/lit/ - Literature

>>22998989
I use to think this way too, but then I found a girlfriend.

It's kinda insane how badly this book loses all hold on you once you're happy yourself.

have you ever seen someone bump their shin into a coffee table and then curse the table as if it was the one that hurt them? that's pessimism in a nutshell. and why do you read books that reinforce your own misery?

>>22999124
I don't understand why niggas say this. When I finally got a girlfriend my suicidal urges increased, simply that feeling of pleasure (probably the best of all) fades away within a week or two of the relationship. It's fucking boring, the kisses, the hugs, everything becomes boring and no matter how attractive she can be, nothing compensates for the lack of that feeling. It's disgusting, the only thing left after that feeling are simian instinct.

>>22999325
Oh, you're just broke, nigga. There's something missing inside you that normal humans have. Sorry.

>>22998989
Thankfully, mercifully, life is temporary.

>>22999331
Yes, that makes me happy, humans are the worst shit ever. If I had to choose between saving millions of humans from infinite torture or saving my cat from momentary torture (seconds).
I would choose to save my cat.

>>22999124
You do realise that you are proving the author right by saying finding a girlfriend cured your depression, right?

>>22999325
Youre meant to just become content instead of euphoric about the relationship as it develops. Sounds like your dopamine receptors are burnt out and you expect a constant high that you will never get

>>22999364
Have fun being right, I'll be over here being happy.

>>22999364
What do you think Ligotti's "argument" is that human relationships "prove right"

>>22999437
NTA, but escapism? sure, you're happy, but you haven't really solved the problem.
it's like putting your head in the sand and ignoring the real world. you being happy or content doesn't mean shit to someone in Zimbabwe that's starving to death.

>>22999437
and it's all temporary and it becomes stale anyways. we're still prisoners of this world, you just temporary made your prison less shit.

>>22999465
If the problem is human misery, how is human happiness not the solution?

>>22999469
My relationships has not become stale, it has become stable. It's still quite enjoyable for me.

Then kill yourself? It really is that simple. There is not and never will be a valid counterargument to the suggestion of embracing death for anti-natalists. If the axiom of "life is not worth living" registers as true to you, every waking moment you spend not actively pursuing that goal is indefensible.

>>22999565
What if there's hell

>>22999124
Okay buddy tell us how you feel when youre 30

>>22999582
I'm 31

>>22999584
Okay well you sound like me when I had my first real girlfriend at 18, if you really have serious existential worries they will come back sooner or later.

>>22999592
Sorry I'm not as depressed as you :(

>>22999124
You idiot. That bitch will cheat on you behind your back and turn on you at a moments notice eventually then youll be back at zero. Fuck you stupid happy cunt

>>22999576
"What if" is ultimately meaningless and not relevant here. The debate of anti-natalism boils down to the value of existence for those experiencing it. Adding in arbitrary what-if scenarios which do not affect the existence of life on Earth while one is alive is both the oldest cope and copout of both optimists and pessimists.

Hell might exist for everyone. Hell might only exist for people who DON'T kill themselves out of resentment for existence. There might be a blank void of nothingness once the energies and matter which make up your body dissipate upon death. Life while you're here is still life, and anti-natalist flaw of reason lies in their absolute revilement for said life by way of disliking specific material conditions that living beings generally and near-univerally are subject to (death, sickness, aging etc) but when examples or even hypotheticals are presented to the anti-natalist wherein such conditions might be alleviated or reduced in impact on living beings in some way? They always conveniently pivot to examples wherein something terrible happens in life (a child suffers an extraordinary misfortune, woman is raped etc) and uses this misfortune rhetorical tool in an attempt to project this misery as a universal condemnation of life (this kid got aids? it could happen to ANYONE, ergo life is bad). It's hypocritical logic. When good things happen, anti-natalists espouse corrections that this clearly isn't universal or that it has flaws. But when a negatively perceived thing occurs? These same doomer faggots jump for joy in their desperation to show off how universal and inevitable the bad thing can be.

>>22999592
Not him, but I am also 31 and in a stable committed relationship. We're going skiing tomorrow. Yes my parents are going to die in the next 10-20 years and yes my body will fail me despite my best efforts. Theres nothing I can do to not die. I've taken acid enough times to understand that energy wasted on agonizing over that could be used for activities that produce endorphins in my brain.

>>22999576
Don't be silly.

>>22999612
The book isn't about how scary dying is though, it's about how if you look at the world right it's an endless cycle of birth and death with a lot of pain and suffering for seemingly no reason. In the books perspective you would suffer more (existentially speaking) from the knowledge of what others go through everyday even though your first world life is relatively prosaic.

