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Comment by YellOh | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a weirdly stringent test for nihilism. If a nihilist believes there is no meaning in living but also no meaning in dying, why would they default to dying?

A lot of built-in taboos (e.g. against bodily damage) make living a "default" human choice, and unless you're also burying the assumption that without meaning one should actively seek death as soon as possible(?), it seems like nihilists could keep riding the default until they got sufficiently bored of it.

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When I think of nihilism, I think of depressed people who can't pick themselves up to do anything because of a feeling of hopelessness, or a man experiencing a mid life crisis wondering what he's worked so hard for. These people often resort unhealthy coping mechanisms or even worse, suicide.

You're equivocating between your stereotype of nihilism and what "real nihilists" "should" do to be considered a nihilist. Nihilism != depression, even if there is overlap, and it's useful to let the words have different meanings.

There are a decent number of people who are nihilists without meeting your assumptions above (though they're probably less salient, as if someone seems functional & not-miserable, people don't usually bother to ask whether they're a nihilist).

Nietzche defines nihilism (partially) as those who oppose the affirmation of life which is kind of related to what you say here... except the affirmation of life requires a "yes" to life such that "all of eternity [is] embraced, redeemed, justified and affirmed,"[0] which I think plenty of (functional, happy-ish) people do not experience.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzschean_affirmation

[Footnote: Nietzsche is writing against the nihilism he saw in his own time, not in favor.]

I'm not equivocating anything, my test for nihilism is very simple, "do you have anything meaningful in your life". What I mentioned earlier are symptoms or forms of nihilism.

What I hate is when people describe nihilism as "Well, I don't believe there is meaning but also I find satisfaction in the small things in life" or "There's no point in life, the point of life is to live". It's always the same pattern of rejecting objective meaning and thinking that's the same as having no meaning.

Fwiw, I'm in favor of Nietzsche's definition too, but I don't want to introduce a whole host of loaded words to an already confusing topic

Does someone occasionally getting small satisfactions equal them thinking there is meaning in life? If so, we're using very different definitions of meaning. I think people can think there is no meaning and also be capable of occasional positive experiences.

(I don't understand the second quote so can't comment on it.)

One of my favorite poems is Be Drunk[0]. Would you take someone agreeing with the "thesis" of Be Drunk (thinking it's necessary to numb yourself against meaninglessness through diversions like alcohol or poetry) as unable to be a nihilist, because they are capable of distracting themselves from meaninglessness?

[0] https://poets.org/poem/be-drunk

ETA: I don't think "is there anything meaningful in your life" uses the word "meaning" in the same was as the question "does life have meaning." Maybe the below commentor was totally correct about us all talking past each other, because the first question seems to ask "does anything reliably bring you joy" while the second asks "is there a purpose to existence." Someone could have things that matter to them while still thinking existence is purposeless.

To get out of the morbid tone of the thread, I do want to say that, I think we probably mostly agree. I just want to reframe the conversation from, "despite the lack of (objective) meaning, build your own meaning" to "meaning is all around us, you just need to look a little harder" because the former is a very negative perspective on life in my opinion, and it can come from a place of resentment.

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