I have come to the realization that nothing we will, have or can do will have any lasting effects.
This may sound depressing but, eventually, everyone we know will die, everything we build will be destroyed, everything we discovery will be lost.
Eventually our society will fall apart, our planet will be destroyed, our star will explode violently and finally our galaxy and every other will be destroyed.
So why should we do anything? Why should we be concerned by morality or ethics? Why should we care about religion or history?
Because…you have expectations to meet by other people for whom you cooperate and compromise. Mostly everything we do has sexual implications, and this is about being accepted socially and contributing more human beings to repeat the process.
But why should we care about society and its opinions? They don,t matter.
Why should we have children? They won’t achieve anything.
Easier said than done. They matter before you get locked up, shunned, made to feel worthless or undesired…
Humans thrive on rewards and praise…
While we’re here and living we temporarily achieve, and by producing offspring this can lead to a prolonged sustenance, genetics and environment willing. Having no children is on you, as is assimilating into society. No one is going to convince you to withstand nihilism…unless there is personal gratification involved, and there really isn’t for me so, good luck! ^_-
The absolute is the bedrock of certainty; the unchanging, the fixed, the eternal.
That reality is none of these leads certain minds to turn away from it in pursuit of the transcendent, or the divine, or “heroic” suicide - a final end; a striving for the ideal, a renunciation of the apparent, of reality.
Lamenting that ones deeds do not last eternally is utterly foolish because nothing lasts eternally, nothing is frozen and immutable. The definition of an existing phenomenon is that which interacts, that which moves and changes in response to its surroundings. Non-existence is that which is absolutely inert and non-interactive.
You seek an absolute and distraught at its lack you turn away from what you do not wish to confront, the inevitable dissolution and mutability of your physical form. A physical form which at any time is undergoing exchange and recombination of physical material such that it’s constituent parts are never fixed but are constantly used, excreted, and/or reabsorbed and used again.
You are not an absolute with definite borders, a distinct phenomenon; you are a temporary and ongoing manifestation of the effects of your parts… parts that you are constantly shedding and replacing over time. This manifestation is finite and will dissolve in time, as all organisations are resistances to mutability but eventually succumb to the weight of their own stresses.
If, therefore, value is to be placed upon the uncommon, the perishable, the rare, the finite… as opposed to that which is ubiquitous, common, everlasting… is life not precious?
Or is it absurd because it does not last forever?
I’m not convinced that absolutely everything will fail to endure. For example, certains sections of history, and certain works of art, may survive indefinitely, perhaps due to the efforts of aliens.
However, the underlying message in the OP - that life is pointless - is true IMO. But life isn’t a job, it’s an experience, and the important thing is enjoyment. If you think that the quest for the truth and having purpose are all important, and you’re inescapably depressed because of these, then suicide is an option. But if there’s sufficient pleasure for you in life, and indeed pain to avoid, then you should live on. And don’t forget the effect of your suicide on family and friends.
Life goes on.
I don’t think we “should” do anything.
But it’s regardless of if things last or not.
I think moral/ethic/religion/obligation/etc are pretty much mere preferences disguised as something absolute, reliable, and so on.
So, even if things were persistent, I don’t care about these.
He is talking about the time scale up to the end of galaxy.
I don;t really think any of human artifact would survive when the galaxy destroyed (by a black hole, for example).
Well, what he realized can be seen as the understanding of impermanence, similar to what some Buddhists may realize.
But rather than simply realizing, I think there was a side effect of connecting the impermanence with the bullshit nature of moral/religion/etc, including the concept of “achieving” something, which might have been important for him.
It’s just your view of "life"m what ever it is, and his view can be different.
If everything is pointless, that logically includes suicide. 
It leaves you without any “pointer”.
Unfortunately, this isn’t very rational/logical, unless you can prove that living will provide more pleasure than pain.
I think there are many many people who suicide following this type of logic, thinking that living will provide more pain than dying ASAP.
I think both are wrong, as we don’t know much about future and I don’t think we can measure the pleasure/pain and evaluate them.
This can push some people who hate their family and/or friend to suicide, just to bother them.
I have read at least some cases people who committed successful suicide just for that (using hard to clean up method like blowing their brain in their house).
And it will end without any effort, at least physically.
Fair point, Churro.
lol @ Nah’s demolition of my post One thing I will stick up for is the permenance idea. I don’t know how the future will pan out in the very long term, so I don’t like to commit to far-future predictions.
So life is either pointless or should be lived simply to do so.
But what motivates people to strive for things? Why is such a big deal made over right and wrong?
You’re asking why we should believe in “shoulds.” That’s never been an issue. We just do.
There’s a point where one needs to separate meaning from value. I write “bat” on a white board. I point at it and tell you to look at it without reading it. Possible? Probably after immense deliberation. But not at first. Same goes with setting yourself on fire; Buddhist monks have been known to do it but it usually requires a lot of exertion outside of the basic template we’re born with.
Either way, when stranded in the desert, rattlesnake means danger and water means survival.
Alienation happens after values begin crowding out meanings; when in the desert for research purposes, the rattlesnake becomes a valuable specimen and water is an ultimately indirect tool for navigating the place comfortably and efficiently. These things exist relative to one another, not to the subject. They practically have their own currency and exchange rate like any other economy. This value system helps us execute tasks very effectively. But it’s only relevant insofar as those tasks mean something to us. For the desert researcher, his purposes are quite meaningful.
It’s when we’re not confident in any of the things we’re doing, when the value system has grown to such large proportions that the meaning behind it all is hard to see, that alienation and anomie become problems.
But why are these problems? Obviously they wouldn’t be if there weren’t an even deeper and more primordial realm of meaning that we have access to. Otherwise “problems” themselves wouldn’t exist. What’s a problem if nothing has meaning? Why does the fox avoid the rattlesnake? Who knows, but there are problems and foxes do avoid rattlesnakes.
Life is possibly pointless, but there is no proof that it is pointless. So living life pointlessly is a personal decision based either on the existence or the lack of existence of meaning and value. point, meaning, value, are all created by us. In order for these things to exist first something must exist that can create them. The natural process must create exitence before meaning. If your mad that nothing is eternal then you are looking for something that is impossible. what does making it eternal even signify? whether or not the changes we effect last forever or not is as irrelevant as effecting anything in the first place. Be glad that your existence allows the existence of things like values, morals, meaning, truth. Without them, you might even say their is no point to existence. We give meaning, so it can not be considered meaningless. As that would go against the very definition we have created in the word meaning. Meaning either exists or it doesn’t, will you ignore it’s existence or will you continue crying that it doesn’t?
Although I may commit (depending on what you mean by it) to very near future prediction, I don’t even know how the next moment will zoom out.
And I seems to prefer demolishing some hypothetical notions/connections/certainties to making connection/relation and building hypothetical system and hypothetical certainty.
Life, or anything, is pointless if one seeks “absolute” (or unconditional) value/meaning/sense/purpose that applies to everyone or everywhere or anytime.
It’s because valuing or evaluation is based on arbitrary reference/base/method and thus it’s conditional to the reference/base/method employed (and the motive behind the choice).
I don’t think life (whatever it is) should be lived in certain way.
But it means I don’t mind if you live thinking you should live simply to do so.
Desire and fear, most probably.