Pessimism. (first chapter, rest are TBD)

Life is bad. it's not all bad, it's not so bad that most people need to kill themselves, but it is on the whole, quite bad and many of us have a responsibility to make it at least less bad.

Most of us don't think about the big picture. Some take pride in not watching the news or getting involved in politics, after all, what's the point of being upset about something we can do nothing about? We should only consider what's in our control, because everything beyond that is depressing. To the degree that people do ask questions or have any thoughts about life beyond themselves, they overwhelmingly come to an optimistic conclusion, although I'm sure that's not indicative of any innate bias in our animal cognition that promotes survival over realism. God is taking care of everything. Or if not God, the universe or karma. For those daring enough to think about the world and care to actually look at facts (which massively limit what theories and opinions we can reasonably have about reality) there's always hope in the form of the human spirit, science, progress and socialism. Or capitalism, although I'd argue that those people are very selective about what facts that acknowledge.

Then we have a 3rd, even smaller class of people. Those who don't believe that God will save us, those that find little to no hope in whatever future it is that humanity will shape because humanity does not have the greater good at heart by any measure. These depressives often conclude that since life is meaningless, it's best to focus on hedonism. Moderate hedonism, if they intend to avoid extreme discomfort and maximize their happiness. Perhaps they still believe in romantic love, in which case they may go on to play the precarious game of idolizing their partner (or unrequited lover) and treating them as an idea rather than the flawed and inconsistent being they truly are.

The tiniest minority of people deal with the problem of existence by creating art, but I don't really want to talk about those people right now. The fact is, or at least the fact I will be arguing for, is that not only is everything hopeless, but that giving up in the face of hopelessness is mere cowardice. I want you to realize the horizon of our discontent and I want you to care about it.

The above is a sketch of the 4 ways people cope with life, according to Peter Wessel Zappfe. He used strange names for these methods, for example the 1st group who simply doesn't think about the bad stuff, he would say is participating in "isolation." As in they're "isolating" themselves from the issue altogether, quarantine might a more familiar term these days. For those who have a generally optimistic and somewhat thought out worldview, he coined the term "anchoring." These people bothered to think about the world but they anchored themselves in some kind of justified, optimistic worldview which can never be questioned. His terminology isn't exactly intuitive, for me at least, but you've got the basic ideas.

Zappfe compared the human species to a now extinct species of prehistoric antelope. These beasts had evolved oversized antlers, as a result of random mutation. The antlers, in earlier stages, served a purpose and increased the reproductive value of individual antelopes. Blind mutation led to larger and larger antlers and while these creatures may have purposefully broke off their own antlers when they became too cumbersome, ultimately the burden became too great to bear. The species succumbed to competition. Human consciousness is like those antlers. Initially our intelligence was an evolutionary advantage, but it has become so "big" that we now need to artificially limit it by way of wishful thinking, conformity, prejudice, and religious zeal. If we were honest with ourselves, we would all be quite pessimistic about our existence. No one is happy to think we're just a bunch of ignorant mutants who are destined to make copies of ourselves and die on some insignificant rock in the abyss. We see our loved ones die and deep down, we despair that they're never coming back, regardless of what we claim to believe happens after death. Thats what mourning is. We see people starve or get sick, be attacked, go to war, entire races are tortured and murdered. Sure, we love baseball and superhero movies, but what is all of this suffering for? What is the best we can hope for our children? Surely there must be an answer beyond the world we live in as it is.

And just like the antelope, our intelligence will ultimately be our undoing. Human history follows a very simple pattern; we have problems feeding and protecting ourselves so we invent a solution, afterwards there is a population boom and then we once again have problems and need further innovation. Our species soars further into ecological overshoot each time this happens. As a race, we've been pretty successful,  although it should be uncontroversial to say that this pattern cannot go on indefinitely. There are only so many resources, so much land. The sun will eventually explode. Should we magnificently escape our solar system, eventually every star will be snuffed out by time and the universe will reach an equilibrium. Total blackness. That's the eventual outcome, whatever path we decide to take. Even though the race as a whole has survived, there are plenty of societies that did collapse. I don't think what I'm describing is somehow special or unique. Most of the universe is hostile to life, life is the exception, not the rule. Throughout most of history, this was due to resource depletion and/ or refusal to adapt to new circumstances. The aftermath of collapse is invariably local desolation and chaos. In fact, this pattern doesn't only extend to humans, basically every major extinction event (besides the asteroid) was due to climate change. Today's society is somewhat globally interdependent and if it were to collapse (for the same reasons as all the others, resources and climate) the aftermath would be truly pandemic.