>>22999610
>but when examples or even hypotheticals are presented to the anti-natalist wherein such conditions might be alleviated or reduced in impact on living beings in some way?
I think the main problem of this argument to the antinatalist is that you have seemingly created a problem just to solve it, to whose benefit is that?

>>22999621
It is for no reason and it is absurd. But I dont want to commit suicide so I must accept the absurd nature of reality.

>>22998989
How are you going to let another person convince you to hate life because they also hate life? Literal brainwash. Get a grip.
>>22999301
Is right

I started reading this because i wanted to debate against it in my head but its hard to find things that i disagree with

>>22999628
exactly, there were countless people that came to similar realizations and have killed themselves, but yet I was still born. if I kill my self, it might solve my problem assuming it ends forever, but it never really ends because someone else will be born again that will find themselves in my boots.
without getting into a tangent and debate about things like open individualism, the point is, me killing my self doesn't really solve the "problem".
the only way the problem can be really solved is if my parents never had me in the first place.

>>22999301
anti-natalist wouldn't curse the table, that's foolish. he would curse his own consciousness.
>why do you read books that reinforce your own misery
somewhat ironically there's comfort in its elucidation

>>22999621
None of that is my problem though.

You'd think that once you know you know and every moment of happiness would be tarnished. But human brains are retarded, and with enough pleasure you'll stop caring about any of this, at least for a bit, whether you want to or not, no matter how much of a "stern intelectual" you are. It's all a joke. You're a slave to your retarded monkey brain.

>>22999576
If hell is real it follows that God is real and paradise is also real.
So don't kill yourself to avoid hell, don't kill yourself to attain paradise, mostly don't kill yourself because you can intend to do better and to please God

>>22999748
lol ya. it's like life bribes you sometimes to shutup.

>>22999725
That's subjective

>>22999794
If I don't care about it it's not my problem.

>>22999832
But you do care, you just choose to not think about it.

>>22999437
It's more that, you are being happy because you are giving into your natural instincts. Not that there anything wrong with that. It's like being an animal on a shitty farm.

>>22999832
it's your problem whether you want it to be or not.
we're all in this boat

>>22999596
>>22998989
lol, boys

>>22998989
idk i just play quake live and go to the gym and enjoy a nice wine every once in a while life is pretty alright for me, i'd suggest you guys do the same and life won't be so bad.

>>22998989
Quit being a pussy and just ride it out. Your going to die eventually anyway.

>>22998989
this is a book for no-lifters
take the iron pill and quit being a loser

>>22999991
Tbh I read this book and could probably outlift you

>>23000000

>>22999301
reinforce is a pretty strong word. I read it to feel like i wasn't alone

>>23000000
Fucking wasted.

>>22999981
have you played ql a long time?

>>23000000
wasted ehh

>>22999124
There’s plenty of young guys just going through a phase who are late bloomers in life, but this book isn’t for them. They only consider it relative to their state of mind and life, not the arguments themselves. Girlfriend or not, if you consider the oil seriously then everything you choose to combat it is essentially a cope.

>>23000000
/fitlit/ get?

>>22998989
Out of all people in this dumb place, the anti-natalists take the prize for being the lowest of the low

>>23000274
why because you don't like the negative conclusion or because you have actual reason?

"The antinatalist community and the faggot community have a lot in common."
-Me

(They both us the word "breeder" as an insult, for one.)

I only respect anti-natalists who kill themselves.

>>23000324
Because antinatalist morality is based upon utilitarianism, which is fucking stupid as it completely fails to grasp the value of experience itself, whether good or bad, in building an identity/memories, which is fundamentally a non-experiental good, thus completely breaking the assymetry, as being brought into existence can be good for someone since it makes them themselves, which is infinitely more valuable/preferable than complete non-existence, on top of the manner in which one experiences their own coming into existence meaning that from their perspective their existence was an absolute necessity, and the existence of life/consciousness most likely implying some sort non-nihilistic/objective reasonn behind its existence that is as fundamental to reality as the platonic forms, and not simply pure chance/ex-nihilo.

>>22999752
> if hell is real it follow that God is real and paradise is also real.

No…it doesn’t.

