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The main problem I have with blackpilled monk types (and this post is pretty archetypal blackpill despite claiming otherwise) is that it can work while you're younger but it has an expiration date. Eventually you'll have a crisis and medical expenses. What then? If you have no savings then you'll either need to forgo medical care or do the leech thing where you receive medical care and then simply don't pay for it. What happens when you're 60 or 70 and too old to work? If you've calculated everything and know Social Security will get you through it, then OK, that seems fine to me. You do you.
I'd still somewhat worry about peoples' (really just men's) inherent existentialism. Modern generations grow up on Disney movies that tell them life should be wonderful and meaningful, and that'll largely not be true for blackpillers. It won't be horrible overall, but they'll lack a lot of the self-actualization they think they deserve. If they're fine with that then that's OK again, but a lot of them eventually start screeching about how "the system has failed them" and how we need to "burn it all down" just because they were too foolish to make different life choices.
I mean - the blackpilled monk types will either not pay for their care or suck-start shotguns, depending.
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That’s a fair point and we need to consider the steps that need to be taken to avoid that fate.
• You need to have a happy, functioning marriage that preferably produces multiple children
• Those children need to become well-adjusted working normies producing an economic surplus
• Both you and at least one of the children need to organize your lives so that you live in relatively close vicinity
• Your children need to be willing and able to help you with their time, effort, money etc. whether they are themselves married or not
You’ll avoid the sad fate you described when all four of those conditions are met.
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Yes, to some extent this is true; I'm coming at this from a place of relative financial privilege, am not looking to divest all my worldly possessions anytime soon and the risk calculus probably does change if you're flat out completely broke.
Yet at the end of the day, everyone and everything has an expiration date, doesn't it? You can justify working arbitrarily hard for the sake of security, but if you get a terminal cancer diagnosis or you swallow a bee no amount of grinding at work or worrying about it would have helped very much.
It's mostly a question of risk tolerance; there's plenty of guys on the Bogleheads forums that won't retire until they have 100x annual expenses which is frankly silly, there's plenty of guys who regret being workaholics on their death beds, and plenty of guys with significantly higher risk tolerance than either you or I who are happy to carpe diem and forget about retirement altogether.
My P(life is similar enough until I die so that retirement funds remain relevant) is probably higher than the rationalists or the collapseniks, but how high is my
P(life is similar enough until I die so that retirement funds remain relevant) * P (I run into a problem where I need more money and the state won't provide) * P(working harder would actually result in me having the money I need)?
Not sure about that one.
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And even if you're healthy, what happens if you get Alzheimer's? You wouldn't even know it, and eventually you'd either freeze to death trying to walk to work or get in a car accident if you still drive.
I have never been in a romantic relationship and furthermore have no friends or loved ones, and the very day I become conscious of physical or mental deterioration, I'm checking into a hotel and euthanizing myself with the strongest poison I can get my hands on.
As opposed to keeping to exist basically as a vegetable in the nursing home your children paid to let you in, which I suppose is much better.
Nursing homes are containment areas.
Yes aging to death in there is horrible for everyone involved, but it involves fewer people and keeps the horror away from anyone who isn't professionally obliged to deal with it.
You degenerating in your home means neighbors, landlords and everyone nearby need to deal with your increasingly disagreeable behavior and appearance, if you still drive then you may also endanger other people in traffic, and even if not everyone around needs to be on their guard lest you burn the house down.
It's horrible either way, but making you die under controlled conditions is somewhat more pro-social. Except for you of course, but you aren't really part of society anymore by that point.
God, I hope I just die from lightning strike.
Haul my demented ass into the Alaskan wilderness for one last walk in the woods. If I come back, I'm not too demented; if I don't, good for the local wildlife.
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Point taken. But OP's comment and the reply only concern the effects of the black pill lifestyle on yourself. Your comment concerns its effects on everyone else. Those are rather different things especially in the case of Alzheimer's when you're unaware of what's happening to you either way.
