero-accountability philosophy
It is TOTAL accountability.
Not some anaemic diminishing of yourself to simply be more socially complacent.
THAT is zero-accountability.
>>6400838
>Most people don’t get to be born at all
This doesn't make sense, it's like saying 'Most paintings are never even painted'
>>6400969
>Not some anemic diminishing of yourself to simply be more socially complacent
Having a life and responsibilities is zero-accountability? How?
Exploring how others see me and depend on me diminishes me? If anything it expands and develops who I am as an individual.
Why is helping people and being useful "socially complacent" to you? As if I was some kind of worker bee done.
How is a philosophy where it's better to never exist accountable to anything? It admits no value to life and thus no obligation to living.
>>6400838
>life’s mostly all right with just enough significant episodes of sheer joy and connection
i don't think they're just enough at all
>>6400985
Not much for poetry are you?
Out of all possible humans you have -this-humanity. You don't find anything poignant about that anon?
>>6401006
Better go find some joy and connection anon.
It's there.
>>6400896
i don't even have depression and i think antinatalism is legit
>>6401015
There's actually only one humanity. Poignantness dispelled.
>>6401019
Why? My life was great. Totally want to create another little guy like me so he can have a great life.
>>6401017
It's not worth the trade is what i'm saying
i'm not suicidal so i'll still go over it like everyone else, but I can see it's not worth it
why is this one guy just bragging about his great life? you're not convincing anyone to not be depressed by saying how superior you are.
>>6401001
>smirky_meme_egoist.jpg
u r 2spooky4me
>>6401022
>Why?
because it's not up to me to create someone that didn't exist. that's making a decision on someone else's account, and a very big one at that. if the person that i create suffers that is my responsibility and i positively don't want that on my hands.
>>6401030
So your plan is to mock until you understand?
>>6401031
>That is my responsibility
What is parenting?
>>6401027
Well geeze guys, how can I make you feel better?
I mean what, do you want me to tell you my life has no value and its all meaningless? Would that make you guys feel better? Is that what this whole True Detective Nihilism thing is about, guys with unfortunate lives getting off on others feeling their pain?
How can I help you guys when you don't want to help anyone, not even yourselves?
>>6401042
Ah, yes, parenting, my other chance to ruin a person's life besides creating such life to begin with.
What happens if I fuck it up? I go to the guy, all grown up and fucked up and say "well son, my bad I guess, but you know, it was out of love and life is good"?
>>6401050
>Well geeze guys, how can I make you feel better?
did you try throwing pills at them
>>6401050
>I mean what, do you want me to tell you my life has no value and its all meaningless? Would that make you guys feel better? Is that what this whole True Detective Nihilism thing is about, guys with unfortunate lives getting off on others feeling their pain?
who told you you had to weigh in at all? depression is too complex a thing to discuss in such a simplistic way as you;re doing here, and it's certainly not helped by you being a condescending little cunt..
>>6401055
Well that depends if you have the skills and resources to be a parent.
I have a dependable wife. We're both homeowners with college degrees and inheritance.
I can understand not taking the risk if you aren't capable of it. Then it's just good sense.
>>6400477
>my life, my life, my life
let's think outside of your life for just a bit. I know it's pretty fucking awesome, but just for a moment, think about other lives in this world.
>>6400477
>Was there something that happened to Thomas to make him hate life?
I recall reading somewhere that he had a particularly intense bad acid trip in his early 20s that more or less single-handedly shaped his entire worldview.
He's also agoraphobic with a whole slew of anxiety issues, which probably doesn't help.
>>6400690
>calling nihilist and antinatalist ideologies "major flaws"
laughinggirls.jpg
Also, just because someone (Cioran, who's writings are indeed a beautiful take on nihilism) has already written about a subject, doesn't mean it's suddenly off-limits for a new writer to give his point of view on the subject. You've even said he is "one of the better horror writers out there." Instead of comparing him (unfairly, in my opinion) to Cioran and "nothing more than a rehashing", maybe try to read him for his own words and see if there's anything to take from it.
>>6401064
But you can't know if you have the skills to be a parent. Having a child is by definition a life changing experience, it literally changes the way you think even about your very self. Nobody can know how that is like before having experienced it, and therefore they can't know how they're gonna react to the various issues parenting poses.
>>6401065
>think about other lives in this world
I do. Soup kitchen and libraries. My girlfriend tutors college kids in math.
