A problem of particulars

Begin rant.

I have recently begun to notice a very strange, very specific sort of stupidity. It is a fundamental disbelief that reality is real. This is one of those dysfunctions, like psychopathy, that is hidden very deep in the mind and requires extraordinary demonstrations for the subject even to recognize that something is amiss.

First I will illustrate psychopathy for analogy. A psychopath never truly recognizes that other people exist with minds of their own. He is eternally solipsistic, and his beliefs are restricted to thinking that 1. all the world is a fanciful dream within his mind, or that 2. the world is real and filled with wind-up meat robots. His mind is broken in such a way that the idea of other minds is unbelievable.

Keeping that in mind, let’s look at a person who does not believe in the material world.

Such a person usually does believe in reason and often in other separate minds. They are often clever and capable of metaphysical twists and turns. This is required for someone capable of reason (as in white matter), and it is unlikely that a person will disbelieve in real life unless they have such material abundance that they can engage in a great deal of recreational foolishness.

This gives rise to what I’ve begun to describe as the “sitcom debate style”. This is the attitude that arguments are just a fun game we play, and afterward the episode ends and nothing changes. Because reality exists, arguments are never about anything, but are rather a contest of disconnected wills. The subject matter cannot be serious because the mutual understanding (between clever sillies) is that it doesn’t actually exist except as a common narrative that is agreed upon as the rules of the game.

Thus the almost immediate appearance of absurdity. Worse, if they wish such a person is capable of unending and ever-greater absurdities because reality checks are irrelevant to the rules of the game. To be clever and unserious in an argument is the only axiom. Thus, they believe the only way to lose an argument is to get angry (or butthurt, as they prefer to say).

This is ridiculous. If I am dirt poor and arguing with my wife about which child we allow to starve, the outcome of the argument matters. We are not just playing a fun game, we are disagreeing about life and death for our children. Butthurt has nothing to do with losing- the way to lose is to pick the wrong kid and end up losing two or more by making the wrong decision. This shit happens all the time in real life, and for 99% of humanity throughout 99.99% of history it is not just some fun edgy issue like in a game of Cards Against Humanity.

The opposite attitude allows a person, who has no stake in the outcome of an argument, to pretend that they do not understand reality as a form of winning. After all, to pretend that anything matters would introduce the possibility of butthurt- the losing condition. Instead, it is an endless source of rhetorical straw men.

In reality, it is a very costly matter to be wrong. Living on the knife edge of poverty will teach you that it is not a small thing to get sick at the wrong time. Sometimes, that’s game over. With this in mind, the decision to take a vaccine ceases to be a fun hot political topic where we can decide to take the “edgy” position or the “reasonable” position based on what suits our personalities. Poor people know that getting a flu shot makes you sick because their immune systems are weak and last time, getting the flu shot made them miss work and miss rent that month.

Similarly, immigration is not a “political” issue to people who work at McDonald’s. They look around and see that half their coworkers are Hispanic. They usually even like their coworkers, or at least the ones who speak English well enough that it’s not frustrating. But these people understand that opening the borders to more Hispanics is serious business that will end in desperation and violence.

Now, obviously what I’m describing here is the psychology version of nihilism. You don’t have to be a philosophical nihilist to be this sort of idiot, because it’s a manifestation of resource abundance. If everything goes right for you regardless of the choices you make, it obviously makes sense to disregard reality as irrelevant. There is strong overlap here- many psychological nihilists will also be philosophical nihilists- but they are not the same thing.

I don’t care if you don’t like this description of nihilism. I am getting to the heart of the matter from which nihilism flows. This is not a game where we’re going for points.

This is why I feel such disgust and contempt for people who want to believe things because they are “fun” or “useful”. It’s why I wish American churches would get randomly bombed by terrorists so I wouldn’t have to worship next to a bunch of God-damned socialites playing country club in my savior’s name. Now, I understand this might not be very inclusive or loving, but here is my message to people who join churches to find a spouse or expand their Amway business or play pretend for their kids:

FUCK OFF, AND FUCK YOU. Burn in hell, you miserable worthless cunts.

Lying is bad, so don’t do it. End rant.