Well that's why I believe most nihilists aren't actually nihilists. Also, I don't think believing in meaning has anything to do with nihilism. In fact, the sentence kind of implies you are speaking of objective meaning which is what grinds my gears.
Let's suppose for a moment you're mistaken. How would you recognize evidence to the contrary, were you to receive it? If you met a nihilist, you'd dismiss them, right? It's an approximately unfalsifiable construction.
> Also, I don't think believing in meaning has anything to do with nihilism.
It seems like you call it "purpose" and I called it "meaning?" I'm a bit confused on that point. Am I misusing terminology?
> In fact, the sentence kind of implies you are speaking of objective meaning which is what grinds my gears.
I meant meaning writ large, subjective or objective. If there's a different phrasing that wouldn't have contained this unintended implication I'm open to suggestions.
An example of a line of thinking you might accept; a nihilist could decide go on living, just because they feel like it. It's entirely rational (and let me be clear, you don't need to avoid suicide on rational grounds anyway, it's entirely acceptable not to kill yourself for arational reasons) to decide you don't want to die because you're curious about what will happen if you don't, or because you think it would be an unpleasant endeavor, or because you've just adopted it as an axiom that you should go on living without any justification. There is no contradiction there.
Really, presupposing that a life of suffering should be ended is asserting the existence of a meaning to life, just a negative one instead of a positive one.
I think it's almost tautological. But most people are on a spectrum, there are extremely nihilistic people who still care about their mothers for example. But yea, I think that the spectrum of nihilism is just the inverse of the spectrum of willingness to live.
> presupposing that a life of suffering should be ended
I'm not prescribing action, I just think it usually ends up this way.
> An example of a line of thinking you might accept; a nihilist could decide go on living, just because they feel like it.
I believe many people live like this, but not because they are a nihilist, but because they don't do introspection and/or take meaningful things in life for granted, because just a tiny bit of introspection would reveal that there are many many things you find meaningful in life, even if its something basic like, security, health, or peace. If you take these things away from a person, they will probably contemplate their existence and try to figure out why they should go on with life.
You're saying very insensitive things about real people and a very touchy subject, and you've had multiple people explain to you at length what it is you've misunderstood about nihilism. I think you should take a step back and take another look at that, I'm not sure you've accurately estimated the weight of your words or the sturdiness of your foundation.
This is as one human being to another, if I think I recognize a certain pattern of thinking and am asking you to reevaluate it, it's only because I've had that pattern of thinking in my own mind and someone else has drawn my attention to it in the past.
Nihilism in truth has no prescriptive value judgment on one's choice to keep living.
Nihilism as a philosophy puts forth the notion that there is no inherent meaning to life; full stop.
What you derive after this is your prerogative.
Under this framework, living one's life to their fullest is equally as valid as killing oneself; there is no preference for one or the other, and there is no difference, as it doesn't matter.
The inclination to associate nihilism to destructive tendencies is overblown by popsci and is valid only to the extent it is easy to argue nihilism allows for it, but it neglects to mention nihilism is completely compatible with other/optimistic ideals as well... as it doesn't matter.
Pessimists, broadly, are closer to a real definable "school" to which one might credibly assign hypocrisy at failing to follow through and off oneself (though there are various valid reasons that may still not really be fair). A famous example of this kind of philosophy in pop culture is Rusty in True Detective, who explicitly labels himself a pessimist, and who carries on not because he believes there's a reason to that he could defend philosophically, but because he "lacks the constitution for suicide", as he puts it himself. Though, again, even the pessimist school comes up with justifications for going on living (they just tend to lean more romantic, than couched in reason).
TL;DR I think you're wrestling a ghost with this true- or not-true nihilist deal. I think the colloquial use of the term admits cases and views less-strict or precise/complete than you're insisting on, usually being a shorthand for some limited and specific case of nihilism (e.g. existential nihilist) that doesn't necessarily mean what you're expecting nihilism to mean, while some more-formal-and-strict version that exists as an all-encompassing School of Nihilism isn't really a thing to begin with.