My life is wound up in other people's lives when before I just stayed at home. People WANT to talk to me.
>>6401090
What would you have said?
>>6400838
>“Meaning” to me is equivalent to “Magic.” The more significance we bring to things, even to the smallest and least important things, the more special, the more “magical” they seem to become
>called out
HAHAHA, OH WOW. Yeah, he really got blown the fuck out there!!!
>>6401086
so you're very keen on elaborating on your life but everyone else's ITT are reduced "lel just take some meds and you'll be cool like me"
if you were really doing those things for the benefit of others you wouldn't feel the need to brag about it, you would be satisfied simply that you're helping others. instead you're wrapped up in the trendy middle class vanity that comes from volunteer work.
>>6401115
>brag about it
Just wanted to show that it's possible to meaningfully help other people anon.
>>6401050
>Feel better, everyone! Life is amazing! I love my life, its so awesome! Go out there and find a good life! Believe it! Hope! Push that rock!
10/10 bait, got me to reply, A+
>>6401081
Everyone does it badly. With all the experience and knowledge and education in the world, we have still not figured out a method of parenting well, so we do it with varying degrees of badness.
>>6401095
I wouldn't have
>>6401138
What's wrong with telling people to make something of their lives?
>>6401086
again, stop thinking about your rad fucking life.
I was talking about the endless waves of suffering experienced by other lives across this world, occurring years before you were born, occurring this very instant, and continuing to occur years after you're dead.
Wait, let me guess- just go take a few pills bro and find that kite to fly! Life is epic!
![Drawing-a-line---Alan-Moo-010[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/bHJTOUF.jpg "Drawing-a-line---Alan-Moo-010[1].jpg")
>>6401106
grant morrison is an ok writer who has a reputation of being a super fantastic writer because people who read comics aren't used to reading actual stories. so what's happened is that an actual fantastic writer came around with tomfoolery and grant decided that he wanted in on that. so now we have grant morrison talking about MAGIC, and it's, like, the kind of magic gypsies try to rob money from dumbasses with. an actual ritual of morrison magic involves "writing what you desire on a piece of paper, then take the word apart and rebuild it to make a sigil". according to grant morrison if you do this what you wish for will come true.
I guess it could be worse, Jodorowsky is too an excellent writer and he actively makes pay-to-attend conferences to swindle neopagans and burnt out hippies of their cash.
anyways i really don't see the big argument in "hur hur i see meaning", even without the magic silliness.
>>6401146
>Everyone does it badly.
the more reason not to do it
>>6401106
>Not creating your own significance
>Not practicing chaos magik
Or look at it this way.
>Thomas
Reclusive horror writer
Drug addict
Major psychological problems
>Grant
Flew out a microlight
Has a family
Travels around the world
Got high in Tibet
All-Star Superman literally saved lives
I think we know who lives the better life.
>>6401181
lel, fair enough
>>6401161
>endless waves of suffering
And truly you are noble for taking them all upon your shoulders and judging the suffers (not one of which you know by name) as so utterly irrecoverably wretched that it would have been better if they never existed.
Believe it or not people that suffer even the worst hardships try to press on with their lives. It's called living. You should try it sometime you lazy ingrate.
>>6401165
>What you wish for will come true
That's like saying Nihilism advocates suicide.
>>6401181
Jesus...I guess you do end up what you create.
>>6401202
>Believe it or not people that suffer even the worst hardships try to press on with their lives. It's called living.
Yes. They have the courage to live alongside their suffering. You're right. That is called living.
And then there are dehumanising pill-pushers like you.
>>6401181
>Thomas
Writes masterful weird fiction
>Grant
Writes Reddit-tier comic books
>>6401202
>so utterly irrecoverably wretched that it would have been better if they never existed.
yes, precisely (as Cioran and Thomas would argue)
>Believe it or not people that suffer even the worst hardships try to press on with their lives.
Some do, some dont, some dont have the capacity to consider their options or much less fully realize them.
>It's called living. You should try it sometime you lazy ingrate.
Well, I think I'm currently alive right now, but I certainly don't have to take medication and try to deceive myself that life is tubular and groovy.
>>6401205
Well, thats what he says.
>>6401232
>Some do, some don't
Exactly. So why do you press the joys of non-existence on the ones that find meaning in existence? It's certainly not for you to decide for them.
>Think I'm currently alive right now
Shouldn't you consider yourself already dead like Ray Brassier?