The universe started, or at least it exists. Either it was created by God, or some scientific process we don't understand, or it always existed, or it just began out of nowhere for no apparent reason. We shouldn't expect that it will make any sense to us because our brains evolved to understand complex social cues and the basic requirements for surviving in a highly competitive, aggressive and chaotic world. The good news is that, through science, we are slowly learning to hack the laws of nature. Do you think a caveman could have just thought up modern germ theory? No, but one of them noticed shiny rocks and was curious. 1000s of years later, someone figured out how to make and shape glass. 1000s of years later someone figured out telescopes, 1000s of years later someone made a dedicated microscope. Then came germs, then hand washing, understanding infectious disease and modern medicine. Notice that the last few milestones happened within 500 years of each other. Not only are we learning, humanity is learning how to learn better and faster. The accelerating march of science means that the only 2 things between humanity and God-like power is time and the question,  "Do we have enough of it?" Should we live long enough into the future, anything can happen. That's an inspirational thought, "anything can happen." It's a totally neutral phrase, however, because anything can span between the most horrifically cruel, self contrived torture to some sort of digital afterlife, free of death and unrequited desire, until the universe itself pulls the plug and we disappear without a moment of apprehension.

We can look at human history to try to make a vague guess at which side of the spectrum we will land on. Many journalists repeat the claim that extreme poverty is on the decline. Extreme poverty is defined as living on $1.93 a day and that is adjusted for what it would mean to live in America on $1.93 a day, but it describes global poverty. The only reason extreme poverty is defined this way is because this is the only range where there appears to be improvement. What would most people consider extreme poverty? Not getting enough food on a daily basis, no shelter, no temperature regulation, no access to basic sanitation, having basic human rights denied, being forced to live in pollution, for starters. To meet that minimum, we're looking at a range of $7-$15 a day. At this level, 60-75% of humanity is living in extreme poverty and the number is increasing, despite the fact that we currently make enough food to feed 10 billion people. The problem is that our gains in wealth and technology have been used by humans to dominate other humans. The regions of the world collectively known as the Global South, after centuries of colonialism and decades of neo colonial debt and obscure financial trickery and scores of now declassified coup d'états by powerful western countries are being over exploited and are the reason so called "developed countries" exist at the levels of advancement they do. In addition to all of this political domination, the worst effects of global warming occur in these already vulnerable regions.

Inequality within western countries is moderated by placating the (relative) poor with welfare benefits (which are funded by stealing from the poor to begin with and given back with much shaming and red tape) and exporting the more harsh economic realities to 3rd world countries. Beyond human on human domination, humanity has systematically destroyed all parts of nature which are not useful to them (96% of all land biomass is either humans or factory farm animals, which live agonizing lives akin to or worse than holocaust prisoners and whose population outnumbers the total estimated number of humans to ever exist every 18 months.) We are already locked in for a century of warming due to carbon dioxide, released into the atmosphere which is causing extreme weather, a reduction in food supply, the spreading of tropical diseases, the drowning of coastlines and increasing war between populations desperate to pillage resources or to protect the resources they have. Despite this, humanity is burning fossil fuels at an exponentially growing rate. None of this paints an aesthetic picture for the lives of most sentient beings and what humanity is doing with the power it has is increasingly destructive.

Fermat's paradox refers to the reasonable expectation of finding life on other planets, give that there are seemingly an infinite number of them (~100 billion stars, and an average of 3-4 planets per star,) and the universal silence suggesting that we are alone after all. If humanity is at all representative of intelligent life, the universal silence may be a result of the will to self-annihilation common to all life. The unfortunate realities that require intelligence to evolve with a seeming purpose of greedy consumption and unreletant domination. This can only be a guess at best. Seeminglu, we are alone in a vast, cosmic graveyard. We may never know why, if indeed there is any reason at all. Should we escape our own destructive instincts, eventually the universe itself will grow cold. Every star will be extinguished and all that will remain will be undifferentiated blackness as the total energy of the universe reaches equilibrium. Whatever it is that can justify suffering cannot come from the distant future, nor the distant past. It is not likely there is a justification at all.

Philosophical Pessimism is a family of philosophical traditions that assigns a negative value to existence. It is distinct from pessimism as a personal disposition, although one suspects the 2 go hand in hand more often than not, and for this reason is sometimes referred to as Rejectionism. Rejectionists make a wide range of claims from empirical to metaphysical and some pessimistic systems can ultimately be life affirming, such as Buddhism. Pessimists are often accused of being selectively negative and there may be some truth in that, but the vast litany of psychological studies suggest that the bias is most commonly one of optimism. Besides this, there are plenty of reasons to think the negatives deserve more weight than the positives. The question of the value of life depends on one's subjective values and the debate will never be settled. Being subjective does not mean that there can be no basis for ration support and this book aims to be a survey of reasons that I feel are decisively in favor of the negative value of life. As with any too-abstract philosophical question, whether the answer is correct or not will ultimately come down to how well it meshes with other pre-existing beliefs and values one holds either consciously or unconsciously. Much of what I came to know as Philosophical Pessimism was intuitive and well known to me before coming across any explicitly pessimistic thinkers; but I feel it contains some revelatory insights and uncomfortable truths that, once seen, can never be ignored.

