Welcome to the Kingdom of Paracetamol-Ibuprofenia (beating a rather dead horse?)

[Lenin McCarthy]

I live in what is generally assumed to be one of the happiest, best, most wonderful countries of the world, namely Norway.
I sometimes feel like I live in a bubble.
If I do okay in school, my chances of getting a relevant job after completing my formal education are high. Our few terrorists are home-grown. Together with Iceland and Liechtenstein we form an exclusive little club of countries who want to be part of the EU but not really*. My advantageous situation is mostly because of a bunch of oil (that used to be located) somewhere beneath the North Sea, that I don't really feel any connection to**.

I feel like I should be happy, but the only thing I feel is an uncomfortable feeling of emptiness.

It hurts. I think many Norwegians share that feeling. I can't see any other reason why they seem to be in a constant quest for an artificial stimulant that can kill the pain. Around 1990, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy sung about "television, the drug of the nation". Television is only one drug. We also have alcohol, fitness centers, painkiller pills, sweets, potato chips, gaming consoles, church burnings, computers and other legal or illegal drugs. Life has become an endless series of (mostly futile) attempts at killing pain.

(And they ask why kids do (illegal) drugs? At first, it seems like a welcome escape from a world filled with meaningless and disinteresting artificial stimulants. But the drug is just another artificial stimulant. Eventually, it becomes meaningless and disinteresting to you, but now you also have an addiction that's devouring you from the inside. And it seems fucking impossible to get out of it.)

This is why I want rename you, dear Norway. From now on, you will be called the Kingdom of Paracetamol-Ibuprofenia. I have named you after the countless middle-schoolers who eat painkillers during recess like they're lunch snacks. It's not only middle-schoolers who do it, by the way. Everyone does. WORKERS OF THE WORLD, MUNCH PAINKILLERS

Lenin McCarthy,
Just gave a similar rant to his dad. He liked it, and agreed. It's hard to be a rebel these days.
Reminds me: In 1960, an essay collection written by 11 young Norwegian students was released, called I mangel av opprør (in English it would be something like "In absence of rebellion"). I haven't read it, but if something similar were to be done today, the title could very well be identical.



_{*I'm all for the idea of a united Europe, personally. IMHO, Europe won't be happy until the last Englishman is hung with the guts of the last German, stuffed and placed on a podium just outside the European Parliament building.
**I live in a forested river valley in one of the two land-locked counties of Norway.}

[Freeky]

I like this.

[Placid Dingo]

The only IRL Norweigan I met described the Norway weather, accessibility of roads and a few other things as being in a fairly desperate state. She was cool but was in the middle of traveling and could never see herself going back.

Apparently there's a huge bass jumping scene in Norway which attracts a lot of semi-unstable people, who are kind of leaning towards suicidal and then decide to live for the rush instead.

[NewSpag]

Damn it.  You just ruined my backup plan.

[Triple Zero]

I always wonder if it's got anything to do with it being rather dark, half the year?

I mean, here in NL I already feel slightly more down when the days are short in winter, I imagine I'd get really miserable after a few years in Norway.

Do people use solar studios or other artificial daylight-boosts a lot during winter?

[EK WAFFLR]

I always wonder if it's got anything to do with it being rather dark, half the year?

I mean, here in NL I already feel slightly more down when the days are short in winter, I imagine I'd get really miserable after a few years in Norway.

Do people use solar studios or other artificial daylight-boosts a lot during winter?

Winter depressions can hit hard. I usually have two major depressions a year. Around christmas, and when it starts to thaw (usually the beginning of april), and I am fairly certain they both are due to lack of sunlight.
I grew up over 200 km north of the Polar Circle, where the sun disappeared in late October, and we didn't see her again until february. Around the Winter Solstice, we'd get one and a half- two hours of daylight.

And yes many people do use tanning beds and the like. I don't know if it helps much. The only thing that seems to have a slightly beneficial effect on me is Vitamin D supplements.


Also, Lenin;
I feel ya. I wonder if that emptiness ever goes away.
I was going to write  something about it one of these days. Maybe I'll hurry it up and post it here.

[Cain]

You know, it's stuff like this that sometimes makes me wonder if Nietzsche wasn't at least partly right.

Nietzsche believed that modern society represented not the self-mastery of former slaves, but the unconditional victory of the slave and a kind of slavish morality.  The typical citizen of a liberal democracy was a "last man" who, schooled by the founders of modern liberalism, gave up prideful belief in his or her superior worth in favour of comfortable preservation.  Liberal democracy produced "men without chests," composed of desire and reason but lacking thymos, clever at finding new ways to satisfy a host of petty wants through the calculation of long-term self-interest.  The last man had no desire to be recognized as greater than others, and without such desire, no excellence or achievement was possible.  Content with his happiness and unable to feel any sense of shame for being unable to rise above those wants, the last man ceased to be human.

On the one hand, getting caught up in grand causes and struggles doesn't really seem to have worked out well for a lot of humanity.  At the same time, it does seem to speak to certain drives which may be repressed or circumvented by the necessities of living in a social/liberal democracy, and that the comfort and high quality of life in and of themselves do not bring psychological benefits for their citizens when it comes to their more thymotic impulses (contra Fukuyama, who believes the recognisation of equality itself is enough to sate thymotic urges among the vast majority of people).

