Some days, I find the asteroid philosophically defensible.

[Abort!]

I'm sure this sentiment has basically been repeated plenty on here already, but here goes nothing. Just to be clear before I get stared, this isn't necessarily personal advocacy for destruction, but an expression of how morally intolerable the structure of existence is for me.

We live in a world that fundamentally requires a sufferer at its core. Something has to suffer in order to sustain the very life you inhabit and the lives around you. I find this systemically induced suffering as a whole - not only pertaining human nature - to be utterly disgusting in both its structure and practice. Suffering isn't just necessary in our world - it's a fundamental necessity of life.

We could have been intelligent plant-like beings (or something adjacent) that create energy through photosynthesis. Or at the very least, we could have been herbivores that don't require the deaths of other living organisms in order to sustain our live on a mass scale. We could have been more akin to the bonobos. Instead, we got this barely evolved war chimp phenotype that loves to create unnecessary strife and competition in nearly every single facet of life - for both their own kind and for other organisms alike.

It's the 21st century, and yet history repeats itself time and time again. I think a rather profound case can be made for the asteroid being a net-positive at this point - and that's not strictly because of the domination of humanity - but it certainly doesn't help its case. It's simply an inference that's harder and harder for me to ignore with every single pattern about human nature and the nature of being itself taken into account.

Din't get me wrong. We have our good side too. It's not all doom and gloom... but I think it's safe to say that whatever net good we produce is but a drop in the bucket compared to the mass suffering and consumption that existence itself entails on a systemic scale. I'm just tired of the ugliness. I'm tired of human nature. I'm tired of this hideous ass planet we were coerced by existence into.

There really is no "good guy" here in the end. There is only the right guy and dead guy. Evolution does not select for traits of good nature nor honesty, it selects and rewards power and domination as a prolific force in humanity. Evolutionarily speaking, being too "kind" and "good" would get both you and your offspring taken advantage of and left to starve. Life rewards domination. It always has, and I suspect it always will at a fundamental scale. No matter how "evolved" we become.

I don't necessarily personally hate humanity as a whole. After all, we didn't have any say in the fruits what our nature would produce. We didn't choose to be a part of the homicidal bipedal hominoidea we are. We simply arose out of a cold dark void in a process utterly unfathomable in its nature and way too contrived in its implications. (I don't think science will ever arise to the point of being able to explain the nature of consciousness.)

All I know is that if God happens to exist, I can only regard it with rage. That's not to say I believe reality strictly implies malevolence, but it almost certainly does imply indifference to me... and that can almost be worse in a certain way. Like the father who left to get milk and simply never returned.

 

[SanagiMezamete]

I think I said this in another thread, it sums up my philosophy on this: life is meaningless suffering that exists only to perpetuate itself.

"barely evolved war chimp" is a perfect way to describe homo sapiens! It's like we got just smart enough and empathetic enough to form complex societies and achieve exponential growth, but not enough to stop being senselessly violent warlike apes. So now the only meaningful difference between pre-civilization and post-civilization is the magnitude of destruction and suffering humanity can inflict on itself and everything around it. And to a lesser extent how delusional it is.

I wrote some more but I'll leave it off for now because it starts to get into adjacent philosophies like anti-natalism and absurdism and I don't want to derail or be too verbose. Good post though, I found it interesting to read and respond to.

 

[martyrdom]

Evolution does not select for traits of good nature nor honesty, it selects and rewards power and domination as a prolific force in humanity. Evolutionarily speaking, being too "kind" and "good" would get both you and your offspring taken advantage of and left to starve. Life rewards domination. It always has, and I suspect it always will at a fundamental scale. No matter how "evolved" we become.

In human evolution it's actually the opposite. The only reason we evolved as far as we did was cooperation and community which is the single most important factor that distinguished us from other species to the extent that we became what we are today on the food chain. That's much more effective for survival (which is the only thing evolution cares about) than domination.

 

[YourLocalSadGirly]

I agree for the most part. A major reason I want to ctb is because I don't want to participate in the systems and institutions that are destroying the world and killing innocent people. If I work my labor is benefiting capitalist elites and arms dealers. If I vote (in the US) a war profiteer or pedophile or both automatically gets my vote because there's only two parties. If I buy food my money is going towards businesses whose main goal it is to ensure food stays a commodity and not a human right. If I pay for energy my money goes directly towards the corporations that are ruining the planet. We live in a terrible world filled with terrible people and I refuse to participate in it.

 

[Abort!]

In human evolution it's actually the opposite. The only reason we evolved as far as we did was cooperation and community which is the single most important factor that distinguished us from other species to the extent that we became what we are today on the food chain. That's much more effective for survival (which is the only thing evolution cares about) than domination.

Cooperation explains how we survived and expanded. It doesn't negate the fact that large-scale systems still reward power, hierarchy, and exploitation - especially at scales exceeding tribalistic hunter-gatherer societies. Both things can be true.

 

[martyrdom]

Cooperation explains how we survived and expanded. It doesn't negate the fact that large-scale systems still reward power, hierarchy, and exploitation - especially at scales exceeding tribalistic hunter-gatherer societies. Both things can be true.

I agree yeah, but that's on capitalism and other oppressive systems rather than evolution itself.