<p>Point conceded, it’s probably a evolutionary trait. </p>
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<p>I am not arguing that. But, I can name societies in those time periods who lived a happily. Liberty is the only reason for their happiness. And heck, I’m sure with the right conditioning they could be happy without liberty. </p>
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<p>I am simply stating:</p>
<ol>
<li>Life is meaningless</li>
<li>We will become extinct and all our accomplishments will be erased/forgotten</li>
<li>There’s no point in doing anything</li>
</ol>
<p>I’m living because I don’t care about the meaningfulness of a action. I don’t do everything based on the meaningfulness or rationality of it. In this case, I’m living based on emotions. I’m not claiming I have a rational reason to live.</p>
<p>“Meaningful” is defined (dictionary.com) as “full of meaning, significance, purpose or value.” What I don’t understand is how you tie together extinction with meaninglessness - achievements do not have to exist forever to be meaningful. They can be meaningful in the present - they can be significant and/or purposeful in the present. Why do you suggest that something has to last for eternity in order to have meaning? Yes, I agree with you - homo sapiens will go extinct at some point. I, however, find it ludicrous to say that it will have all been “meaningless.” Just because our species (and our species’ achivements) are not going to endure for all of eternity does not mean that each of us had no purpose or significance to ourselves and others. Because, the fact is, when we are alive, we do have meaning. Sure, that meaning won’t be around when we die, but it will still have existed, and doesn’t that make life worth living (continuing to pursue)?</p>
<p>I am not linking meaningfulness with extinction. I mentioned extinction to combat the claim about technological advancement. When I say life is meaningless, I mean there is no ‘purpose of significance to life or existence in general’. Obviously, individuals may have a reason for living. I don’t deny that. There reason may be significant to them, I don’t deny that too.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with communism is that you can’t separate practice from theory. Even a die-hard “supplyside” proponent like me agrees that “to each according to his need, from each according to his ability” (sorry if I butchered that) sounds like a pretty cool idea.</p>
<p>However, humans are greedy people. I’m greedy, and you’re greedy. We’re also lazy. It’s in our nature. Some of us are more greedy than others, but when it comes right down to it, each one of us will take care of ourselves and our loved ones first. Communism tries to pretend that this isn’t the case, but you can’t change human nature. Capitalism doesn’t try to ignore this fact; it “counts on it” By rewarding people who take risks and succeed, our whole society moves forward.</p>
<p>Of course it’s not perfect, and there is a need for some control of the process to make sure it doesn’t get outta control. But capitalism is the only economic paradigm that worked so far and is based on the way humans think and act, and that is why it’s the only choice that works in a modern world.</p>
<p>If you wanted this to purely be an “economic discussion”, you should have made it capitalism vs. socialism, not communism which deals with more political areas. But seriously, is there even a comparison? Ronald Reagan is rolling in his grave haha</p>
<p>If life is meaningless and your actions don’t matter, why not choose a plausible alternate belief system as a backup for the case that you’re wrong in believing life is meaningless? Furthermore, your idea that nothing we do matters could be used to justify your subscription to this alternate view since it either doesn’t matter or it does. Thus, you will never run into a conflict of belief systems.</p>
<p>That’s not communism. To say life is meaningless is to maintain that killing human beings and commiting wrongful acts is ok: it doesnt matter, life is meaningless anyway, right?</p>
<p>Wrong. Life is meaningful. If otherwise, than why live? Life is far from meaningless; there’s meaning all around you, you just have to look. I can’t say any more to you unless you believe in a higher deity.</p>
<p>Just because I believe life is meaningless doesn’t mean I think it’s not worthwhile or enjoyable. I’m somewhat of a nihilist but that doesn’t mean I’m about to kill people. I generally enjoy life and hope to continue doing so, but that doesn’t mean there has to be any point to it.</p>
<p>is the resolution of the question - why is there something instead of nothing - possible?</p>
<p>the world is quite complex, but also surprisingly simple, but also completely counterintuitive in a lot of ways. If there is meaning to existence, it is not what we think it is, probably, or it is probably fairly abstract so as to not even seem like a meaning, or any sort of answer to us. </p>
<p>I guess I am speculative of how something so observable can have no meaning. but we need to be clear by what constitutes meaning. really, I believe the question of “meaning” as being very irrelevant to the question of life. However, I cannot deny that I think there is “something” to life. Does something have to have an associated meaning?</p>
<p>Life is completely meaningless, and that’s not a pessimistic view point at all. Just because there’s not purpose to life doesn’t mean that there’s no reason to live. You live for yourself and for the love of life, to enjoy yourself, to be happy. There’s no reason why we’re here and even if there is, does it really matter?</p>
What do you think of atheistic existentialism?</p>