Well, I guess my steem-it blog is just me responding to things that get under my skin. I saw this video on youtube and felt compelled to craft a response.
Instead of typing, i thought I'd experiment with the "talk to the camera" approach... more spontaneous but more rambly... I believe I manage to get my points across.
My main message is this: the referenced video is a sales pitch for a pre-packaged belief system that grants the purchaser the license to live a life free of pesky morality. All you need to do is slap this label on your brain and you're good to go. Ostensibly it's rooted in science, so you don't have to worry about being challenged on the rationality of your belief system.
An interesting contradiction embedded in the philosophy is this (a) the foundation of the philosophy being based upon ultimate meaninglessness, and (b) the touted freedom that grants to the individual to seek out one's own meaning.
Yes, in a free society, we should be free to seek out meaning and truth... in fact you could say that that very search can provide meaning in itself. But once you've found some meaning or purpose - having exercised the supposed freedom that nihilism gives you - does it still count as nihilism? It seems to cancel itself out.... ironically the term nihilism seems to lose any meaning in the context of this philosophy... that is, if you take the "optimistic" part of it to mean that you're free to enjoy meaning of your own choosing.
I believe the term is being employed as a mechanism by which a certain demographic of young people can be sold a trendy pre-packaged belief system that creates minimal moral obligation, encourages complacency in the concern for others' suffering, and reinforces a sense of powerlessness in our ability to act collectively to change the world. And that sense of powerlessness is very convenient for those in power who want to keep from having their power challenged.
In fact, here's why he kept talking about video games in the "optimistic" portion of the video: we should all bury our heads in trivialities that bring us immediate gratification. Get sucked into the (intentionally addictive) fictional universes that video games provide, so we can stay comfortably distracted from the horrible shit our political and corporate leaders are doing. Don't worry your pretty little head about the masses of the earth's population that is not privileged enough to have access to food, water, shelter, let alone video games. You know, the brown ones we bomb because "freedom". Also don't worry your pretty little head about the corporate greed causing accelerating climate change, the destruction of our environment from fracking, the pollution of our water supplies so we can run oil pipelines, the collective addiction we have to oil; and of course the SEVERE addiction our oligarchs have to perpetual warfare. Instead, retreat into this hip, trendy belief system you can share with your friends and have great rationality "cred".