>>23000613
>Because antinatalist morality is based upon utilitarianism
Lmao no, or at least Benatar no

>>23000613
didn't read - this breeder has no chill

>>23000000
nice get
>>22999999

>>23000952
Benatars assymetry makes no sense, unless you take a negative utilitarian stance, him saying how hes totally not a utilitarian is either cope, him being an idiot, or him intentionally obfuscating the his true opinion in order to make his message a bit more palpable to the broader audience

>>22998989
Stop posting this shit. It's a decent babbys first downer book, I liked it and agree with the core idea, but it's just baiting at this point. You KNEW it'd immediately descend into "nuh-uh! i feel good!" and "yu-huh! achually, you feel bad!" without any actual discussion of literature. Fuck you OP you FAGGOT

>>23001119
Benatar is not a utilitarian, nor is he a negative utilitarian. Because both involve preserving life. Benatar wants to deprive us of pain and indirectly of pleasure with the extermination of our species (of all sentient living beings).

>>23001235
>negative utilitarianism involves the preservation of life
You have heard about the “Benevolent world exploder” argument right, because thats the ultimate conclusion of negative utilitarianism, and pretty much every negative utilitarian on the internet is in support of it
There are some like David Pearce, who advocate for the preservation of life, but a significant majority dont
For example this guy https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/pmf5k1/negative_utilitarianism_why_suffering_is_all_that/

>>22999124
OP here: good for you, you little shit. What about those of us who are too awkward, too autistic to get a girlfriend or be in a relationship of any kind? what then? God forbid any person have an ounce of awkwardness in them and they're excluded from the main social group as a pariah and as an outcast. What if you're genuinely unlikable either because of your looks or your personality and there's nothing you can do to change that?

I've done everything that all you stupid fucks always recommend in these threads: work out, go to the gym, go to clubs, be "social" (as if that were some noble or heroic imperative that we don't do every day simply by EXISTING), etc., and it has come to no avail. How about you just consider for one stupid moment of your meaningless life that the genetic code sometimes shits out undesirables who will never be accepted by people? At least tell it to my fucking face and be honest instead of deluding me with these endless goals to be attained in the dim hope that I'll finally be "normal" and not a complete fuck-up autist destined to live out my life alone and in pain forever.

FUCK YOU.

>>23001519
I apologize for having a better hold over my emotions than you :(

Anyone notice that antinatalists are almost always ugly? Rustin Cohle would not subscribe to this belief system in reality.

>>23001519
I sympathize with you. Basically, we need to "get gud." Best not to stew in it. But yeah, the guy you're responding to is a chump. I hate seeing people who have love not understand its weight. Very frustrating.

>>23001519
>>23001699
In denial

>>23001744
Elaborate.

>>23001758
You need A girlfriend and not THE girlfriend.
Have you considered other dimensions of personality and human behavior?

>>23001775
Evidently not. Go on, you have my ear.

>>22998989
>everything is bad
>you will always be sad
>Oh you don't think so?
>doesn't matter what you think
>doom
>Oh. Why don't I kill myself? Uh, cuz like, it'd be meaningless man
>why do I buy food I enjoy and eat it? Uh cuz idk man it's meaningless
Ligotti is completely 100% full of total and complete shit

>>23001519
>OP here: good for you, you little shit. What about those of us who are too awkward, too autistic to get a girlfriend or be in a relationship of any kind?
Have you ever heard of a self fulfilling prophecy
>I've done everything that all you stupid fucks always recommend in these threads: work out, go to the gym, go to clubs, be "social" (as if that were some noble or heroic imperative that we don't do every day simply by EXISTING), etc., and it has come to no avail.
Yeah that shit is all retarded man and won't work lol. Your problem is you're scared of women and thus you don't act like yourself. They can smell this and don't like it. And you're gonna say that's not true but I already know that's exactly what you do
>How about you just consider for one stupid moment of your meaningless life that the genetic code sometimes shits out undesirables who will never be accepted by people? At least tell it to my fucking face and be honest instead of deluding me with these endless goals to be attained in the dim hope that I'll finally be "normal" and not a complete fuck-up autist destined to live out my life alone and in pain forever.
Because it's not true. Don't get me wrong; some people are really fucking ugly. But ugly people can find and get love and they do.
That's got nothing to do with it anon. Women are like a Chinese finger trap. The more you force it the more ensnared you will be. The less you think about this and more about developing yourself as a person, the more success with women you will have.
I'm not gaslighting you either. You're right that good looking people have a much easier time of it and women are more drawn to them. But that shit doesn't matter, we ain't talking about what most women do, we're talking about you getting a girlfriend. Which you can absolutely do.

