Nihilism: Are We Missing the Point? 

Loved it! 🙌

I think there was an overabundance of pop culture clips, could have used more content. Otherwise a great idea.

I dig this format, more on the response to nihilism in the 20th and 21st century in media, philosophy, psychology please

Thanks for making this!

Loved it.

Same, then the "calamity" happened. My cynicism and fear were replaced by conviction and anger.

Samesies

An important, indispensable, and deeply cringe part of my development as a human being at 14

Was an angry nihilist atheist on and off for a while, but the last year changed all that.

Me too!! Still atheist though 🤣

Seriously, thank you! And hopefully we can more!

YES. 1000x YES!

@@cuppiesaur THANK YOU!

I deeply enjoyed it as well. It was the philosophy that attracted me here in the first place. Philosophy allows you to not just analyze the reflection of the world that is media but, unlike other channels, analyze the world itself.

Absolutely keep this going!

Thanks Mitch!

Atheism is the hubris of man believing they have all the answers to things that aren't supposed to be understood

Thanks! Hopefully we can!

@@WisecrackEDU Please do! I'd love to see you guys summarize not just the big names/schools but also explore the newest developments! Some Ideas: a mini-series on all the different developments of "punk" from just punk to steam/diesel/retro punk styles to cyberpunk to solarpunk and whatever else is going on Michael's book is on Kierkegaard, right? Why not turn that into a series for the illiterate masses? 😅 What if there was a collection breaking down the Greek cannon? I know they're all kind of interrelated but about all I can ever remember is that So-crates hung out with Playdough Why not delve into series on eastern philosophy, native philosophy, african philosophy!? Go crazy and do something on logic or go all out and just start preaching socialism outright :D

Some of us have wanted more philosophy and less memes for a while now...

Agreed ✋

I’m surprised though… the way he describes nihilism and how it developed makes nihilism seem very one dimensional… like it’s just a perspective rather than something we could go about testing and proving.

@@br3nto The definition is what you make it to be. And that is inherently multidimentional. YOU just simply don't know what to do with the message so you think it's one-dimentional.

@@deep_fried_analysis the definition is quite well defined… I think the vid describes it one dimensionally because it focusses so much on what it means to live in a world without inherent meaning or value and I think describes the struggles that many philosophers faced with relearning or integrating this back into their previous foundational knowledge… so much time spent on rethinking what already was… I think they were so focussed on the aspect of lack of inherent meaning and value that they failed to see perhaps how everything we see and experience is built on top of nihilism. Nihilism isn’t someone choosing to continue with the lie of life after they see it’s meaningless… no, everything everyone does is because of nihilism… much of science is the search into the nothingness to see beyond what we currently know… religion is the exact same thing, just a different tale on it… both are fuelled by the idea that something is in or beyond the nothingness, but the more we look, the nothingness recedes and we find more stuff, more detail, more complexity… everything is fuelled by nihilism… it leads to concepts of contract theory and group theory and game theory and it doesn’t just apply to humans, it applies to everything… so yeah, what was portrayed in the video was one dimensional… I wanted to see more dimensions. The concept of no inherent meaning or value and how we deal with that isn’t the interesting part of nihilism… it’s just the beginning… the questions why is there no inherent value or meaning and how and why does culture and art and value and meaning and politics and interaction exist in a world without inherent meaning or value? It also logically proves that epistemological nihilism and similar concepts are just wrong. Those are a few of the interesting philosophical questions and topics about nihilism.

don't look to wisecrack for the answer, they have no idea. they didn't even mention a single nihilist writer, terrorist, or other figure, in the video. the video just talks about other writers, like nietzsche, who also misunderstood the term. the nihilist movement was around before nietzsche, and evolved independently from him, and still exists today. nothing in this video touched on anything related to ACTUAL nihilism. in short; nihilism is opposition to all forms of hierarchy, authority, and oppression. it rejects governance, religion, capitalism, morality, and any repressive concepts like duty, purpose, etc. if you want to know about actual nihilism, look to the writings of Renzo Novatore, Enzo Martucci, Aragorn, maybe even Bob Black (tho no one likes him anymore)...

The RU-vid universe cross over I never expected lmao

I agree with you.

Thanks a ton!

That's a great idea, and I think there's probably a few videos that could be made about different ways we construct meaning.

@@WisecrackEDU Glad to hear it, I’d enjoy it! And hopefully others too. You guys do really important work, thank you :)

Both great ideas.

Agreed

@@MsAngieNightmare Here here. Cynicism has been my growing pet philosophical enthusiasm for a while, i love simply stating the idea that rich people are being shitty by staying rich. Still and all, i'd love a primer to help me be less wrong about it.