Of those who acknowledge suffering, it is seen as minor or even redemptive. There is a common fallacy in our thinking known as the just world fallacy, the tendency to think people get what they deserve. Alternatively, the most common response to the problem of suffering is that it serves a greater purpose, like the discomfort we feel during exercising. God is preparing us for a higher state of being, or protecting our free will. Or else humanity is experiencing growing pains as it slowly marches towards a nearly utopian future. At any rate, unless one is arguing that every single instance of torture or natural disaster or terminally ill children is absolutely necessary and unavoidable or somehow the absolute best scenario, it's plain to see that there is at least some extreme suffering that is pointless. Soldiers with PTSD who come home worse off than they would have had they not enlisted, 3rd world children who, through their pain, gained no significant insight into the human experience because they died of an easily preventable disease before they turned 5. Or even something insignificant like rich frat boys destroying your restaurant and throwing a million dollars at you, "that's enough to cover the repairs and then some." as if you can rightfully harm someone as much as you want, provided you compensate them afterwards.

There is a common theodicy which claims that evil is simply the absence of good. This claim is generally accepted without anyone in the room even considering the opposite, that good is the absence of evil (this is one of the possibilities I had never seen even contemplated before Schopenhauer, personally.) Or else, it is said, we need evil in order to appreciate goodness, never that the allure of goodness is itself the promise which keeps us in a vicious cycle of frustration and boredom. To say that happiness is the absence of suffering (good is the absence of evil) is simply a blunt way of describing religious and philosophical ideals such as tranquility and enlightenment. Without the spiritual facade, much of the ideas we consider deep and life affirming are pessimistic. Thinkers as far back as the ancient Greeks have long noted that the pursuit of pleasure often entails pain and it is more intelligent, instead, to learn to minimize desire. Put this way, people are more accepting of the idea. To be completely and utterly free of desire is to be in such a state that one does not want for anything and is a more stable state (not to mention realistic, though only relatively so) of being than experiencing maximum pleasure. The problem is what psychologists refer to as the hedonic treadmill, that we acquire a tolerance as we adapt to higher levels of pleasure and soon this becomes our baseline. Drug addicts can well attest to the phenomenon and it isn't hard to see how a higher minimum requirement for pleasure conversely means a higher sensitivity to pain. Thus, enlightenment is just lowering your baseline for happiness below the level of expectation that the world will realistically manifest. I mean, isn't that the definition of enlightenment, being in harmony with nature or reality?

It is basically futile to strive for a better world and I think the best we can do is voluntarily stop reproducing and focus on a kind of palliative care for humanity in its last days. A more precise way of stating this is to say that, while we may contribute to one less drop in the bucket, any significant progress in reducing suffering is unlikely to happen, unlikely to last, and (given the negative character of happiness) can only be at best close to neutral. The sort of changes I'm talking about range from utopian ideals to major advancements in living conditions that don't come at the expense of significant trade off (autonomy, environmental sustainability, unforeseen side effects, etc…) Even in a techno-utopia, humans will still wrestle with anxiety, fear of rejection, poor self image, yearning for transcendence, frustration and ignorance, accidental death and the inescapable fate of a universe. That is the absolute best we can hope for and the odds of it happening even that smoothly, rather than humanity's untimely demise due to climate change or nuclear holocaust, are pretty bleak. 

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. I don't think so, naturally, but you're free to disagree with me and any or all of these points. It would be hard to honestly deny that there are no forms of extreme suffering whatsoever, but perhaps you think it is relatively minor. While I strongly doubt this to be the case, to accept the view that extreme-suffering isn't a significant issue dismisses and ignores the lived experiences of the people for whom it is the case; not a very sympathetic view. Perhaps, some will say, you can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. Or maybe we'll get to them one day, maybe. Personally, I find the idea that countless generations of individuals living with extreme-suffering somehow justifies a future where humanity is finally content to be morally abhorrent. Then again, morallity is merely a hypothetical imperative and is not instrically tied to any real-world rewards or punishments. The next route would be to deny my second claim, that happiness is the absence of desire. Even if we supposed that Buddhist monks who achieve enlightenment to be in a state of ecstasy, rather than tranquility, let's keep in mind that even Buddhists admit that less than .1% of practitioners achieve this state. It is not a practical way of life for anyone who is in favor of continued human existence, its not possible for a large scale society of just monks to live. Devotees that exist now do so as a result of the selective leisure afforded to some strata of society by those who toil in the hustle and bustle of domestic chaos. At any rate, dedicating one's life to taming and nullifying one's desires is itself an admission that our desires are unattainable, which is itself disappointing.