>Deceive myself
You Nihilist have this annoying habit of insisting that everyone but you is just deluded. How is correcting a chemical imbalance of the brain equate to deluding oneself about the hard facts of life? Doesn't Brassier talk about accepting the "soul" as the result of chemical processes? What's wrong with exploiting that?
>>6401202
it's amazing that someone who is continually promoting pills thinks that he's also speaking on behalf of "living". in a thread of pessimist downers you come across as the most confused one here. quite the achievement.
>>6401237
>Being this surface
>>6401228
>Weird Fiction
>Ever masterful
It was always too rococo and overdone. Best to stick with its predecessors like Lord Dunsany and Poe.
You know Ligotti isn't a --
Oh, whatever.
>>6401256
Why are you so afraid of pills? Do vaccines scare you this bad? Even Ligotti was pro-psycho drugs.
>>6401228
>New Adventures of Hitler
>The Invisibles
>Animal Man
>Doom Patrol
>All Star Superman
>Flex Mentallum
>Arkham Asylum
>reddit-tier
how does it feel to be a contrarian edgemeister? I bet you're dying to accuse me of only reading mainstream capes while desperately clutching to your Brendan Graham and recoloured copy of L'Incal, but I can assure you it's not the case :^)
>>6401279
The only good one is Animal Man
That's only because I myself like anything living other than human beings
>>6401279
>New Adventures of Hitler
I approve!
>No Sea Guy
I disapprove...
Daily reminder that once Morrison got sick of doing all sorts of psychedelics, banging groupies and traveling the world, he conjured a gf from the idea-world, while you're still stuck reading anti-natalist edgelord fiction
>>6401274
>Why are you so afraid of pills?
i'm not "afraid" of them. but of the two positions yours speaks to "living" less. don't talk about suffering hardships, because you reason for the exact opposite. you're all over the place and you can't even see it.
>>6401284
>living other than human beings
I think some of the cast of Doom Patrol might count. Particularly Rebis.
>>6401291
Grant may be crazy but at least its the kind of crazy that works.
How many suicide attempts did Lingotti stop?
>>6401286
Haven't got around to Sea Guy yet, was waiting for him to finish it and lost track.
Will be reading next week, as preptime for Multiversity 2
>>6401291
S...Stop having meaning anon! Stop it! Can't you see life is a pointless void and it would have been better if we were never born!
Stop it! You're just being stupid! Why can't you be as intelligent as I am!
>>6401300
He's just so charismatic, even when being a complete tool he manages to do it in a sort of charming way.
Also, Supergords is just crazy, I don't know why more people don't read it.
>>6401319
/lit/ retreats from even the faintest hint of comic books like a vampire from a cross.
>>6401314
Nice
Very strong delusion
Tell me something, does life have any intrinsic value? Do I hear a no? Well, shit.
You faggots keep crying how good meta-fiction is, Morrison is so down the rabbit hole he once made a character based off him get injected with a drug that made him see his face deformed and torn apart and eventually got a bactera infection that started to eat his cheek
>>6401332
>Life not having intrinsic value
It's time to grow up and join productive adult society anon.
>>6401344
And then got a collapsed lung.
>>6401345
"Productive adult society" means nothing to me
It just sounds like you're content being a wage slave
>>6401332
It doesn't need to have any intrinsic value.
When you keep professing nihilism and anti-natalism and all that jazz because "life has no intrinsic meaning", you don't sound like a enlightened individual, you sound like a butthurt child who got pissy once he found out the priest had lied to him and there was no big daddy in the skies.
If you wanna be a absolute relativist and deny metaphysics, spirituality and what not, do it, I do it myself most of the time, but grow a fucking pair and accept that this is as much of a subjective answer as any other and that life goes on with or without a absolute standard / rule / entity to guide things, and that people can be happy in those circumstances.
>>6401347
Yeah, King Mob took a shot to the lung as well??? Or something like that.
Thing is, he fucked King Mob up, and it turned back on him
>>6401300
>Grant may be crazy but at least its the kind of crazy that works.
You can be crazy. As long as it's a form of crazy that can benefit the passive consumer.
If it's a form of crazy that can't benefit the passive consumer then you simply aren't living properly.
Your entire position is so much bullshit.
>>6401363
>As long as it can benefit the passive consumer
That's a fun way to frame the argument! Try not putting words in peoples' mouths next time!
