User:Tisane/Sandbox/Archive 2

The court case kinda shifted my outlook on humanity. I realized, Most people support the government and acknowledge the judges, prosecutors, etc. as being their representatives. It is sad that these are the best people that my fellow members of society could find to speak and act on their behalf.

There were a lot of disturbing aspects of this court case. For one thing, my penalty was doubled because the victim was an "official victim." But it's kinda questionable how much the President was really victimized, given that he never was made aware that a threat ever existed. Suppose someone comes up to me and informs me that he's going to kill you. If he never takes action to actually do it, and you never find out that he made a threat, have you been victimized?

Then of course there are the incidents they brought up from my past. When I was 16, I was diagnosed with depression and put on Paxil. Paxil is now recognized as a drug that should not be prescribed to adolescents because it can cause erratic behavior and ideation. And sure enough, that is exactly what happened. The references in those transcripts to my hitting my mother (on the shoulder) and assaulting another student are from that two-week period when I was on Paxil. I ended up with a juvenile court case, but it was dismissed and theoretically was not supposed to come back to haunt me. Likewise, my cannabis charges from several years ago were also dismissed and weren't supposed to come back to haunt me. Guess what - they came back to haunt me. They used those incidents as justification for holding me without bond and/or for giving me extra prison time.

Then of course, there are the fundamental principles of libertarianism that they violated, but I need not go into those here; they have been adequately covered elsewhere. In the course of this case, I lost all respect for mankind, and accordingly began to question whether life has any purpose, given that I have dedicated my life, mostly, to helping mankind. If they are not worth helping, then I may as well commit suicide, because I do not enjoy life enough to find it worthwhile in and of itself. I have seen and done a lot in my 29 years on this earth. I feel that almost anything else I could experience would just be a rehash of what I've already experienced. I have led almost as full a life as I care to live.

However, I do not feel capable yet of killing myself. I want to see the Inclupedia project through to its completion and ultimate success or failure. I have two reasons for this. One is that this is the most important contribution I can possibly make to society, and it will make life a little better for people who are similar to myself. The second is that I simply want to finish what I started, given that I am able to see it through to either full defeat or victory. I got in a fight with the deletionists, and I can win or else conclusively settle that there is no way to win. Better to do that than throw in the towel prematurely.

As far as the political system in the larger outside world is concerned, there is no way to win against my enemies in that arena. And because that arena decides the fate of everything else, life is ultimately pointless. But the wikisphere is sort of an MMPORG to itself, plus it affects the real world to some extent, so I may as well complete the task that I set out to do. Others would have a hard time picking up where I left off.

I think that unjustified/premature despair can be harmful, in that it causes one to give up too easily. It does no harm to give up when the situation really is hopeless, though; in fact, it may even be advantageous to stop struggling once it becomes evident that the fight is lost. The problem is that sometimes it's hard to accurately assess when that point has been reached, since there are so many unknown variables.

I also suspect that, one way or another, those with overly pessimistic temperaments will tend to weed themselves out of society. Then again, consider the situation that arises if humanity's situation is indeed hopeless. In that case, the extreme pessimists would actually be the realists; nonetheless, their giving up would still tend to weed them out of society, and society would tend to become dominated by overly optimistic types who mistakenly believe that there is still hope. That may be already happening.

Certainly, organizations like the LP would tend to be dominated by those who are optimistic about the prospects of attaining liberty, since those who conclude that such a goal cannot be achieved tend to drop out of the organization. But, the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of an organization or of society as a whole is not necessarily the correct view.

This is a sad example on where society can make you think. I've known people with similar reactions to life, to what we all considered to have been and still be valid reasons. However, my advice is not to despair, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Also, is it ok if I share this subpage on Facebook or wikify it where needed? --Anime Addict 22:20, 19 June 2010 (GMT)

Yeah, I open up everything I write to be modified and/or copied. Thanks for the encouragement, by the way. Part of the problem is that we don't know what the meaning of life is. Is it to live with dignity and call our own shots, rather than living as slaves? If so, then suicide might be the right course of action, because a life of liberty is not an option at the moment. (We may have fairly benevolent masters, who allow us a certain amount of freedom, but that doesn't mean we're not slaves, or that our privileges can't be taken away at any time without our consent.)

I have received a personal affront from the government, in that they basically said, "You have to follow our rules, and if you don't, you're going to receive increasingly harsh punishments." But that is the same affront that everyone receives. The only difference is that I heard it directly from a judge, whereas most people hear it only from the statute books. But the threat which constitutes the affront has been on the books all along.

