Why is nihilism and apathy at all time highs nowadays as opposed to 20 yrs ago?

[Ambivalent1]

?

 

[Adûnâi]

Where did you find nihilism? The West is undergoing a tremendous religious revival, bordering on witch hunts and WW3.

 

[Ambivalent1]

Where did you find nihilism? The West is undergoing a tremendous religious revival, bordering on witch hunts and WW3.

Where is this happening? Churches are filled with the old and families typically, not young adults.

 

[Adûnâi]

Where is this happening? Churches are filled with the old and families typically, not young adults.

Aren't gay parades the Western ritual? Dash that, even gays are passé, it's trans rights now. And trans lesbians. And Ukraine/Palestine. Religious life is a whirlpool of emotion and passion, how can you be so blind? Any nihilist will be called a racist, or a Putin supporter, or an incel.

 

[Ambivalent1]

Aren't gay parades the Western ritual? Dash that, even gays are passé, it's trans rights now. And trans lesbians. And Ukraine/Palestine. Religious life is a whirlpool of emotion and passion, how can you be so blind? Any nihilist will be called a racist, or a Putin supporter, or an incel.

LGBT isn't a religion lol. Ukraine Palestine is politics.

 

[ctbcat]

i think maybe it's because tragedy isn't necessarily happening more, but with the power of social media it's being talked about more, and if all you can ever see everywhere is just 'WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THIS' insert dying child here, 'SPREAD THE WORD OR YOU DESERVE TO BURN IN THE PITS OF HELL!', eventually the blow is going to soften and it's going to take too many emotional resources to care. it's not like these people deserve to suffer or something, it's not like these people facing tragic things are like... i don't know - i'm more just trying to say i'm not trying to justify it, it's just very understandable why it's easier to be apathetic eventually. the way people go about activism, while effective, has quite a few downsides - and the eventual apathy of most of the public is one of them.

as an extremely dazed nihilist i don't know why nihilism is more common these days though. will have to get someone smarter on that part of the topic!

 

[leavingthesoultrap]

It gradually shifted from a combination of nihilism and hedonism to pure nihilism. The 90s - 00s weren't ideal times either.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I think younger generations feel less obligated to do things. I'm Generation X just about and I notice a big difference between my Dad (baby boomer) and me. He has an incredibly strong work ethic, my parents take a lot of pride in their house and garden. They're always working on it. My Dad will complain about how much he hates it but- he still does it. I just think younger generations question more- why should I comply with all these rules end expectations? I think maybe it's in rebellion to pressures that are put on everyone. I just think as an overall trend, younger people are less willing to comply.

Plus, while I used to hate getting this lecture... maybe we do have certain things easier. Definitely household chores like laundry are made much easier with machines. Maybe we've just become more lethargic and, the less you do, the less energy you have.

Plus, I think the human brain needs challenge. It almost needs things to be witheld to be grateful for them. My parents remember when you would be grateful if Santa left you a tangerine in your stocking! Imagine the hissy fit a kid today would throw if it only got a tangerine! I even remember a time where we didn't have videos. Obviously no streaming. We had to wait for our favourite programme to come on. Now, people can access anything they want within seconds. That's amazing of course but, it doesn't feel as special. A bit like playing a game in sandbox mode- it can quite quickly become boring because there's no challenge. I just think we're so overloaded with stimulants now. Our diets, our lifestyles, our media. Everything becomes kind of blasé.

 

[Adûnâi]

Plus, I think the human brain needs challenge. It almost needs things to be witheld to be grateful for them. My parents remember when you would be grateful if Santa left you a tangerine in your stocking!

My mom said that back in the USSR, tangerines were only available around Christmas. And she managed to finish a 5 year long chemistry course in a post-apocalyptic society. Whereas I'm totally aimless, and my mom is desperately trying to entice me to stay in school by paying me money.

LGBT isn't a religion lol. Ukraine Palestine is politics.

I forgot the corona debacle, it was all the rage in 2020, then petered off. What I'm saying is that there are plenty of things normies are fervent about. Hell, there are communities that have been trying to shut down this very website - and they derive a lot of meaning out of silencing the suicidal folks.

