Um, obvious solution: redefine your morality. There is no objective morality. If you think the net utility of world is negative, that really says more about you than the world.
And if you are totally sincere in this belief, then honestly: seek professional mental help.
Dr. Clippy suggests to focus on making paperclips instead. Universe is going to provide a lot of iron in long term.
I said it would be even easier to simply redefine “paperclip” to mean an atom of iron, regardless of where it is, and already declare my work done, but for some reason Dr. Clippy got really angry after hearing that.
for what it’s worth, I don’t think professional mental health is any good most of the time, and it’s only worth it if you’re actually psychotic. for things that don’t totally destroy your agency and just mostly dampen it, I think just doing things on your own is better.
There’s a lot of evidence that various types of “talk therapy” do improve most physiological conditions, including things like depression, anxiety disorders, ect.
The odd thing in the research is that they all seem to do about the same, which clearly need further explanation. But at the moment, the best evidence we have is that seeing a therapist is a good idea that will most likely benifit a person who needs help.
I think the majority of people (literal majority, not just people who are said to have mental health problems) could benefit from talking to a therapist a couple of times. Most likely the benefit would be exhausted quickly though, which is why I said “a couple of times.”
In all seriousness and with all good intent, I am quite serious when I say that thinking the world is without value is in fact a textbook symptom of depression.
But I think you have chosen to ignore the larger point of my comment that morality is really self-determined. Saying that your personal morality leads to an assessment of net negative utility is saying that “my arbitrarily chosen utility function leads to not-useful outcomes.” Well.. pick another.
Um, obvious solution: redefine your morality. There is no objective morality. If you think the net utility of world is negative, that really says more about you than the world.
And if you are totally sincere in this belief, then honestly: seek professional mental help.
“I’m worried that billions of beings that I care about are suffering constantly, and there’s no way for me to help them.”
“This wouldn’t be a problem for you if you didn’t care about them.”
Morality may not be objective, but that doesn’t mean I can just pick a new morality, or would want to if I could.
Dr. Clippy suggests to focus on making paperclips instead. Universe is going to provide a lot of iron in long term.
I said it would be even easier to simply redefine “paperclip” to mean an atom of iron, regardless of where it is, and already declare my work done, but for some reason Dr. Clippy got really angry after hearing that.
for what it’s worth, I don’t think professional mental health is any good most of the time, and it’s only worth it if you’re actually psychotic. for things that don’t totally destroy your agency and just mostly dampen it, I think just doing things on your own is better.
There’s a lot of evidence that various types of “talk therapy” do improve most physiological conditions, including things like depression, anxiety disorders, ect.
The odd thing in the research is that they all seem to do about the same, which clearly need further explanation. But at the moment, the best evidence we have is that seeing a therapist is a good idea that will most likely benifit a person who needs help.
I think the majority of people (literal majority, not just people who are said to have mental health problems) could benefit from talking to a therapist a couple of times. Most likely the benefit would be exhausted quickly though, which is why I said “a couple of times.”
Thanks for your reply, username2. I am disheartened to see that “You’re crazy” is still being used in the guise of a counterargument.
Why do you think the net utility of the world is either negative or undefined?
Interesting username.
In all seriousness and with all good intent, I am quite serious when I say that thinking the world is without value is in fact a textbook symptom of depression.
But I think you have chosen to ignore the larger point of my comment that morality is really self-determined. Saying that your personal morality leads to an assessment of net negative utility is saying that “my arbitrarily chosen utility function leads to not-useful outcomes.” Well.. pick another.