It might be argued that Philosophical Pessimism is guilty of comparing everything to an absolutely ideal standard, which is designed to make everything look all the worse by comparison. For one, I'm not denying that there is some good. Certainly things can always be worse and having gratitude for all the things that didn't go maximally wrong (if wrongness has a limit at all) is an important part of coping with existence. Importantly, though, most of the problems regarding suffering and the nature of existence are clearly bad and often worse than they must be. Some argue that war and inequality are inevitable aspects of society and while I sympathize with this view, I generally think that we have the potential for vast improvements, although given our track record I doubt they will ever be realized. Also, a major part of my thesis is that the optimal, absolutely ideal standard is simply neutral. Essentially non-existence with extra steps. If the full spectrum of experience ranges from infinite misery to not miserable at all, surely there is much to bemoan. Eulogizing about the unstoppable force of the human spirit in the face of the absurd is childish and will lead us down a course which is guaranteed to create more and more pointless suffering before ever reaching a point of indifference, not that we are likely to make it that far. The fact that the odds are against us is the entire point of invoking the human spirit, I'm merely proposing we grow up and take those odds seriously.

It should be pretty clear that I do not entertain the possibility that mankind, or some select few, will go to heaven. While there are more philosophically rigorous conceptions of God, I think the problem of evil basically renders the existence or non existence of a deity meaningless. If a God does exist, it either does not care about us, is unable to help us, or actively despises us. Religious dogma, the most familiar with which I am is that of Christianity, can be dismissed outright on the grounds that large claims require large evidence. The testimony of anonymous shepherds from a pre scientific society regarding talking snakes, commanding the dead to rise and the blind to see, and walking on water should not be taken any more seriously than the tooth fairy. Mankind has a long tradition of inventing gods and to claim that 2,999 of them are made up, but the one that you, by historical accident, happen to believe in due to when and where you were born, is clearly absurd.

Finally, I want to note that while most of this text deals with extreme suffering and generally depressing themes, I don't think that most people have good cause for killing themselves. Certainly good cause for wishing they had never been born to begin with, but not starting a life is categorically different from intentionally ending one. I like to use the analogy of a broken leg, not a desirable or happy state to be in, but also not bad enough that a doctor would recommend euthanizing the (human) patient. All living things have a strong interest in continuing to live, it may be irrational and absurd, but it is an overwhelming impulse we are all familiar with. Further, while most of us expect that action proves conviction, it is none the less intellectual possible to come to this or that rational conclusion without acting on it one way or the other. To demand that a pessimistic nihilist honor his or her beliefs by committing suicide is simply another defense mechanism for those who do not wish to hear the negative-gospel of despair. While I believe that if we are to have any rights at all, surely we must first have the right to decide to take our own lives or not, I don't think most people have sufficient reasons to kill ourselves. Some may even go so far as to declare that we have an obligation to minimize suffering for others, who's interests are just as real as our own. 

God and karma are all just wish fulfillment. We want protection from uncertainty, and we want justice. Why do we think we have any right to them? It's a nearly universal desire, and society is full of mooks all too eager to collude and encourage the fantasy. That's what Ligotti meant by "the conspiracy against the human race." It doesn't matter which God you believe in, so long as he's on our side. It also can't be so nonsensical that the gimmick becomes obvious to everyone, but you can get away with a lot of nonsense. Theres a reason god only ever works in mysterious ways. The fact is, the major bulk of grown adults still believe in literal fairy tales written by anonymous shepherds with bronze age superstitions and a zeal for genocide. And these are the people steering the planet, giving the orders, pushing the buttons and telling us not to worry about climate change. These are the people telling us it's OK to have children.

It's a circus of horrors. Spewing blood, chainsaws, empty liquor cabinets, caged animals and the works. I think all other intelligent life, wherever it found or will find itself in the universe, quickly extinguishes itself. Humans evolved 300,000 years ago, and in the 150 years since the industrial revolution, we have quickly made this planet to verge on the uninhabitable. Will it be a slow death of starvation, heat stroke, and dehydration, or will some malcontent messiah fire the nuclear detterant that ends all life once and for all?