>Form of crazy that can't benefit the passive consumer
...You never read Grant
>>6401362
Oh, I'm not a "productive member of society" and go out of my way to do so, to the point it's sometimes more stressing to pull the shit I do than actually get a job and a life and etc., and I didn't claim you were a butthurt child, only you sounded like one.
Let me change the analogy then: You sound like the guy who claims Ulysses is shit because he couldn't understand it, yet he can't fathom other people can, because he's obviously right (despite all evidence pointing out to the contrary)
>>6401332
Nihilists aren't really living so they wouldn't know.
>>6401355
Its honestly sickening how retarded you are
Okay, for starters, anti-natalism is not a philosophy borne of the belief that life has no intrinsic meaning. Are you - are you fucking brain damaged?
Second, you honestly sound like a pretentious shithead that wants to think of himself as somebody smart but really just wants to justify being a pathetic wage slave for the rest of his life
It honestly sounds like you have tried so hard to find a way to be superior to everyone else you succeeded and as a result you sound like the most insufferable cunt
>>6401377
Oh, this, 'if you don't live muh life ur not REALLY living' bullshit, I thought you were better than this /lit/, I really do.
>>6401370
>That's a fun way to frame the argument! Try not putting words in peoples' mouths next time!
This is your exact position. You were talking about a form of crazy that "works". This is exactly what you were referring to.
Go ahead and try to refute that if you can and clarify what you meant by crazy that "works", doublespeak is fun too so you can try to save face with that for a bit if you want.
>>6401395
God, anti-natalism is the right philosophy for you.
>>6401395
"Works" as in "Inspires others to be productive and happy" not "gets money".
Not everything has to have a Marxist critique behind it anon.
>>6401379
I'm not a "wage-slave", I handle as little money as I can and I barely even discuss such questions in day to day life.
I just think you're desperate for the world to be a awful cave of destruction and despair when, as a matter of fact, most people manage to get by and still feel at least somewhat content in the end of the day.
I'm not saying anti-natalism is this or that, I'm conflating it with a bunch of other positions that seem to come with the package, a package for which I don't care.
Weirdly enough, is the absolute pessimists that behave like they're above everyone else and are insufferable cunts, the sort of people who throw hissy fits if you call them to have a beer after class.
>>6401398
>fuck I can't clarify that at all, better act flippant so it doesn't seem so obvious that I am saving face right now
As I said. Clarify what you meant by crazy that "works". If you can't then stay failing.
>>6401402
You are the exact definition of a wage slave.
You are so delusional you actually believe most people in the 21st century are happy in any meaningful way.
You are so genuinely retarded you think whatever new shallow thing people find isn't just escapism for how bad life is right now
There is honestly nothing more pathetic than some middle-class cuck bitch telling me "everythin is alright guys honestly guys please believe me". Hate that shit.
>>6401398
>God, anti-natalism is the right philosophy for you.
that a very disenfranchising attitude toward life that you have there, you should try and appreciate life more
>>6401416
There is nothing to appreciate about life. Not a single thing.
>>6401408
Not who you're replying to, but Morrison "crazy" "works" in the sense that, despite being a man very obsessed with a few themes and characters, and claiming stuff like he was abducted by penta-dimensional blobs or that writing a character being tortured made him suffer physical consequences (amongst other stuff in that line, like the time he interviewed Superman), he still manages to inspire people, I've seen at least two different reports of people claiming the same panel in All Star Superman helped them cope with their depression, reading the Invisibles helped me A LOT during my mid-teens, etc.
While you have a guy like Frank Miller, who appeared in the same era as Morrison, had similar ideas about how comics could be done and yet he's a insane /pol/poster rotting away these days.
>>6401413
>most people in the 21st century are happy
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/7/3/181.abstract
>just escapism
Some art confronts the problems of life.
>>6401413
>There is honestly nothing more pathetic than some middle-class cuck bitch telling me "everythin is alright guys honestly guys please believe me".
The worst part about this is that it's exactly the kind of false optimism that further compounds problems in society because it refuses to deal with them.
>>6401251
>So why do you press the joys of non-existence on the ones that find meaning in existence?
There's so much wrong with this accusation that I'm not even going to bother. Don't know what the fuck you're trying to do with this.
>How is correcting a chemical imbalance of the brain equate to deluding oneself about the hard facts of life?
Again, you're either purposely avoiding the argument or just don't know what you're talking about.
>>6401436
>Nihilism
>Ever dealing with problems
Seriously? I don't exactly recall you guys lobbying for change anywhere.
And no, "slowly die off" is not a solution.
