r/Pessimism

Let's pretend for a moment you aren't an anthropocentric philosophical pessimist and apply it to all sentient life:

The bleaching of our coral reefs means much less net biological organisms over the lifetime of our planet.

In opposite, conservationism increases net organisms by ensuring spaces exist for it to flourish.

How do you balance the deontological, suffering-inducing wrong of pollution and habbitat destruction with the fact that ensuring the conservation of these spaces causes many more times suffering via hundreds of billions of new bloodlines?

Are we protecting them just because it feels good to reduce short-term suffering—or do you believe that there is enough epistemic uncertainty to say that the loss of coral reefs and forests cannot be assumed to reduce long-term suffering?

I have had a negative outlook on life for as long as I can remember. When I lost a tooth or when I could ride a bike without training wheels, I felt disgust at my progress, as though growing up and progressing was shameful. Downplaying and insulting my achievements all while telling everyone that nothing ever gets better feels empowering. Seeing the shock on their faces as I turn their optimistic beliefs on their head is so satisfying.

Does anyone else feel this way about their pessimistic worldview?

You have 112 hours awake per week (if you have more, your physical and mental health deteriorates). Keep in mind that hours you spend on sleep are lost hours because you can't have pleasure while you sleep. It's purely prevention of future suffering.

You spend 40 hours on a full-time job.

That's 72 hours left, that's already only 3 days of free time, but it's just the beginning.

Let's say it takes you 1 hour to commute (if you're lucky). You spend 10 hours commuting.

That's 62 hours left.

You also need to do maintainance tasks like groceries, cooking yourself meals, responding to emails, taking a shower, etc.

Let's say you spend 15 hours on them.

That's 47 hours left.

That means in a week you have approximately only two days of actual free time. But that's not where it stops. The majority of time in our week is spent preventing future pain, not in happiness. We've only looked at the free time / busy time asymmetry.

The pleasant activities available for you tend to lose their edge, become boring, and you need to force yourself to do them. Forcing yourself to do them, failing at them, will bring you pain in the endeavor that was supposed to be about pleasure. Having a girlfriend is a pleasant thing, don't get me wrong, but you get used to having a girlfriend, you need to actively maintain and contribute to your relationship, it's two-sided. So there is always pain involved.

Precisely because pleasant activities are not actually so pleasant you procrastinate on them, so you will also spend time regretting that you didn't even try to get that small amount of pleasure actually available to you. And you can't even be sure that the potentially pleasant activity you engage in will actually bring you pleasure and not a waste of time.

Painful things tend to affect us more than pleasant things. Painful things happen to us much more frequently than pleasant things. Being dissatisfied is easy, being satisfied is difficult.

As you get older, your body starts to deteriorate and you don't feel well by default. Even if you maintain it, you just postpone it. The older you get, the higher chance you will encounter extreme suffering in the form of an illness.

I am not suggesting that we build a communist society, because communism doesn't work. Moreover, some things in this structure can be mitigated by how you handle them. For example, you could try appreciating the view from your window while you commute, perhaps try to appreciate the present moment more often.

But we get back to the pleasure / pain asymmetry. You can try to be in the moment, but that feeling is temporary and fragile.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I want to unsee it to be honest.

If self-deletion is unrealistic due to our genetic coding making it too hard to do, then how do you explain firefighters risking their lives to go into burning buildings or marines diving on top of grenades to save their comrades in battle? Were they not able to overcome the programming?

This will be another long post.

Its been about 11 years scince i have discovered this all of these philosophies, and while thats a mere-nano second in regards to time, in the on and off time i reflect on the world and on the nature of depression, its function, there too it shows me it teaches us and tries to solve stuff, but ultimatley can leave us with more questions than answers.

I have undergone another existensial crisis within the last week (camus-the absurd) which has lead me back here but in trying to turn it into something productive i typed this up after some serious reflections for 3 days.

Some of this discusses pessimism in general and there are statements which are of contention in philosophy (what isnt?) such as free will and identity and psychological theories. And how some of the related literature around this philosophy can probably bring about suicide (if that is bad is not easy to answer, but the depression aspect is pretty self evidently bad)

I would basically say that my intuitions and personal expierence are very much of the opinion that there is alot more 'suffering' than pleasure or goodness, however we define that using words for such a broad concept is hard, but people like benatar make it pretty clear in his explanation of human life, and incredibly intelligent people like Brian Tomasik point out the scale and issues. But there is no free will (determinism), and there isnt much chance of anything changing

What i've seen and felt though is that human beings are not free to do much in thier lives, we are constrained by our ignorance, lack of intelligence, self deception, social contraints. And ultimately by our nature, reading Schopenhauer then comparing it to current nueroscience and psychology just shows us how 'not free', so much of our emotional attitudes, temperaments, likes and dislikes ect is constrained by our social circles and genetics, and upbringing, aswell as our sense of justice and morality.

If we violate this then extreme depression and existensial crisis will most likely be the result.

I believe both these conditions can be ranked as a pretty high scale in regards to whats bad for humans.

All of this isnt a choice. Its litterly being an ape in a tribe. We are free to discuss radically complex topics here and in the EA forums or Lesswrong ect, but they are thier own mini societies or social circles, you log off then go to your job whatever and all of this is what we discuss irrelevant to people out there...ie the philosophy subreddits and EA is a very fringe online society with little connection to the world at large.

