[donw]

There are a lot of flavors of nihilism, so I'm not sure that having a pessimistic worldview precludes joyfulness.

I'd call myself a realist -- and I think there's a lot of overlap with nihilism there, in that I try and see the world "as it is", and not "how I wish it was".

The world is a messy, ugly, dark place. It really is, and it's kind of amazing how people go out of their way to pretend that either that darkness doesn't exist, or that it's somebody else's job to keep it at bay.

There is a light in our world, though -- it's us, if we choose to be.

And so, regardless of the futility in the grand scheme of things, I invest effort to find joy in all that I can, and bring that sense of joyfulness to those around me, because it makes my corner of the world just a little brighter.

[ganafagol]

> The world is a messy, ugly, dark place. [...]

> There is a light in our world, though -- it's us, if we choose to be.

I can easily argue the opposite. The world itself is beautiful. Just sit at a mountain top or in the forest or on a beach and take in their beauty. Look at stars, galaxies, how they interact, it's absolutely stunning. Or zoom in looking at microbes, cells, molecules, atoms. The world is a gorgeous place.

What brings darkness is people. So much hate, greed, awful intrigues, all over the place. Look at the U.S. today, it's the epicenter. Everybody could be so happy. But no, hate because somebody wants to raise taxes. Or wears a gun. Or "wants to take away your 2nd amendment". Or is a misogynist. All covered over with a culture that expects everybody to find everything amazing, wonderful, best country in the world, or hate, cancel, exclude.

It's not the world that's ugly. It's the people.

[ragnese]

There's still darkness without people. Sickness, suffering, etc, exist without humans. Hell, even torture exists. Orcas play with their food as they're killing it. I believe cats do as well.

If you can zoom out from that at see it as some grand, beautiful, process, then you have to apply the same filter to all of the evil stuff humans do as well, IMO.

[ganafagol]

Fair point. Animals eat each other, and that process is pretty cruel at times. Do animals have a mental concept of cruelty though? Of guilt? I suspect most don't. That does not make their actions less cruel, but it reduces the blame perhaps.

We humans know exactly what's going on. Wr do it anyway. We keep animals in horrible conditions. And we know it. Yet we keep doing it. We treat each other horribly. We have really terrible weapons. We use them anyway. It's cruel and we know it. We spread hate and participate in racism and dehumanisation. Many of us thrive in either participating or at least watching conflict. We celebrate movies depicting humans mistreating or killing each other. We know it and we like it. Oh but it's only against the bad guys!!!1

I think it's not a fair comparison.

[ragnese]

> Do animals have a mental concept of cruelty though? Of guilt? I suspect most don't.

What if a human, or groups of humans, don't feel any guilt or don't believe what they're doing is cruel? I don't think that would help you sleep better...

Also, at least some animals are, in fact, capable of complex emotions. Pigs, apparently, can feel empathy: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/2015...

It shouldn't be surprising. We are animals, after all.

> We humans know exactly what's going on. Wr[sic] do it anyway.

Perhaps that makes it worse, but I don't know that it means that animals being cruel doesn't count as "darkness" as in the grandparent comment. (It certainly doesn't refute the point that cancer is still a thing from nature and it's pretty damn dark)

But I'm pretty sure that animals would do the same stuff we do if they ever developed the capacity to do so. I see no reason to assume they wouldn't. Again- we are animals. We evolved from the same ancestors. I'm sure if my dog learned how to farm for meat, pretty much all of dog-civilization would play out with a lot of the same themes as human civilization. Not because I'm not creative enough to imagine other outcomes, but because I have no reason or evidence to assume that their form of life is fundamentally different from ours.

I'm fairly sure that aliens would observe us and the Orca who throws the crying seal in the air as the same. They would either see both as sad, or neither because "That's just what Earth life does. They kill others. They form packs and fight over territory. Some exhibit anti-social behaviors."

[ganafagol]

Sure, if animals would be like humans, they would behave like humans. But that's not an argument to excuse what humans are doing.

If I was just like some serial killer, then I'd also behave like a serial killer. Does that mean the other serial killer should not get punished? No. It just means that I should be pun8ished too if I was like them.

But I'm not really arguing humans-vs-animals. I'm arguing against world-is-dark-humans-are-light. It's the world that's light and humans who make it dark, for other humans. With exceptions of course.

Cancer is a bad example. It doesn't have an agenda. It's just a side effect of some mutation or such. Sure we can consider it dark. But compared to humans who actually have an agenda, i.e., they choose to be dark, that's a different ballpark.

[faeyanpiraat]

I think the parent comment implies that generally you cannot avoid human interaction to survive, therefore you cannot separate the beautiful scenery from the hatefulness people bring into the picture.

[donw]

Fair warning: I'm going to get a little poetic here. :)

Oh, there certainly is a lot of beauty in the world as well.

But it comes at a cost.

Every year or so, I try and get in at least one overnight backpacking trip, or at least one day of off-trail hiking. I'd do more, but I live in a country that cranked the "civilization" knob to 11 about a thousand years ago, and hasn't looked back since.

You really begin to appreciate things like "a hot shower" after a couple of days in the backcountry.

We can journey to those breathtaking vistas, relax, and bask in the majesty of creation because civilization makes that possible. With aircraft, roads, park rangers, clean water, nearly limitless food, all the rest.

Subsistence hunters, fishermen, and farmers certainly got to enjoy that same beauty, but I rather doubt it was as relaxing for them as it is for us.

And the reality is that violence is the price of civilization. There is not one civilization on the face of the earth that has escaped a baptism of blood and fire.

This has only gotten worse as our technological prowess has progressed.

Spending time, alone, in nature, you realize just how... vulnerable human beings are. Last time I went hiking, solo, in the US, I heard an animal approaching about twenty yards ahead of me. Turned out to be a bull, of all things.

I'm glad he was obviously used to humans -- and I was sure to give him all the room he wanted, and then some -- because, combined, my bear spray and my subcompact 9mm would have just pissed him off.

Nature, for all her beauty, is indifferent to suffering.

Human hunters work hard for an instant kill. Most other predators only work hard enough to disable their prey, and then eat it whether it is alive or dead.

As for humans being ugly... well, that's what I mean by choice.

You're totally right -- there's plenty of happiness to go around.

Part of the problem is that there's money to be made in making people unhappy.

Happy people buy less stuff.

But at least the stuff-sellers give you something. The real hustlers are the people that take your money for "the cause", whether the cause is Jesus, or Social Justice, or something else where you can be convinced to part with resources in exchange for a feeling of moral superiority.

It really is kind of amazing how wealthy politicians, preachers, and pundits can get when they successfully engineer or leverage a large social movement.

It is even more amazing how little they actually need to deliver.

That's what real greed looks like.

Another part of the problem is comparing yourself to your neighbor. I think that's even a cognitive bias, but I forgot the name -- that isn't not absolute wealth that we value, but that instead, we want to have more than the people that we can see around us.

Unless you master envy, you can never be satisfied in a world where you are always comparing yourself against the apex of whatever it is you value: wealth, strength, beauty, etc.

But all of those horrible things about humanity -- greed, envy, hatred, all the rest -- are things we can choose to overcome.

We can be better than the worst parts of our nature.

That's kind of where I was going.

[ganafagol]

Yes, we can be. But most of us are just not.

You raise many good points though.