Fair. But what is the ideal way for a practical egoist to deal with Alzheimer's?
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So you're going to kill yourself by 40? Certainly just about everyone is in worse physical shape at 40 than at 20.
This isn't a gotcha, the point is that very slow decay is, uh, very slow.
40?? I'm already 57. I walk eight miles a day and I'm still in great health (though I put down enough beer that my liver probably isn't thanking me (I never get hangovers though)), but that can't last forever.
You're 57 and you've noticed zero deterioration in 37 years?
Other than losing my hair and having to urinate every hour or so, no. I guess I got lucky in my genes.
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Yeah, mental deterioration is something I also fear. I'm mostly fine living in solitude, but I do have fears of tail-risks involving medical episodes that could be fixed by just having someone to call an ambulance or tell me I've lost it.
These are strong words to say when you're young, and I've heard this sentiment from many people, but I've seen very few actually follow through.
The man's 57.
I've known people who feel this way and aren't young. especially healthcare workers.
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Who said I was young?
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You can always consider getting a roommate or checking yourself early into some sort of supervision program.
I've heard this sentiment a few times, but realistically 50, 60 years is a long time; plenty of happily married couples end up with someone dying and the other being forced to go it alone, the kids end up apathetic/abusive/fuck ups etc.
I'll grant that having a family does give you better odds of mitigating these tail risks compared to being permanently single, but I've seen enough elderly end up alone and abused even with a big family to know that it's no guarantee.
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The existential dread that you've truly wasted the one life you were given on this Earth, and there is no going back. Then you die. Or at least many do.
As opposed to the existential dread that you've wasted the one life you were given by working? And not even for nothing, but to actively fund the destruction of everything that used to give life meaning.
Everyone does.
That's certainly one way to portray working.
That part is not about working, but about taxes.
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Where do you draw your meaning from?
I think needing to have "meaning in your life" is largely overrated. Life is largely something you just get through -- nature loved using the stick much more than the carrot. Modern society is extremely cushy in most ways, sanding off the edges of the stick. This is why I see populists as a natural enemy -- they want "burn it all down" for stupid reasons based largely on hallucinations, and they'd take my comfy pillows away in the process.
If I have any life goals, it would be to build something, probably a video game or maybe something with AI. I've made essentially zero progress in that goal, but I have no illusions that the fault lies with anyone other than myself for being excessively lazy.
It seems to differ quite a bit from person to person. For people like me, having no meaning in life is enough to drive you to drink, or far worse. I'd imagine this might also be a semantic issue - you probably have "meaning" in the sense I mean, even if you don't necessarily see it that way. For me meaning is like... motivation to do anything whatsoever. Why do you get out of bed in the morning?
Perhaps you are typical minding here. The majority of people, it seems, don't have their happiness or satisfaction levels meaningfully raised by material gain. Perhaps there is more to life than creature comforts. I agree that most people are under massive delusions though, it's quite sad.
Why do you want to build something?
Not the same guy, but
I just do. "Meaning" focuses on me, me, me. It presupposes that if I believe something about the outside world, it will change the inner me, grant me motivation; the outside world would somehow be worth experiencing and interacting with. It puts me at the centre of the universe, but I'm not the main character on this planet. The world will still be there and I will still be there regardless of what I think.
What's true, though, is that your actions create meaning, not your thoughts about the meaning. You do stuff first, then you gain meaning, which is a roundabout way of saying that having connections to the world creates responsibility, which in turn creates meaning. Kids, for example, give you plenty of responsibility. You get up for them regardless of what you think about the meaning. Vice versa, living empty lives devoid of responsibility leads to thoughts about meaning.
I need something, so I want something, so I do something about it (which is the easiest way to want). I can also just want something, without external necessity, based on my life experience.
There's no greater meaning to it. I want something, so I do something. If your wants have to be created by a meaning, you haven't been taught to want properly.
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