Why are we saying nihilism is bad?
There is a sutra that actually addresses nihilism, as it was a view that some schools of thought taught at the time of the Buddha. [1]
He considered it to be wrong view, a denial of the results of good or bad actions (karma) and rebirth. With the teachings on emptiness in the heart sutra it states all phenomena are marked by emptiness, “no birth no death, no being no nonbeing, no defilement no purity, no increasing no decreasing”. So nihilists would be led to cling to the view of nonbeing and not see everything else. For me at least that brought about a lot of aimless suffering.
[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.060.than.html
The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences.
Worse, it is also a philosophy that contributes absolutely nothing to actually understanding the nature of the world, which is kind of the point of philosophy.
In short, nihilists are utterly useless, to themselves and the world. On the upside, they won't care.
How does "life is meaningless" imply "life is useless"? Also, why would nihilism entail radical individualism? The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning, quite the opposite of what you're implying.
I'm not that familiar with nihilism, but I'm rather surprised that "humans have to give it meaning" is part of the core. That's somewhat non-obvious to me; intuitively I would have expected nihilists to believe that meaning cannot exist.
Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually believe that humans are capable of creating meaning?
what marks humans out from the rest of the meaningless universe that suddenly blesses them as meaning bearers? almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
Now whether that those answers are accurate is a different question. But I think it's clear that humans crave meaning, and are happy to relegate meaning-making to third party institutions such as organized religion or the media.
Just a good-enough-for-you meaning.
>almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
Well, they're not like other parts, in that they have meta-cognition, and a lot of it.
Planets and black holes and ants don't wonder about meaning.
Non-human subjective experiencers also imagine meaningful objects in their own minds. There's nothing special about humans other than their ability to communicate with other humans.
- Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
That's a big part of existentialism (Sartre, Camus, etc), in which life has no inherent meaning, and it's rather empty existence, and it's up to the person to make any meaning for themselves.
(Supposing they can understand us.)
For them, we are radical individualists with no regards for nothing but ourselves.
That's bad for society. Who said it's bad in itself or wrong?
That's hedonism.
Life is finite and it will end, just like the nihilist faction proclaims. No reincarnation, no eternal life. The eternalist faction got it wrong.
Life is an infinitesimally small spark of light but lost in the infinite darkness.
And there lies its value. Life is unique, every single moment you are alive is the most valuable moment in time, and it is therefore priceless. Carpe Diem.
Also, people always care. Even for trivialities, they always care.
I love being alive and I appreciate every single moment of it. Because I know it will be over some day.