Overall, ironically, I would not blame the femboys, but instead consider them one of the pillars of modern religious life. Our rites consist of NSFW poses, and our crosses go in all the right places. Add in the AI, and Homosexual Cosmic Communism is not that far away.

 

[sserafim]

Because people aren't blinded by the false comfort of the Abrahamic religions (cough cough Christianity) anymore. Nihilism is now their religion.

"The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison."

Without religion (Christianity), the opium of the masses, people now know that they're in prison.

 

[Lobster_Toast1281]

Nietzsche has wrote about how the eventual decline of Christianity in the west will lead to nihilism. And religion in general is declining, as it isn't exactly popular within the younger generations. So, that may be the reason?

 

[Little_Suzy]

I think younger generations feel less obligated to do things. I'm Generation X just about and I notice a big difference between my Dad (baby boomer) and me. He has an incredibly strong work ethic, my parents take a lot of pride in their house and garden. They're always working on it. My Dad will complain about how much he hates it but- he still does it. I just think younger generations question more- why should I comply with all these rules end expectations? I think maybe it's in rebellion to pressures that are put on everyone. I just think as an overall trend, younger people are less willing to comply.

Plus, while I used to hate getting this lecture... maybe we do have certain things easier. Definitely household chores like laundry are made much easier with machines. Maybe we've just become more lethargic and, the less you do, the less energy you have.

Plus, I think the human brain needs challenge. It almost needs things to be witheld to be grateful for them. My parents remember when you would be grateful if Santa left you a tangerine in your stocking! Imagine the hissy fit a kid today would throw if it only got a tangerine! I even remember a time where we didn't have videos. Obviously no streaming. We had to wait for our favourite programme to come on. Now, people can access anything they want within seconds. That's amazing of course but, it doesn't feel as special. A bit like playing a game in sandbox mode- it can quite quickly become boring because there's no challenge. I just think we're so overloaded with stimulants now. Our diets, our lifestyles, our media. Everything becomes kind of blasé.

Psychological disorder! I agree, Oppositional defiant disorder.

People desire to transform into anything they please, devoid of any obligations or repercussions.

It is possible that younger generations are more inclined to reach out to the internet than to their local communities. I believe that joining a community with which one can identify is easier than attempting to alter the entire universe. Protests and marches are ineffective without a solid community foundation. The internet isn't real! lol

 

[YoungJijii]

Do you have a source for that? I know the 90s was more than 20 years ago, but that decade was known for its apathy and cynicism

 

[Morte]

Do you have a source for that? I know the 90s was more than 20 years ago, but that decade was known for its apathy and cynicism

I remember the 90s and early 2000s quite different. There was no social media, just people living in the moment. Children going out to play instead of glued to a smartphone pretending to be adults. The economy was better in most countries too, especially mine. Today's youth have such a pathetic and miserable life that they spend the whole day watching TikTok shorts. The whole social média thing is the perfect example of modern happiness decay. People are so miserable with their own existence that they constantly need other people's attention, everysingle momento that should be personal needs to be shared, nothing else is for oneself.

 

[UKscotty]

I don't know about that, I feel religion is making a massive come back the past decade. Especially prevalent with Christianity and Islam.

Churches and Mosques spring up everywhere and are packed. Especially here in the UK.

I'd say since the pandemic they have had a massive resurgence.

 

[wait.what]

I'm both trans and gay, but I am definitely not a religion. I'd have more rights if I were.

Also, there are a lot of nihilists here because this is a website full of suicidal people. The rest of the world has plenty of assholes, but very few actual nihilists. Even I mostly think of myself as an Existentialist who is not at all having a good time.

 

[Ambivalent1]

Because people aren't blinded by the false comfort of the Abrahamic religions (cough cough Christianity) anymore. Nihilism is now their religion.

"The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison."

Without religion (Christianity), the opium of the masses, people now know that they're in prison.

Then the lie was necessary. Ultimately, nothing matters but enjoying what you can. If you lived happily under the umbrella of a lie, then what difference does it make if it was true or not?