It is like the situation we face with a schoolyard bully who taunts us by saying, "What are you going to do about it?" There usually was nothing that could be done about it; theoretically a teacher could be told, but the bully will just deny having done anything, everyone else will deny having seen anything, and without evidence of the bullying, there wasn't much the teacher could do, and it would only earn the victim ostracism for being a snitch. The difference is that the bully didn't have the support of most of society (if you asked a random person whether he agrees with the bully beating up on you, he would probably say No), whereas government is supported by most of society. Will that always be the case? Who knows. Arguably, people are becoming more statist than they once were, but that doesn't mean that trend won't be reversed later.

So, what is the meaning of life? Is it to accomplish what we can, as a worker, citizen, parent, friend, etc. and enjoy ourselves within the limits defined by the state? Or are those things meaningless without individual sovereignty? Hard to say, and maybe the answer varies from person to person. In any event, we don't know what direction society will take; it could be headed from totalitarianism or even nuclear holocaust, for all we know. Could anyone in the Roman Empire have guessed that a millenium later, Europe would be plunged into the Dark Ages and feudalism, rather than having continually made progress toward a better world? On the other hand, could anyone living in medieval times have guessed that the Renaissance would occur a few centuries later?

In short, it could be that all our work is for nothing, but who knows? And by what standard does one judge that it's either worthwhile or for nothing? Nobody really has any answers. Modern western society disapproves of suicide, but not every society has throughout history; some societies have viewed honor as being more important than life, for instance. Inevitably there will tend to be a bias among others to support continuing to live, since those who have committed suicide aren't around to recommend their choice, and there is no cost, and only benefit, to those around us to recommend that we continue to live. There is something about suicide that deeply troubles people, although I view it as merely a shortening of life; and there are many ways by which we shorten life.

I used to think that there are things I want to accomplish before I go, because it would vex me to leave them undone, given that there is no one else to do them. But eventually I realized, it is of no concern to me, because in death, the loss of awareness prevents one from feeling vexed about anything that has been left undone. And the last moments of life are fleeting and pass quickly, so that any annoyance at one's failures is merely a temporary discomfort, like the physical discomfort associated with the suicide method itself.

All right, enough philosophizing for now. I'll choose to remain alive for the time being, just for the fuck of it, but that doesn't mean that I won't feel suicidal again later; in fact, in all probability I will, because these philosophical questions remain unanswered and therefore continue to occupy my mind at times, especially when things are not going well. Tisane 16:42, 20 June 2010 (GMT)

In some ways,it's more difficult to live as an independent thinker. Most people go with the crowd and copy the opinions of others, figuring that the majority won't be wrong, and if it is, then at least there's safety in numbers. The independent thinker may be a minority of one and thus be totally defenseless against the majority, even if he is correct in his view. Moreover, there is a need for more thought, since the wheel has to be reinvented in order to make sure it is correct. The dependent thinker just assumes that the wheel is OK and uses it.

Thus far, I've been proceeding on the premise that I need to vindicate myself by doing something really productive/brilliant to benefit society, thereby proving my worth. This would dispel any popularly-held notion (among those who have heard of me) that I'm just some idle dreamer or crazy person or grandiose individual. I've also been thinking to myself that I need to beat the deletionists (who thus far have defeated me) and help those who have helped me, or at least treated me halfway decently, or who in any case are decent people similar to myself, even if I've never met them. I can also bring attention to my political ideas by becoming famous for doing something highly productive and noteworthy.

But which is closer to the truth, I wonder: The conventional wisdom, that by being productive workers, we expand the private sector and thereby marginalize the state; or the Atlas Shrugged view that by contributing to the economy, we merely provide a host for the looters to feed on, and thereby enable tyranny to continue?

G.K. Chesterton wrote, "The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world." So my question to society is, Why should I bother trying to help you, impress you, live by your standards so that you'll like me, and serve as your slave so that you won't lay hands on me, when I can just blot you out, and be done with you? Why do I care what you think after I'm dead?

I went to prison, I was handcuffed, insulted, dismissed as crazy. When I came out of the prison, I went on the Internet, told my story, and basically said, "I'm ready to collect my medal of honor for bravely defying the government." Instead, people verbally shat on me.

So, my attitude at this point is, Fend for yourself. The world will be a little worse without me. If it gets to be too much — not that I think that the loss of me will be the tipping point for very many readers of this, if any — you have the option of escaping by killing yourself. If you're unable to do so, that's your loss and your problem. (I would say "your fault," too, if I believed in free will rather than determinism.) You're the one who's too weak to do what I did.

I have my own weakness. It's just too much for me to come back from, after how I was treated. Not so much how I was treated here, but how I was treated by the system. If you had been in my shoes and dealt with what I dealt with, perhaps you would understand.

Those who cared about the inclusionist/deletionist issue, or anything else I could have helped them with, should have helped me when I needed help. They should have fought and overcome the political system rather than allowing it to oppress me and ultimately consume and destroy me. (And when I say "consumed," I mean it in the sense of a devouring, or at least a chewing up and spitting out.)