>>6401448
Frankly I'm not sure what you're trying to do with this either.
>>6401413
>middle-class cuck bitch
MY SIDES!
The face of Nihilism everyone!
>>6401375
>Let me change the analogy then: You sound like the guy who claims Ulysses-
lol, how about you try again
>>6401435
Anon, are you fucking serious, a study from NINETEEN FUCKING YEARS AGO?
>>6401413
This is what I don't like about anti-natalists.
It's not enough for them to admit that they're unhappy, they need to believe that everybody else is unhappy as well so they don't feel left out.
Then when they come across genuinely happy people they assume they must be stupid or delusional and get this unwarranted sense of superiority for being not as happy as them.
It's impossible to spend too much time with people like this, but I suppose it's one way to get to sleep at night.
this is what happens when you live in a society with no myth, no ritual, and no spiritual tradition.
it becomes a schizophrenic and self-serving abortion of a society because we lose our spiritual connection with the past and the dead
>just t-t-take p-pills
fuck off
>>6401413
I'm not middle class, I don't work, I live off a government scholarship for lower class youths, and spend as little of that money as I can.
I don't think things are "all right", by no means, the world is a very cruel place, and yet, I belive this can be changed, either by organizing in small communities of like-minded individuals operating outside the scheme of the state or by ascetism or by whatever means you find interesting.
"Happiness" as a constant state of fulfilment and joy is honestly the sort of concept that means absolutely nothing to me, it's the sort of goalpost that keeps getting moved to make people more productive or spend more or whatever the interest of the momment is, but you have to be a particular kind miserable if you can't get a little joy from absolutely anything in your life.
Honestly, why even consume literature if it's the product of such a awful, twisted world? Just do a self-mummification ritual or something.
Anyway, it's not about "everything being alright", it's about how despite how shit everything is, people still manage to find comfort and happiness to not just lie down in their beds all day long waiting round to die.
And you still sound like a insufferable cunt who can't accept people managing to get by on life while you, the real bearer of truth, has to spend his days on a polynesian shadow theatre board
>>6401461
Do you really think the numbers have changed that significantly anon?
>>6401466
So you're a waste of space that is delusional, great.
Waste of space, you were a waste of my time. as well.
Do you know anything about he world outside your basement? Anything?
>>6401422
c'mon man, open up a beer and lets chillaxxx. smell this rose, take a chill pill haha :) I just gave a homeless man my lunch, isnt life beautiful??
>>6401474
Do you think nothing can change in near-two decades? Seriously?
Is this how wage slaves argue?
>>6401464
>nihilism
>I suppose it's one way to get to sleep at night.
I don't see how nihilism is the warm blanket you're making it out to be
>>6401480
No?
>>6401476
Why am I delusional? Please, explain to me. I have friends, time to pursue my passions, varied hobbies that I enjoy, a loving girlfriend and a somewhat stable family.
I get to experience new stuff, know new people and enjoy great art constantly, lately I've been able to sell some of my prints to travel and visit friends on other states, and best of all, I have enough to buy a pack of cigarettes tomorrow.
The world is awful, yes, and while I could do more to change it, I at least try every now and then. Why shouldn't I be happy?
>>6401464
>genuinely happy people
See, this is where you fucked up.
By the way, I don't assume, I know you're both stupid AND delusional from what you post.
>>6401496
GOD, you pathetic NIHILISTS. Always wanting everyone to be just as unhappy as YOU are. Cant you understand that I am HAPPY with my awesome, rad, epic life???
>>6401491
Nihilists are usually unhappy, anti-social, jobless and inconsiderate.
That being said it's still one way to live a life.
>>6401510
sometimes the mirror is hard to look at
>>6401510
Do you even notice the irony of you being sarcastic about it?
Jesus christ wageslave, you make my head hurt.
>>6401514
>Nihilists are usually unhappy, anti-social, jobless and inconsiderate.
*citation needed
>>6401518
>calls everyone wageslave
>Anon is unemployed
I think we found the problem guys!
>>6401497
I agree with you, friend! I love life! Here's a picture of my somewhat stable family too, I'd like to share it with you.
Yep, some people just have it tougher than others, but so what? I'm going to be happy and I'm going go for it!
captcha: odead
>>6401539
N...No! He can't be happy and successful! That's impossible!
>>6401518
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/16/most-people-developed-world-happy-ipsos-mori-poll
Even South Africa is in the eighties in terms of happiness.
