DEHUMANIZING BUT INTELLECTUALLY LIBERATING – HUMANS ARE COOL. Once you understan

DEHUMANIZING BUT INTELLECTUALLY LIBERATING – HUMANS ARE COOL.

Once you understand that human existence is reducible to acquisitiveness, and that all emotions are merely chemical reactions to changes in state of our extant acquisitions, our anticipated acquisitions, and our potential acquisitions, then you readily adopt the habit of ignoring your intuitions in a search for meaning, and simply looking at all of human experience economically: as cooperation for the purpose of acquisition.

What people think say, believe and justify becomes meaningless verbalism – negotiation both honest and deceptive, and nothing else. Everyone’s purpose is some form of acquisition. Even if it takes the form of acquiring time to relax that is not spent in material acquisition. Thinking of humans so mechanistically, with our emotions as mere reward-machines, is somehow dehumanizing. But on the other hand it’s intellectually liberating. The world is much more comprehensible.

I tend to see our existence as a reasonably successful struggle against the dark forces of time and ignorance. And I celebrate our ability to miraculously cooperate in large numbers, despite the fact that we are all super predators entirely capable of simply killing and eating each other if we choose to.

I don’t know what else in the universe is more amazing than that. And I don’t need the vastness of space, the mystery of physical science or some abstract mysticism to feel spiritually about it: Humans awe me. 🙂

Humans are cool. 🙂

Curt Doolittle