Stoicism is what keeps me sane in this world. Marcus Aurelias is a great inspiration to me a man with absolutely power but till just a man.

@@WisecrackEDU DO MORE OF THIS LOVED IT

Thanks for the feedback Greg. And also thanks for feeding the algorithm machine.

I second the mixed format idea. It's good to explain the core ideas behind topics like this.

Thanks a ton Jaime. Hopefully we can get some more videos like this in the pipeline.

Yeah is Earthling Cinema not returning back?

Can you tell me what do you mean by ego death ?

@@baptistefiume2294 great point, that term gets used a lot and it means something different to everyone. The best description I have seen that matches the experience is Level 4 "Unity and interconnectedness" on the PsychonautWiki. It was a progression from 1, 2, 3, and eventually a merging with all known reality, oneness with all existent things. Impossible to describe in words, truly sorry.

Mushrooms do that, I won't lie 😅

Iirc Nietzsche viewed (parts of) Buddhism as nihilistic? At least Gertz brings this up in his other book "Nihilism and Technology"

I also explained to my mother who is a member of a religion based out of Utah (gee, I wonder what religion that could be!?) That I'm not taking the easy way out by claiming to be an atheist because that means evil people will live good lives and never get justice, that good people will never get what they deserve. That if I am alone I truly am alone. I am still trying to transition from passive nihilism to active nihilism.

I might be baptized but kid me still only saw that as a cold bath. There's tons of rebar out there if you need an iron rod!

It was so hard because you need to stop looking at p*rn sinner!!! ;)

nerd

You were never the author of anything except your own hubris. That said I'm sympathetic. When someone leaves one extreme they often go to the other, even if that other extreme is equally unhealthy. the supreme virtue in life is balance and harmony.

This is very interesting. If we are primed to seek meaning in our lives, we are ultimately limiting ourselves to making decisions we feel lead us to finding/fulfilling meaning. Does our search for meaning make us more human or actually make it more difficult for us to be human? My reference point here is our housecat who - as far as I know - has no desire to find meaning in his life and has achieved ultimate freedom

Ultimately if it is meaningful to you at the moment, does it matter?

why do you need meaning to be objective? that's kinda fascist-pilled

@@ayou055 Since subjective meaning is as much as I have ever experienced, no, it does not matter. It's just that part of me finds that unsatisfying. A delusion could be subjectively meaningful or, equivalently, my subjective tastes could change down the road and seemingly retroactively rob me a satisfaction. That being said, I don't know that there is an alternative, I just know that I wish there were a more objective meaning. The good news is that if nothing matters then my existential crisis will also amount to nothing, and so I don't find any reason to stress over it. It's just a fly in the soup.

​@Kurt I think your hangup on this is mostly three things. I say this assuming you're similar to me and based off my own experience. First is that you're emotionally attached to an idea of a thing that's not real. Objective meaning doesn't just not exist. It can't exist. There is no such thing as meaning without a subject to create it. The thing is, we want ideals of things that don't exist all the time. It's just like being in love with who you think someone is when they aren't really that person. Your idea of that person not only doesn't exist, it was never going to, and could never actually have existed. At some point you realize this and, not to put it too lightly, you get over it. I think the second thing is that you may see yourself as more separate from everything else in reality than you really are. We are no more separate from the whole of the universe as a wave is separate from the ocean. Therefore, the universe objectively has meaning, because you make that. The fact that you are the universe with meaning is objectively true. And the third thing is that you assume an objective truth would not change and so meaning rooted in the fundamental nature of the universe also wouldn't change. This makes you feel that your meaning is somehow not real enough. However, the universe is in constant change. If the universe constantly changes then how could you assume that meaning wouldn't? Maybe I'm just some crazy ranting in the desert, but I hope something helped. :)

Hopefully we can!

hedonism?

@@devvyas6751 based hedonism

maximize pleasure; minimize suffering

Thanks - we really appreciate you digging this.

Thanks Moni!

Thank you!

@@WisecrackEDU no thank you guys seriously! Been watching for years and it hurts the podcasts are gone but i try to be there every thursday and im definitely there every video drop keep it up !

Thanks a ton Brett!

@@WisecrackEDU 😎👉👉

Ha, true. But still, we want to make videos that the Julias of the world are also very stoked about!!

It's all I think about. Everywhere I look, the food i eat, the entertainment i watch, the clothes i wear, i think I am just a cog to work and buy shit for my corporate overlords.

Vibes. I write stories or RU-vid essays, play games, see nature, watch good film. It's a vibe.

Meh.. whatever. Not like it matters anyway. 😂

​@@Badacoo damnit that's funny.