Can't wait to hear you spin this.
man y'all nihilists just to get outside and have sex
stop being such sticks in the mud
>>6401555
>The researchers questioned 16,000 adults in the autumn of 2013: 1,000 in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, Britain and the US, and approximately 500 in Argentina, Belgium, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and Turkey.
We've got it folks, all the answers are RIGHT HERE
>>6401566
>Moving that goalpost
Well do you have a larger survey?
>>6401539
What the fuck am I supposed to do, take upon myself all suffering in the world and let me be paralyzed by fear and despair? Yeah, some people are born without legs, some people are born rich and handsome. Neither is the case for me. Suffering exists, so does happiness, great news. I'm honestly asking: what the fuck do you want me to do?
>inb4 sarcastic OH GOLY GEE NOTHIN UR LIFE SURE IS GOOD ANON
>>6401542
I'm not even successful, and don't really plan to be either
>>6401555
>Can't wait to hear you spin this.
Really? You posted an online poll from The Guardian about "happiness" and you think that you can just drop the mic now because you've spoken the final word on the state of happiness?
You really are everything that people have been saying about you ITT.
>>6401079
I wasn't calling nihilism or antinatalism major flaws; I was criticizing the need to push his ideology in his work (think Steinbeck, whose pandering and heavy-handed moralism bogs down his own work).
I am never against any writer tackling a subject simply because it's already been written about by other writers. That's fine; but I am criticizing, what I note in Ligotti, a certain posturing, if indeed it is posturing. Whether or not Ligotti truly embraces Nihilism is not the issue. When I read Ligotti, for example, I note something in the writing that seems to me Ligotti's need to get his message across bluntly and without consideration for the story, a need to get his own voice heard, which ruins the reader's confidence on the writer's authorial intent.
Take his short story "The Clown Puppet." Read the first paragraph in that story and answer honestly if that whole rant on nonsense really needs to be there. We get it, the narrator thinks existence is completely inconsequential. Underneath the blatant nihilism that Ligotti is trying to get across in a non-evocative way lies a very disturbing horror story, but the effect becomes ruined by this self-same pandering, which is reiterated at the end anyway.
This is not to say that Ligotti hasn't written gems (The Red Tower, for example, which is sublime, or many of the stories in Noctuary). I just think he should cool down the moralizing (because moralizing it is).
>>6401575
Please enlighten me on how horrible life is oh great one.
>>6401571
We want you to admit that life is meaningless, is that so hard? It's just an evident fact that needs to be acknowledged.
>>6401583
Nice online poll you detached secular wankshow.
>>6401582
>Hates Steinbeck
Hey fuck you buddy East of Eden was great.
>>6401592
What, I never said life had intrinsic meaning, I said people can find their own meanings.
I actually said I don't believe life has intrinsic meaning either, but I also said that doesn't exclude the possibility of happiness, and that people should be allowed to believe in whatever meaning they want if it helps them to get by with their lifes.
>>6401594
>Last poll
NOT CURRENT ENOUGH
>This poll
Online doesn't count
You know what? Why don't you get something showing most people are unhappy then we can talk?
>>6401600
People creating their own meaning is flawed. That's existentialism. That's old hat.
You have to acknowledge that event the attempt to find meaning is meaningless.
Also don't ever breed.
>>6401595
I don't hate Steinbeck, but let's not pretend he isn't without flaws.
>>6401606
>No absolute rule of intrinsic meaning exist
>except for this one that proves me right :^)
Hate to be the one to bring it to you, but you're suffering from a severe case of crypto-christianism
>>6401582
>When I read Ligotti, for example, I note something in the writing that seems to me Ligotti's need to get his message across bluntly and without consideration for the story, a need to get his own voice heard, which ruins the reader's confidence on the writer's authorial intent.
Ok, fair enough. But I sometimes enjoy when an artist chooses to communicate an obvious message in his art, no holds barred. Example: Godard and his films from the 70s, practically screaming in the faces of the audience. Doesn't ruin any confidence I have in the artist, if there needs to be any.
Subtlety and symbolism can be enjoyable, yes, but so can the "pandering" when done right.
That being said, I've never read Ligotti, so you probably have a point.
>>6401601
>thinks that the issues was with what kind of poll it was
No, lol. It's the fact that you'd even tried to cite a poll on happiness at all you impoverished human being.
You really are a poster boy for bourgeois naivety aren't you.
