[davesims]

Really well put. But to me, you bailed out, or at least contradicted yourself with the phrase, "instead of contributing to humanity."

You set up a nice concise statement of Sartrean pointlessness, and then you appear to invalidate it completely with such a broad notion full of Big-Picture-Feel-Good-Meaningfulness as "contributing to humanity." You just kind of slipped that in there as if we all Know What You Mean. As if it wasn't the exact same species of content-free sloganeering as "fight the status quo" or "great visions of the future."

Finessing an emotive appeal to purpose in the midst of purposelessness with an abstract notion of 'humanity' doesn't make it any less vacuous, at least given the thrust of the rest of your comment.

Sorry if that comes across as harsh -- I actually liked your post and thought it was well-written. But if we're all just dissolving slowing into equidistant neutrinos in an eventual cosmic Cold Death, why should 'humanity' writ large have any more purpose attached to it than my own or any individual 'humanity'? Is that really 'internalizing death'? Moreover isn't the notion of internalizing death and absurdity merely another 'prescribed way of thinking' among many equally pointless strategems?

...and things have gotten pretty dark for HN on a Sunday Night. Flaming Lips anyone?

[brianchu]

It isn't necessarily clear that ForrestN advocates "contributing to humanity." I think that was more of a statement that while goals like "fight the status quo" are ostensibly for the purpose of "contributing to humanity," they're actually motivated by "love, insecurity, and fear of death," without making any value judgments on these goals. That is, ForrestN is explaining how fighting the status quo doesn't even fulfill the stated motives of those who wish to fight against the status quo.

[ForrestN]

I probably wasn't clear enough. I was saying the opposite, arguing that an appeal to contribute to humanity is not viable in the face of death. And further that most people who think that is what is driving them are really being driven by something else.