Most people will never discover this philosophy because most peoples dont really think about philosophy and if they did discover it. Due to biases such as cognitive dissonance, disgust, and the sheere mismatch between thier perceived life and goals and what we propose is ljkely going to happen, they will steer away from it (depression), this is not a bug, we are designed for it.

The depression or discomfort it would cause would result on most of them to not give it consideration, in the same way people rationalise away 3rd world suffering or eating meat, not helping others, because ultimatley people are not free to choose thier emotional responses. They litterly feel them and neural mechanism try and equalise the discomfort or they pursuit a path away from it.

Those mechanisms are in peoples cognition for good survival reasons to protect them from depression and being socially outcast ect which is depression one of the main reasons depression manifests once again.

EA and most philosophical subjects, be it - ethics, free will, thinking about what they even are, are at odds with people psychology or coping mechanisms this isnt thier choice its just people have grown and adapted to a environment.

I saw a good thread once about 'how a lay person without studiying EA and knowing about congition sentience could be an altruist?'

And the response was they should give to to givewell.

The issue there is you are expecting someone to blindly pledge a large part of thier money to something then, they will want to want to know what it all means. I think this isnt an EA problem just a psychology problem.

If positive disintergation theory is true, i disintegrated into this around 12 years ago, then managed to beat the extreme depression by 'not really thinking about it' so i comitted philosophical suicide. Life has still been uncomfortable but not a double uncomfort of trying to live then trying to figure out ethics and whats best. I i recently disintergrated again due to extreme boredom and depression. This i believe was caused by a lack of certain neurotransmitters because i haven't been engaging in activities which stop humans thinking about this.

I dont see these philosophy ever gaining much popularity not because its wrong but because it causes depression and it will always be fringe because its at odds with our psychology.

Not that i believe any moral theory can be correct but if we want people to come to our side and focus on decreasing suffering rather than trying to increase 'happiness' then we need to publish a way which works without turning people off - we are primates that need certain needs met. This philosophy really highlights how intertwined suffering and human existence is...

Frame work need to be laid out on what to do, for basically anyone one stumbles upon these ideas if they want to somehow navigate this life without constant doubt.

But it becomes incredibly wierd and hard, because when we engage in certain activities we are more suseptible to do things which we would later reflect on as wrong. I think this philosophy and the related literature points out the bads but currently there is only a few EA charities given as practical advise on how to 'help' them which my intuitions always feel is a like it isnt a bad thing but it doesnt give people like me closure (if there was any).

The choice i think we have, is you ethier comit philosophical suicide, try and 'reintegrate' under dabrowskis theory or use one of Zapffes techniques. in which case the thoughts will go away and mood may improve. But later down the line guilt will come back onto to punish us for pursuing our own happiness rather than weeping for the world.

Or you spend alot more time alone, shirking off social ties, which you will suffer for, and limiting your distractions, but trying to maintain yourself in a 'healthy' way, and continue to study and try find answers if there are any, till you get bored, in which case the will will look something else.

To what extent are secular life-affirming philosophies (i.e., philosophies that maintain that life is worth living) just vestigial remnants of religious tendencies that reify the human being as being somehow ontologically exceptional? Moreover, is this irrational sanctification of life an inevitable consequence of our being a species that's so excruciatingly aware of the absurdity of existence that we need to weave myths to console ourselves?

I'm looking into getting a couple of Books on Pessimism in order to understand this Philosophical position better. Please recommend me the books you think will be worth the time.

Personally, what I hate the most about life is how inherently unfair it is because of genetic and environmental factors that shape everyone into who they are; in the end, who you are/become really just depends on luck. Of course there are specific things I enjoy about life sometimes but that's only because I'm lucky enough when the interactions of my genetics and external environment allows it.

Objectively, I'm fairly lucky: I'm a veteran who is in college, about to finish my bachelor's degree. I own a very nice condo in a nice neighborhood. I have zero debt and decent amount of savings that I don't have to worry about getting a job immediately after graduation… I’m not going to share my whole life story, but I’ve definitely overcome a moderate amount of obstacles to get to where I am right now. I feel like most of the time most people are just forced to do things they don't enjoy just to be alive. I'm just tired of life in general as an “average human.”

I'm turning 37 this year, but I've had these existential thoughts since I was a teenager. The older I am, the more I regularly feel this exhaustion toward life, my own, and the human condition in general. I wish the problem is my “mindset” but this really isn't something that can be resolved by regular therapy. I think this famous quote from Schopenhauer explains how I feel about choices in life well: men can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. In other words, I think everyone is already doing the best they can with the cards they were dealt.

Hi guys！I'm looking for some good books to read. Like Cioran. I really like his books.

So I hope you guys can recommend some of your favourite. Thx！

Recently what I have realized is that, there is a good chance of pessimists being mistakenly equated to incels, particularly by the feminist community.

Lets say for instance, a person sees through "Devil's Laughter" so seeks chastity to guard against his sexual desires, which he sees as the starting point of "blind will". But ordinary people would not understand his reason and identify him as an incel who hates women and then withdraws himself.

A vida é sofrimento, a vida é sofrimento por que o sofrimento é mais intenso que o prazer, resumindo, a vida é uma bosta mesmo, melhor seria se nunca tivéssemos nascido!

Welcome to our weekly WAYR thread. Be sure to leave the title and author of the book that you are currently reading, along with your thoughts on the text.

For me it was my anecdotal life experience, always when I try to think positively about things I end up disappointed, I didnt read anything about pessimism but I believe that my attitude towards life is pessimistic, always thinking about the worst case, unable to see anything good in the future for me or any other one I know.