>>22999465
>it's like putting your head in the sand and ignoring the real world.
This is the problem with nihilists and all "realist" thinkers. Anyone who's thought deeply about reality winds up concluding that it's fundamentally meaningless. But at that point, there's a fork in the road. One conclusion to draw is omg, there's no solution, it's all meaningless, everything is a cope, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The other is that since nothing can be logically justified as having any validity; despair itself is also a cope and it's basically the gayest one that there is.
If everything is a cope then what is the logic behind despair or refusing to allow oneself to enjoy things. Or following up every pleasurable experience with thoughts of "lol this is meaningless tho"
There's no point to any of that either then.
Moreover, the nihilism of materialism is what opens the door to the purposefulness of Spirit. Our world seems meaningless bc materialism has no moral meaning and abundant horrors, but consider that no man created reality, and our products are a function of our collective social dynamics; i.e. a world that values violence and sin will inevitably produce nukes. In that our values guide choices and choices produce effects, what we do isn't really meaningless regarding our own well being. Perhaps one could argue the maintenance of our well being is meaningless, and then you're back to what I just explained; there's no purpose behind rejecting our own well being either.
And if we are creatures who didn't design ourselves in a world we didn't spawn who have the ability to choose things that either further or detract from our own well being and depth of experience, then God is real and there's no nihilism anyway.
Ligotti is making a choice to be a coward

>>23001850
normie NT cope
>>23001803
It's not about in-group compliance or a sense of familiarity, it's about intergenerational violence and the way two differing parts of the psyche of most people interact when they witness someone more pure than them.
You have to stoop to their level. They don't understand your pain because it is a higher emotion and they have no conception of it.
They don't even know that they don't know about what they don't know about.
Once you stoop, you have to figure out how you'd reach a clone of yourself that hasn't yet realized this. You're trying to work your way through the social web, finding chinks in the inticracies to figure out how you'd best come to know about the existence of someone like yourself. And then you keep trying until you find one and you don't let go. In time (and much quicker than you'd expect, thanks to the internet) you'll find a girl that understands you and yes, communication will be so easy you'll become a different person.
So yes, getting a girl will make the book seem retarded. But your problem is that you started from a deficit and you think that, one, it's the way things work, and two, that this deficit in [X] necessarily stems from your LACK of [X]. That is not true at all, you don't lack [X], you lack the innate in-group cohesion that makes their groups effortless. It's time to realize that you're better than them. You're already gravitating towards what is most similar to yourself but you're not putting any effort towards it because everyone else tells you it's oh so bad and a regression and since you're already so "far behind", you don't wanna fall back even more, and so you hold on and never realize.

>>23001981
Not NT cope. You having a defeatist mindset is a cope

>>23001996
Irrelevant.

>>23000000
Based

>>22998989
>bro, what if the world is actually LE BAD????
>what if life is meaningless and sucks?????
>having kids is LE SELFISH AND EVIL?????

>>23003075
Yes

The world is a beautiful place, bros. Never give up. We're all gonna make it, but the first step is planting the seed of hope

>>22998989
>ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME
shut up loosers

>>23003075
unfortunately yes

>>23003424
holy fuck you're dense as shit. it's about you, you don't even exist, it's about the phenomena of pain.

>>23001934
Meds.

>>22999325
>It's fucking boring, the kisses, the hugs, everything becomes boring and no matter how attractive she can be, nothing compensates for the lack of that feeling. It's disgusting, the only thing left after that feeling are simian instinct.
Man no wonder all that you experience feels like shit - you're just a bipedal asshole.

>>23004281
It's just true though. It's a universal feeling, the first week or so of a relationship is an intense high that dies down. There are a million copes written about how it doesn't matter and that true love is distinct from it and special and lasting or whatever but it's just your monkey brain working as intended.
Everyone gets bored. Everyone makes up their little cope, like cheating, or getting into degenerate fetishes, having children. COPE

>>23004310
Your post is a cope.

>>22998989
no different than a gnostic

>>23005172
>the world is actually perfect, look at this postcard
how postmodern of you

>>23005181
you can get off the internet ad go outside. it is glorious, not even kidding. you dont even need any philosophy to do it or experience its grandeur.

>>23005128
Your response is also a cope.

>"I am sad."
Ok.

>"And you are all sad!"
Um, no?

>"And you must recognize how sad and bad you all are!"
Who the fuck asked?

>"And you must continuously accept and validate the indisputable fact that you all are sad and bad in your daily existence to the point of applying it in your sex life. Otherwise you are a problematic bigot!"
An exact literal unequestionable factual tranny.

I take the opinion that even if this book is true, the truth doesn't matter. Unless you're going to kill yourself after reading it, what good does it serve? Affirm life and grow my friends, I'd suffer the pains of this life again and again . What doesn't kill me makes me stronger

>>23005191
I go outside more than you. I've been to more parks and forests and hiked on more trails than you. And I think you're a retard, a faggot, and you know that you're a failure which is why you seek to overcompensate and signal to imaginary betters in your mind, believing they will elevate you.