 

[sserafim]

Then the lie was necessary. Ultimately, nothing matters but enjoying what you can. If you lived happily under the umbrella of a lie, then what difference does it make if it was true or not?

Ignorance is bliss. Personally I'd rather have the truth but that's just me.

I don't know about that, I feel religion is making a massive come back the past decade. Especially prevalent with Christianity and Islam.

Churches and Mosques spring up everywhere and are packed. Especially here in the UK.

I'd say since the pandemic they have had a massive resurgence.

Why do you think that is?

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I think most of the nihilism and apathy today stems from a lot of the issues going on right now that our generation has to deal with. Most of us can't and may never be able to buy our own homes, climate chnage is getting worse, political divides are getting worse, the wealth gap is getting worse, etc. Late-stage capitalism has led to it being hard to live a good life for anyone who isn't wealthy. There isn't exactly that much for us to look forward to.

To add insult to injury, the internet has also distorted a lot of our views of reality, with a lot of people now thinking that the general public is a lot dumber and meaner in real life, due to videos of idiotic assholes spreading like wildfire online. The thing is, those videos aren't a good representation of the general public and many of them are taken out of context and/or are edited to make the person look bad, but most people don't have very good media literacy so they just take it all at face value. This isn't to say that there aren't a lot of assholes and idiots out there, but it's usually not as extreme as what is portrayed online.

A long time ago, people would have used religion to try and cope with their shitty situations, but today less and less people are religious. To add on to that, I don't even think religion would be that helpful anyway, considering the fact that even religious people have become more apathetic as a result of a lot of shit going on these days.

 

[Argo]

Why is nihilism popular...


Well. First of all I want to say I don't think nihilism has any truth to it, but I think it has to do with why any idea is popular. Or "viral" is a better word, because ideas have to function on some sort of merit and they they do this aggressively and forcefully, they impinge their popularity in the same way gravity forces you to the ground-- the word 'viral' captures that aggression. This is how ideas function. Now...

Let's say we invent a new idea. Let's just call this idea 'random pounding on the keyboard' and give it the name: qlkjlkdnmf;lkasdfjk ;'a[ psdfksodfpoj qwef qefpjv /. That's the idea. It's not much of an idea, right? So you would be on pretty firm ground if you guessed that "qlkjlkdnmf;lkasdfjk ;'a[ psdfksodfpoj qwef qefpjv /" won't be trending on TikTok tomorrow, or in 10 years. It won't be the new slang kids use. It won't be on Urban Dictionary. And so on.

Why? Because it's not ... sticky. It's not viral. It doesn't have utility and power behind it. It doesn't do anything useful. Notice how we didn't say anything about its truth? Or how many tragedies it solves? That's because those things aren't actually the most important for how viral an idea is. There's a heirarchy to it. There's how good something is(ethically), there's how true something is(regardless how bad or good it is), but then there's how useful something is for survival(regardless how ethical or true it is), at the very very top of the heirarchy. Nothing beats this quality, for how viral something is.

Nihilism is useful for survival, so it's popular. But why is it useful-- doesn't it sound a little dark and depressing? It's useful, because our world is hellish. It's one where bad people win, and lots of innocent people get sacrificed in the process. That's how the system on our planet works(you can't fix this, because you'd have to beat the bad powerful people who rule things and to do that, you'd need to be like them). That is hellish and monsterous, and the more in touch you are with this aspect of our reality, the more difficult your life will be. Even if you don't understand that the world is this way, the fallout of the world being this way negatively touches everyone's life-- all conscious things suffer due to this feature of our world, not just humans.

But... what if you just didn't care? What if... it just didn't matter really that a child was being abused right this second? Right as you're reading? Or thousands of animals screamed in pain as they were eaten alive? As they've done for not just millions of years(notice how we can't quite wrap our heads around this number?), but hundreds of millions of years?

Hmm. Sure sounds terrible and hellish, if words like 'terrible' and 'hellish' are to mean anything.

Ah but... no matter. Because it's meaningless. Everything is meaningless.

Ahhhh. Much better. That's why it's popular.