>>6401504
Really? You can tell that from a few posts by an anonymous stranger on an Egyptian belly-dancing soundboard?
Yep, totally not an assumption.
>>6401617
>People say that they're happy
>NO THEY AREN'T
Well ho do you want to measure happiness anon?
>>6401617
So would you have complained about the first one being a poll if it wasn't a decade old? You're being rather inconsistent with your complaints
>>6401600
>people should be allowed to believe in whatever meaning they want if it helps them to get by with their lifes.
"I believe that life is pure love and Shiva's golden energy flows within us all. Happiness is a kiss from the Angel's face in each sunrise given to us from Lord Unicorn the Invisible Child. Lets all hold hands and our meaning can be seen. Love life, love one, love all."
Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't be ALLOWED to believe this, but pardon me if I don't take you as an intelligent, rational, serious human being. At all.
>>6401635
>I'll have you know that The Guardian just listed the latest statistics on happiness
>"bourgeois naivety?" Whatever in the devil is that?
Get a fucking clue.
>>6401644
Who are you quoting?
>>6401647
You still haven't answered the question. Do you think they just made up the numbers? Is that it? Or are the people just so unenlightened that they only THINK they're happy?
>>6401644
>but pardon me if I don't take you as an intelligent, rational, serious human being. At all.
you're the kind of person who has trouble with creative abstraction aren't you
>>6401644
>Now I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to believe this
But isn't that exactly the other anon's view?
Nihilism =/= Pessimism
>>6401654
>Expecting a Nihilist not to be autistic
The whole thing is solipsistic depression.
>>6401644
Wait, aren't you the guy was claiming I was a insufferable cunt with a superiority complex a few posts back?
I do agree that this is dumb, but I would hardly reduce anyone to "person believes in that so he must be dumb", actually, I'm one of the guys defending Grant Morrison a few posts back, and while I think his spiritual views are absurd drivel, I can't deny the guy is intelligent and has some very interesting insights about comic books and pop culture.
Same goes for Benjamin, who I've been reading a lot lately, and his cabbalist stuff.
>>6401665
>absurd drivel
Its weird. I have a hard time pegging down how much Grant "believes". Like sometimes he's"It's really all pressing buttons to get your mind to work in new ways." But other times he's "I really did almost kill myself with King Mob guys!".
I think his views on humans "enchanting" life by creating and exploring meaning with other humans is pretty nifty. Once we really get into the science of the brain and thought it's going to be interesting to see what kind of crazy Qabballah machines we can come up with.
>>6401652
>You still haven't answered the question.
You're too mired in the technocratic to see how fundamentally disillusioning it is on a human level to cite internet polls about human happiness.
>>6401684
>technocratic
Seriously?
>>6401690
>don't use words that require me to think laterally I don't want to put too much thought into this
>can we just post more polls or something? pls
>>6401465
TLP is that you
pls come back
>>6400838
>Buddhist philosophers
Liggoti isn't a Buddhist though. He's sympathetic to it but says in the book that he just can't take it up without a concrete assurance that it will work (to bring an end to dukkha). Buddhism has an undeniable pessimist side to it, and this is not something bad. A view of life that aims to surpass the mundane view of things and to have compassion for all life cannot say that existence is rose-tinted and sweet, because it isn't. By showing a way out of the situation however the Buddhist point of view stops being pessimistic only.
Ligotti says that he's unable to subscribe to that latter part.
Also, only a very small number of Buddhists -if any- would actually describe life as "agonizing, heartbreaking grave-bound veil of tears". Did you write this because you still think dukkha means suffering only, or did you read something specific that says this?
>>6401948
>isn't a Buddhist
Close enough in some respects.
>A very small number of Buddhists
Hence "extreme"
>Did you write this
Link is there for a reason.
>Nihilism
>Not existentialism
Come on guys. It's Nihilism that values human expression and thus doesn't end up defeating itself by becoming a solipsistic wankfest.
Besides. Look at this smooth fucker. Looks like he walked straight out of a Chandler novel!
>>6401964
Oh, so it was Morrison's claim and not yours. Sorry I missed the link.
>Close enough in some respects.
That doesn't mean anything though. He thinks certain parts of Buddhism are right (in accordance to his view of things) but that's it. He will disagree with a Buddhist on the most important matter, which is that there is a way out of dukkha.
>Hence "extreme"
Who are they? Where are they?
