I wasn't referring to whether we value life, but to whether this valuation actually holds water.
In my opinion, the attraction towards life is purely a manifestation of survival instinct. Most nihilistic theories don't say that you should die, but rather that living and dying are both equal and equally empty and meaningless. Yes, there are people who can feel happiness, and connect with other people. There are some of us here who cannot fit into that group, and chase death. Nihilistic thought would consider that both are equivalent, because in the end, none of us matter. The ones who live do so because they choose to, and the ones who die do so because they choose to, and the nature of the living organism makes one group larger than the other, but fundamentally both groups are just divided by circumstance.
The slippery slope between nihilism and psychopathy does not exist - believing that life has no inherent value doesn't mean that you get to dispense with it as you wish, since your own life and thoughts are equally meaningless. Thus, the only value that thoughts can have is inside your own mind, as a construct, and nowhere else.
To return to my question - do you think there's an inherent value in life, or do you simply subscribe to non-interference?
I stick to my guns and believe there is a inherit value in life. There is no room for debate when discussing the effects of ones life has on their outcome. We are all humans,
we have spikes of what we think of right.
I refuse to value one life over another, based on their contribution to society. If I want to stay true to my opinion, I have to believe that for every person that wants to kill themselves, there is a person who wants humans to thrive. This battle has clearly been won by the humans who see a purpose in surviving.
If we're dabbling around the meaning of life, which I think we are, I have to take the side of the living. I want to die, I'm going to die, but could you honestly say you want EVERY person on earth to die with you?
There are only two responses to that question
One: yea you think life is pointless and everyone might as well off themselves because in the bigger picture, it won't matter...
Two: you have the balls to accept that humans are the rightful owners to this world, and another denial of that is pure species denial.
Look at an ant colony, their lives as individuals DONT MEAN SHIT. They understand that theu their power comes in numbers. Ants couldn't care less about contributing their body to ensure the survival of the community
Humans are no different. We've been so massively bred, that it's only natural that some of us have to die. Our intelligence is our greates weapon, and our biggest failure. To even be able to accept that us and a individual has no benefit to the species...makes evolution laugh at us.
We have every capability to CONQUER this planet, yet some of our species can't even get past the urge to kill ours elves. That comes from domination of a planet, over population. We've hit a point is this planets life cycle, that it's become inefficient for us to reproduce.
This is not something that happens a naturally in another other species besides humans.
The very fact we are capable of taking our own lives if we choose, is testimant to how over whelming successful of species we have become.
I'm no scientist but I'm pretty sure any species that had a serious self inhalation issue would fail to become the dominant life form on the planet.
I value us a humans beyond gold and diamonds... we started an inevitable chain reaction of self inhalation as soon as we illuminated our last acual predators.
Humans win every battle against every other living thing that has been on earth, and that in itself is a testimate to how much value a human life holds.