>>23005236
The other guy been real quiet since this dropped.

>>23005236
you definitely dont and havent. i literally lived in a forest for over a year with no technology at all. ive travelled extensively through the north american continent, shortly outside the continent. hit many national parks, endless state parks, and work outdoors. once my kids have grown my wife and i are taking a map of the hot springs in the US and getting to as many as we can. life is glorious. praise to our generous creator.

>dude just give up and be miserable
No

I've been trying to get into pessimistic philosophy. I know Ligotti isn't really considered a philosopher, though he's still very much influenced by pessimist philosophers and thought.
How do we read such philosophy without succumbing to depression and nihilism? Genuine question. Also wouldn't mind some suggestions on pessimists who answer this exact question.
I also just wanna be based instead of normoid optimism.

>>23005344
pessimism is the norm you ultrafag. stop being such a victim

>>23005350
It genuinely isn't, actually. Else this thread wouldn't be as big as it was. Sure, many people are cynical or have SOME pessimism, but the pessimism as expressed by Ligotti or say, Peter Zeppfe, is naturally very offputting due to their bleak nature.
Being somewhat cynical or realistic isn't really the same thing and is ultimately a viewpoint filtered through massive cope and delusion.

>>23005344
Like Jung said, we are those who light candles in the darkness of the being. And like True Detective s1 similarly concludes in the last episode, in the beginning there was only darkness. Look how much light there is now and take comfort in that, fight for it and rage against nihilistic propositions that this life isn't worth it.

Also, watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azHIWZxUgPY&t=1s

>>23005358
I strongly disagree. Generally, it seems that even all optimism is approached from the life is suffering perspective, and especially among the general population. Do they deep dive into pessimism? No, that is the nature of being one of the normals. Still, it is the foundation from which they proceed

>>23005344
Pessimism sucks

Anti-natalism is an evolutionary trait to ensure weak genes aren’t passed along to the next generation. Every anti-natalist is an ugly, weak, deformed, and stupid lump of organic mass whose own biology knows it’s a dead end. It is a good thing and should be encouraged.
>imagine not wanting to breed
Kek

>>23005425
>LE GENES BRO
I hate you retards so goddamn much.

>>23005425
This doesn't refute antinatalism though.

>>23005445
I don’t even think about you
>>23005607
It’s not supposed to refute it. If you’re the kind of person that anti-natalism attracts, you’re the kind of person who shouldn’t breed.

>>23005425
Most of breeders are brown subhumans. Ergo most of breeders have shit genes

>>23005669
>t. brown subhuman

>>22998989
I don't get pessimism. It can be fun, or literary, but I don't get why they pretend it has any intellectual weight when they offer nothing to suggest it does. Just comes across as immature or lacking perspective. Masturbation for the sickly.

>>23006388
You don't have to offer anything as hume showed. Ought statements do not follow from is statements. This retarded view that philosophy has to offer any solutions as opposed to breaking illusions of thought is the real immature take that has been btfod severally by greater men than you and I.

>>22998989
Life is meaningful, but human life is meaningless.

>>23006388
>Masturbation for the sickly
lol imma use this in the future

>>22999124
what a stupid post

>>23001127
yeah, pretty much
this thread is embarrassing

>>23000398
There is no love/hope in modern life

>>23003075
Keked, at least humor exist

>>23005669
The worst kind of idiots breed everyday tho, what a shitty argumentation

>>22999565
Theres no point in killing yourself because you're already alive, it's too late for us.

>>22999124
You will bore of her. No matter how true and beautiful she is, your relationship is.
It's part of being a grown man. A quiet desperate loneliness no matter what you're surrounded by.

>>23003287

>>23008389
>making the same argument multiple times and never addressing the responses about how it's retarded
faggot

>>23010115
That is the counterargument, yes. You left out the best part, where he call us the clay in which the fingerprints of the divine are most clearly visible. Moore is a boomer hippy marxist faggot, but I really love his prose.

>>23006388
If you assume the worst, you'll be right the overwhelming majority of the time.

>>22999124
Oh you poor, poor child

bump

>>23011999
Antinatalists dont have to be prophets, if you have come to the conclusion yourself that life is not a greater good then you just dont have to have kids. Everyone else can come to their own conclusions, at that point its their problem, youve washed your hands of it,

>>22998989
Why does the book cover have the psychonaut kid all grown up?