The Genesis of Nihilism and Existential Dread

What is the root or the genesis of existential dread and nihilism? Some of my thoughts:

1. Physiological degeneration?

Sugar is the enemy. Coca Cola is evil. Most of the modern world has diabetes — either Type 2, Type 3 (Alzheimer’s) or other forms of metabolic disease.

2. Loss of faith in human beings

Also — we no longer believe in the greatness or grandeur of human beings. We prefer dogs and cats. Why? They are our emotional pet-slaves. They cannot argue with us. They are dependent on us. Compare this to a (complicated) human being. Why aren’t (smart and intelligent and educated) couples not having kids anymore? Because they don’t like humans, and maybe they themselves wish they weren’t born. Therefore they will not bring in a new human into the world because they don’t want to do unto others as they don’t like others to do unto them. In other words:

I am so resentful that my parents birthed me. I wish I were never born. Thus I will do my duty to *NOT* birth another (miserable) child into this world.

3. Confusion?

Karl Marx; typical degenerate (human hater)

Communism — Karl Marx; typical degenerate (human hater)

Let us not get suckered. Karl Marx was a great hater of humanity. So was Susan Sontag. They hated humans and hated being alive. And therefore they used their smarts and intelligence to discredit humanity, and life in general.

4. Too much alcohol and drugs?

Modern society is extremely tolerant (and actually quite positive) towards alcohol. I talked to a friend who was a druggie and he told me:

Out of all the drugs, alcohol is by far the worst.

So why this extreme tolerance towards alcohol in America and most of the world? My theory:

It is very profitable.

But alcohol is quite bad for you. You can easily OD on alcohol (hard to do this even with weed). I would actually rate alcohol as 100x worse than marijuana. To be clear, if people wanna drink alcohol … totally fine! But I am simply curious about the physiological degeneration which happens by drinking alcohol every day. To Nassim Taleb’s point:

Perhaps better to get piss-drunk once a week than to ‘moderately’ drink one glass of red wine a day.

Apparently for recovering alcoholics rather than to abstain them 100% from alcohol, it is better to limit them to unlimited drinking of alcohol to just once a week.

5. Weed makes you apathetic

I have no moralistic qualms against weed or marijuana. But it seems the fact is:

Weed makes most people lazy.

I am certain there are some individuals who are more creative and productive with weed. But like Elon Musk said on Joe Rogan’s podcast:

Smoking weed is like the exact *opposite* of drinking a cup of coffee.

6. Video games?

Part of the relentless march of technology. I think video games wire us kids weird. I know that I grew up to video games which was fine and all… but now, video games are almost *too* good. Video games are actually more interesting than embodied reality. Clear sense of progress, unlimited worlds, and it is more ‘meritocritous’ (meaning, your merit and effort and hard work actually pays off in a video game and MMORPG, etc … whereas in real life, it often doesn’t).

Like watch the Ready Player One movie:

In virtual reality it doesn’t matter who you are, how rich or poor you are, everyone starts off in an equal spot.

This is technically far more ‘merit-based’ and “fair”. But real life (embodied reality) ain’t fair! To believe life, society and the world *should* be fair is a trap.