The real reason life tends to suck


Off-Topic Discussions


You do not exist for you.

you were not made for you.

You were made as a means to an end. Namely your DNA made you to make more dna.

Thats it. That is as deep as life goes. That is the alpha and the omega.

Life is not nice to the individual. It doesn't care if you're happy, sad, hungry, full. Whatever gets the dna spread is what it uses.

Something goes horribly wrong? So what. The individual is meaningless to DNA. evolution is a system where "something went wrong, so you live only to know pain and death" is a feature.

Lifes "plan" for you is to keep cranking out babies. If that encourages you to cheat, stay with an abusive spouse, or to get into a relationship you're going to regret, doesn't matter.

To make matters worse, the plan is made with million year old assumptions. DNA does not change nearly as fast as society. As far as the DNA is concerned, its cranking out a machine to survive in a hunter gatherer tribe slash extended family with spears and clubs.

If that sounds like a bad way to live in a world of nuclear weapons,internet nation states and individual rights... you're right. Its one thing when the sociopathic indifference to non relatives has you invade the next tribe over, kill the men and rape the women. It becomes something entirely different when the people in charge of deciding to attack don't actually have to face the slings and arrows themselves.

Sovereign Court

I live to make more DNA so life is not so bad for me.


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I am so glad I don't have this problem.


Yeah, but reproduction is only like 20% of what separates you from the constructs, undead, and other non-living things.

I'm in it for the consumption and excretion in addition to the passing on of DNA. Actually, since I don't really want kids, I guess I'm in it for the other stuff.

But yeah, much of our societal systems are set up around the reproduction part.


DNA made an error picking me for its replicator...


Drejk wrote:
DNA made an error picking me for its replicator...

There are reserves.


Good for them! They can have it!


Orthos wrote:
Good for them! They can have it!

I know the feeling (or lack thereof in this case) But its a small enough minority in our species that people doubt whether we exist or not. Genetically its no different from being born with a bum ticker. (Slightly less deleterious, since you can still help your family members )


Yeah I've had that conversation.


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You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of Chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about Chaos? It's fair!


I like the cut of this gal's jib.


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Millions of years of evolution, only to be foiled by a dirty gym sock.

The Exchange

BigNorseWolf wrote:

You do not exist for you.

you were not made for you.

You were made as a means to an end. Namely your DNA made you to make more dna.

Gonna do you favorite thing in the world and involve philosophy in this (you started it!). What is "you"? If you are not your DNA, which is what your post suggests, then what composes "you"?


Your brain. The part of you that thinks.


I'm my penis?


meatrace wrote:
I'm my penis?

A lot of times you are heavily influenced by the part of the brain that tells you to use it.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Your brain. The part of you that thinks.

Optimist.


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People... I have seen the finale of thousands of lives, man. Young, old, each one so sure of their realness. You know that their sensory experience constituted a unique individual with purpose and meaning. So certain that they were more than biological puppet. The truth wills out, and everybody sees. Once the strings are cut, all fall down.

Dark Archive

Cohle Slaad wrote:
People... I have seen the finale of thousands of lives, man. Young, old, each one so sure of their realness. You know that their sensory experience constituted a unique individual with purpose and meaning. So certain that they were more than biological puppet. The truth wills out, and everybody sees. Once the strings are cut, all fall down.

Not if you are the puppeteer ... Perhaps I have said too much.

Yes, you do not exist. You are all mere nonexisting masses which are the result of your nonexistent parental units' comingled excretions. Please continue about your nonexistence.

<prepares the scissors>


All we are is dust in the wind.

Dark Archive

Maybe you meatbags are. I am a machine and I was designed to eat delicious cheeseburgers and overthrow humanity's sticky grip on this planet.


The differences between the sexes.

We are a sexually dimorphic species. The differences go well beyond which way the plumbing goes. Even our brains are different. This isn't an accident. While we are both the products of the game of evolution we don't play by the same rules. Having one gender act by the optimal strategy for the other is far less than optimal.

The most prolific mother known managed to produce is 69, largely from having multiple multiple births. In our evolutionary history, getting 10 to 12 before dying in child birth would be an anomaly. Contrast that with a possible 860 children for the record holder, nearly 10 times as many.

Even discounting the potential legendary nature of the outlier, the list makes plain what History of the world part I viewers already knew: Its good to be the king! For a male, rising to a position of power and getting two (or more) mates can literally double your reproductive output. While a female getting multiple mates will increase their offsprings chances of surviving a larger number of threats, males gain the same benefit AND a strait out multiplication of fitness.

Taking a risk to climb the ladder, show off, or kill off the neighboring tribe to take their women and their stuff just doesn't have the same payoff as killing the neighboring tribe to take their men and their stuff. On top of that, men that went off with one last hurrah can show up in the next generation, while women loose not only any future chances of reproduction, but likely any offspring up to 2.

I don't think that its any accident that aggression and risk taking are so heavily tied to testosterone that they're synonymous with the* body part that produces it.

Keep in mind two things though: This is a numbers game. A trend. Its not absolute (and can't be, with a species as diverse as ours). It doesn't need to be absolute: as long as its in the odds it will still have an effect on evolution.

More importantly, this is an IS. Not an OUGHT. Many cruel, barbaric, and twisted things people can do would enhance their reproductive reproductive fitness. Doesn't make it right.


The_Superior_Dudemeister wrote:
Maybe you meatbags are. I am a machine and I was designed to eat delicious cheeseburgers and overthrow humanity's sticky grip on this planet.

Boy, I sure am glad I bought that Robot plan from Old Glory Insurance.

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