causasui

In other words, religion is wonderful for those for whom it works; the same goes for existentialism (our meaning comes from within) or really literally anything else that gets you through the day.

Every morning we wake up and the vast majority of us decide to not jump off a tall building. Why?

I grew up very religious and when I lost my faith in my 20s, I tried to replace it w/ absurdism and existentialism, but couldn't shake the notion that lives deep in me that ultimately, even if humanity spreads across the cosmos and we're able to find meaning in our own individual existences, the universe will inevitably suffer heat death, from which there is no eternalistic escape.

These days, my morality entirely stems from the reduction and prevention of suffering, which is ultimately the only moral currency we have.

This led me to veganism and anti-natalism, as the best way to prevent individual suffering is for the individual to never exist in the first place (see: David Benatar's Better Never to Have Been; or Ecclesiastes 4:2-3). Needless to say, these are wildly unpopular philosophies. In light of this, I began to come to the realization that we're all nihilists at our core. We embrace religion or other philosophies to ward it off, because it's a truly uncomfortable sate of mind, as the author notes in this post, and the only alternative is total misery until we die. And then, depending on your philosophy, perhaps a true eternal bliss awaits you in paradise! How convenient! The happy people among us are the best at this practice - lying to ourselves successfully about the true nature of reality. We don't care what gets us there, as long as we get there.

All this to say: I was much happier when I believed in God.

I'm open to the idea that it's just me projecting what I understand onto what I don't.

The only case where I don't use them is if I don't want to create time of the item to be known to the user.

The end result is early morning grumpiness, in my case. I'm just in a foul mood for the first hour or two after being ripped from sleep via an alarm. I otherwise don't feel more productive or healthy.

I'm curious why this is; I assume it has to do with the natural sleep cycle. Do those chemicals metabolize in some way shortly before you wake up naturally vs waking up by an alarm where they're still present?

Yes, without question.

Moreover, the negative late-life cognitive effects ("brain shrinkage") referenced by your second source are just as likely correlated to a lack of B12 and DHA (both vital for brain health) not present naturally in soy but are easily supplemented via other plant-based sources. In fact, lots of modern tofu products are enriched with one or both. The uncontested health benefits of tofu when compared to meat far outweigh the single flimsy correlational 30-year study concluding "tofu shrinks your brain!".

Also just worth noting, you cite four references showing negative effects of isoflavones on the brain, but 4 is about thyroid health, 5 is about reproductive health.

Saying "no please don't" will never stop something that is technologically possible from happening. Murphy's law applies here and everywhere in tech (and frankly, in most areas of life).

We breed cows so we can exploit them. There is no air quotes around exploit, that's exactly what cows are to us. Resources for our enrichment.

Of course reproduction is the quintessential drive of all life. But cows are not reproducing in the wild so that point isn't even relevant. They're artificially inseminated to keep them lactating (in the case of dairy cows).

As to your edit, we're not talking about bacteria or plants which lack the physical ability for suffering as we know it. We're talking about bovines, huge mammals w/ a brain and central nervous system.

This is an appeal to nature.

> ... as long as you don't do it out of... greed

How does "I like the taste of cows and milk" not meet your definition of greed?

The difference is you, as a human, have a choice. You are capable of living a healthy, full life w/o eating the flesh or excretions of animals. The bear (or lion or tiger) has no such ability to choose.

Yup! Cows only exist so we may exploit them. Giving animals a "good life" while we exploit (or before we murder) them is not a preferential alternative to simple non-existence in the first place.

Organic life is fragile and ill-suited for space travel, at least organic life as we know it. Perhaps the destiny of all sufficiently advanced organisms is either to die off or replace itself with AI.

Anyway, while I find it impossible to believe there's nothing out there, I find it nearly equally impossible to believe anything that's ever visited our rock resembled little green men.

So what? Why should the cow exist for the sake of existing?

Rather, I made the point that I'd love to ask just one parent why they chose to have a child and have the answer not start w/ "Because I wanted..."

Too little weight is given to the fact that no consciousness exists because it has willed itself into existence. Put another way, nothing consents to being given life.

A feeling mind will come into being, suffer throughout life, likely watch you die, and eventually die itself because you wanted to feel fulfilled. I want a child, therefore I will bring one into this world. Often, it's said having a child is an act of selflessness. I see it the opposite way.

On the flip side, adopting a child is the most selfless thing you can do, in my opinion. Why do only 4% of American households w/ children have an adopted child*? The OP's blog post is surmising it's because we procreate to achieve some tangible sense of immortality, as we consider the passing of our genetic material to be the next best thing to actual in-the-flesh eternal life.

The anthropologist Earnest Becker wrote a book in the '70s called The Denial of Death which reaches much the same conclusion, only broader: that all of civilization is an effort to achieve symbolic if not literal immortality.

* https://adoptionnetwork.com/knowledge-hub/adoption-myths-fac...