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it sounds like I'm stating the obvious here, but the way I see it, there are two opposites attitudes towards human life's general difficulty: Either it is meaningful, and overcoming it is a proof of personal worth, or it is meaningless, and as such it should be lowered for everybody.

I can't think of a third way but again this feels like a half-baked philosophical idea teenagers routinely come up with.

clayote
clayote  
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what if, get this, there isn't really a "general difficulty" and it's all a load of problems particular to your situation, which may be meaningful or not
Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@clayote Nah, we all need at least drinking water, food and shelter to survive, none of which have been trivial to acquire at any point in human history.
@clayote
clayote
clayote  
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they are if ur rich
Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@clayote Yes but then you have other problems related to your wealth. There's this common wonder about why wealthy people don't just kick back and relax just sitting on a pile of money few people will ever make in total during their lifetime and I believe it's tied into the original statement: without difficulty to overcome, how will they prove their personal worth?
@clayote
clayote
clayote  
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you're supporting my argument. Difficulty proves *their* personal worth, because they want it to

The ones who are content to sit back and relax do exist, it's just that they stop once they've made fifty million bucks or so

Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@clayote Of course but it's still not easy to make fifty million bucks, not even with a privileged early life.
@clayote
silverwizard
silverwizard  
@Hypolite Petovan Ok - but - maybe challenges are good but trauma is bad? Artificial difficulty is bad, social difficulty is bad, but overcoming challenges is great and good. We should not make society such that we increase difficulty, we should make a society where overcoming is meaningful.
@Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@silverwizard Thank you for entertaining my ridiculously poor thoughts I still had to somehow post.
@silverwizard
silverwizard
silverwizard  
@Hypolite Petovan They also aren't more poor than my weird babble about LLMs earlier this accursed week
@Hypolite Petovan
Edward Kowal
Edward Kowal  
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What you think about Ligotti? Camus? Wittgenstein?

Tek doesn't like this.

Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@Edward Kowal I wouldn't give any of these name to my children if I ever had more.

More seriously, I haven't read any philosopher. I can't maintain focus reading for too long and I've never craved formal philosophy.

But I'm curious what you personally got from them!

@Edward Kowal
Edward Kowal
Edward Kowal  
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Inner peace. That is what I got. I mean you need someone's other observation to make sure you right or wrong. Comparison is one of the simplest and most successful methods of cognition. Logic and mathematics are useful too. Both originated in philosophy like the science altogether. I am not saying I am fine. First two words above is a huge simplification. ... a bit, a hint of inner peace?
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