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A comment on The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make. Parent comment

Re:The universe has already made almost all the stars it wil... by kibwen on Thursday September 02, 2021 @12:44PM (#28394274)
Similar experience here. Learning about astronomy was a psychologically traumatizing experience. After a few years of ceaseless low-key existential crises I think I finally ended up better off, with a healthy perspective of my place in the universe and an appreciation for what a miracle it is that we have the chance to observe anything at all. The writings of Carl Sagan helped greatly. But I fear I could have just as easily slipped off the knife's edge into either nihilism on one side or hedonism on the other.
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Re:The universe has already made almost all the stars it wil... by AlexanderTheGr8 on Thursday September 02, 2021 @12:57PM (#28394449)
Is nihilism or hedonism bad? A lot of people already live their lives for pleasure (hedonism) - people work their entire lives to earn money to either enjoy / vacation / sex / etc. Nihilism is considerably rare but I believe that's because it's opposite to hedonism, in a way.
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Re:The universe has already made almost all the stars it wil... by entropicdrifter on Monday September 13, 2021 @12:56PM (#28513783)
>I believe that's because it's opposite to hedonism, in a way.

I don't see how. Nihilism is descriptive whereas hedonism is prescriptive.

Nihilism is an answer to the question of what is or is not, to which is says, "not at all". That's why there are many flavors of nihilism, such as existential nihilism ("there is no meaning at all"), moral nihilism ("there is no morality at all"), or epistemic nihilism ("there is no knowledge at all").

Contrast hedonism, which is an answer to the question of what one ought to do with one's time, or to put another way, it's a min-max strategy where pain is minimized and pleasure is maximized.

I don't see how those two areas of philosophy contradict each other in any way.

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Re:The universe has already made almost all the stars it wil... by Saptarishi on Thursday September 02, 2021 @03:03PM (#28395981)
I think good-bad is not a fair comparision to classify hedonism into one of them. There are generic pleasures like money/sex , and subjective pleasures.Both can easily spiral into greed, malice and prejudice, none of which we really want too much of.
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Re:The universe has already made almost all the stars it wil... by NikolaeVarius on Thursday September 02, 2021 @01:08PM (#28394585)
I dont understand. hedonism and nihilism are good things.
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Re:The universe has already made almost all the stars it wil... by macrolocal on Thursday September 02, 2021 @02:42PM (#28395763)
Well, you might be leaning way too much into your moral intuitions about space and extent in this context. Small things are not unimportant.
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