Morrisson is a good writer. Here he is simply regurgitating the same things people have said (and are saying today) against pessimistic points of view through history. It's a typically Modern, scientism based point of view. Good for him. But he should stop talking about subjects he actually doesn't understand. Talking about Buddhism (with regards to what it says about existence) while excluding the samsaric view of life is simply a waste of time, and he flat out says that he doesn't believe in anything that comes after life.
>>6401997
I can assure you Morrisom A) is not a scientificist B) has spent quite some time with buddhism
Is it just me that feels like the speculative realist nihilist aren't...sincere? Is there something I'm not getting?
Like Thomas Brassier talks about how creating your own meaning and value is really useless and then talks about his career as a Noise musician and how art has epistemalogical value?
Isn't that creating value? Isn't that kind of cheating? Like, I can't take someone that talks about how nothing matters when their books and lectures come with a price tag. It feels inauthentic and hokey.
>>6401979
Metaphysical nihilism is the foundation of existentialism.
>>6400452
Thomas wanted to finish conditional 'if' 'then' statements, unlike you.
>>6400477
Things don't have to be permanent to have value, but impermanent things by definition have a value of >=0 at points in spacetime and idyllic value is intangible and nebulous anyway because it depends on personal perspective. Some people don't like reading to kids.
>>6404241
True, but Brassier style nihilists don't advance beyond the metaphysical nihilism except in a vague valuing of "truth" over values that are perceived to be nothing more than a "sop for the fear of nihilism".
It's as if Brassier falls back into a kind of metaphysical valuing in rejecting any human created purpose. He values the great zero over human values. Its this cloying metaphysical valuing that makes me think of Brassier as a step back rather than a step forward.
I don't get the hate toward him though. Sure he's edgy teen bait but he's useful in getting people to question values.
>>6400477
>i'm blind, therefore i refuse to believe people when hey talk about 'colors.' colors don't exist you morons
>>6404270
>but impermanent things by definition have a value of >=0 at points in spacetime
fuckin what
>>6404270
Not OP, but...
>Conditional "if then" statements
Finished them with all the praxis of a grad student paper.
>have a value
...Is your sign backward? Shouldn't it be less than zero? Again, that's valuing metaphysical nihilism over human made value.
>Personal perspective
Which he places as less than metaphysical nihilism, where as existentialists value as greater.
>Anime girl
...She's some kind of Lovecraft thing, isn't she?
Fuck. Lovecraft use to be cool.
Let me guess, Yog Sothoth?
>>6404270
>conditional 'if' 'then' statements
>impermanent things by definition have a value of >=0 at points in spacetime
And the "word salad" award goes to...
Quit talking out of your ass, try-hard; it reeks of pretentiousness. Unless you provide further explanation, neither of the remarks makes much sense.
>>6400578
>Shouldn't you have a clean bill of health before you start talking about life?
is this bait? or are u that stupid?
>>6404324
Be nice.
He mean (girls never post anime girls) that impermanent things don't have value at times when they don't exist.
Which of course brings up the metaphysical idea that the universe creates meaning and value instead of man. A cold random and moribund universe does not care-not even about not caring. Lingotti assigns a malicious value to the universe which to me seems absurd.
>>6404338
And you responded.
>>6404324
Nevermind, the weeaboo autist (mis)construed OP's "value" as "numerical value" and burped something about points in spacetime.
>>6400724
>Sometimes mental sickness isn't a badass mark of distinction.
it NEVER is. not real mental disease. we need to kill this meme (i know its not a 4chan meme, but more of a societal meme)
>>6404353
Nihilism NEEDS an objective numerical quantity to value to trump subjective value. This is why, not to discredit the view, Autistics like the movement. Autistics have trouble getting into subjective value, let alone the idea that another person can value, appreciate, and even participate in the subjective view of another.
>>6400452
>undermining a philosophy based on distended intellectualism and the natural world through qualitative emotion
just beeee urself
>>6404381
is everything we know about the happiness op talks about gaining through zoloft not a chemically induced reaction that follows the law of conservation of mass?
>>6404417
Why would it being a chemical process do anything to discredit the subjective value?
>>6404413
Not op but No value in emotions? Could you be anymore autistic?
Besides, doesn't ligotti make his coin off horror fiction? Doesn't brassier conflate trueness with the the depressive twinge of intellectual realization?
>>6404805
>Intellectualism and rationalism divorced from the subjective sphere.
Rationalism married to subjective values gives us art. And the ever-growing noosphere.
Tielliard de Chardin here, Nihilists need a hug.