All your needs are more or less seen to, except the need to feel part of something, to be a member of a cause or a movement or a something which allows you to derive meaning for your life and feel you have an impact outside of yourself.  I think most people would agree, voting rarely matters enough to bring about those kind of feelings.

[Doktor Howl]

We renamed America some years ago.

"Fat City".

[Lenin McCarthy]

You know, it's stuff like this that sometimes makes me wonder if Nietzsche wasn't at least partly right.

Nietzsche believed that modern society represented not the self-mastery of former slaves, but the unconditional victory of the slave and a kind of slavish morality.  The typical citizen of a liberal democracy was a "last man" who, schooled by the founders of modern liberalism, gave up prideful belief in his or her superior worth in favour of comfortable preservation.  Liberal democracy produced "men without chests," composed of desire and reason but lacking thymos, clever at finding new ways to satisfy a host of petty wants through the calculation of long-term self-interest.  The last man had no desire to be recognized as greater than others, and without such desire, no excellence or achievement was possible.  Content with his happiness and unable to feel any sense of shame for being unable to rise above those wants, the last man ceased to be human.

On the one hand, getting caught up in grand causes and struggles doesn't really seem to have worked out well for a lot of humanity.  At the same time, it does seem to speak to certain drives which may be repressed or circumvented by the necessities of living in a social/liberal democracy, and that the comfort and high quality of life in and of themselves do not bring psychological benefits for their citizens when it comes to their more thymotic impulses (contra Fukuyama, who believes the recognisation of equality itself is enough to sate thymotic urges among the vast majority of people).

All your needs are more or less seen to, except the need to feel part of something, to be a member of a cause or a movement or a something which allows you to derive meaning for your life and feel you have an impact outside of yourself.  I think most people would agree, voting rarely matters enough to bring about those kind of feelings.

That makes sense.

My dad's theory is that establishing relatively dull, homogeneous social democracies is a way of circumventing, or at least slowing the inevitable fall into decadence that most civilizations experience.

Winter depressions can hit hard.

Oh they do. In the darkest winter months I have serious difficulty getting my ass to school. My grades are suffering a bit.

[Reginald Ret]

You know, it's stuff like this that sometimes makes me wonder if Nietzsche wasn't at least partly right.

Nietzsche believed that modern society represented not the self-mastery of former slaves, but the unconditional victory of the slave and a kind of slavish morality.  The typical citizen of a liberal democracy was a "last man" who, schooled by the founders of modern liberalism, gave up prideful belief in his or her superior worth in favour of comfortable preservation.  Liberal democracy produced "men without chests," composed of desire and reason but lacking thymos, clever at finding new ways to satisfy a host of petty wants through the calculation of long-term self-interest.  The last man had no desire to be recognized as greater than others, and without such desire, no excellence or achievement was possible.  Content with his happiness and unable to feel any sense of shame for being unable to rise above those wants, the last man ceased to be human.

On the one hand, getting caught up in grand causes and struggles doesn't really seem to have worked out well for a lot of humanity.  At the same time, it does seem to speak to certain drives which may be repressed or circumvented by the necessities of living in a social/liberal democracy, and that the comfort and high quality of life in and of themselves do not bring psychological benefits for their citizens when it comes to their more thymotic impulses (contra Fukuyama, who believes the recognisation of equality itself is enough to sate thymotic urges among the vast majority of people).

All your needs are more or less seen to, except the need to feel part of something, to be a member of a cause or a movement or a something which allows you to derive meaning for your life and feel you have an impact outside of yourself.  I think most people would agree, voting rarely matters enough to bring about those kind of feelings.

That makes sense.

My dad's theory is that establishing relatively dull, homogeneous social democracies is a way of circumventing, or at least slowing the inevitable fall into decadence that most civilizations experience.

The only alternative is exploring, an expanding frontier if you will.
I'm quite sure you can think of several examples where expansion led to a happier populace.
Basically we need to be challenged, and so we need to go into space.
The probaility of succes is irrelevant, without something to dream about, life has no value.
Actually, failing at exploration may be the better option, because maintaining hegemony over a massive empire has been proven to be bad for the empire and it's people. And the alternative result is multiple independent entities fighting for independence/control. That is also bad for all involved.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Brainfart:

Everything was fine before we developed consciousness.

Animals lead totally fulfilling lives. They waken, they hunt, they feed, they fuck, they fight, they sleep, they die.

Consciousness plays no role and is not a factor in the lives of animals, therefore their lives are perfect.

We were the same, back when we were monkeys but something changed. We started thinking about our lives, in the abstract sense and that's when it turned to shit. In a universe where everything just happens along, consciousness looks for meaning, looks for purpose, wants answers from somewhere that doesn't exist. It interferes with the natural course of events. We waken, we hunt, we feed, we fuck, we fight and we die. This is life. It's all that needs to happen but for us thinking there should be more. There is more but it's all in our heads.

Seems a lot of people can't handle this and turn to escapism - drugs, religion, teevee... this sounds bad but it's not. There is no good and bad - it's all in our heads. There is no reason to do anything, just the same as there is no reason to not do anything. Sounds nihilistic, I guess, but I can't buy into a higher purpose (unless I make one up for myself, just as a little game, a petty distraction) and if I can't do that then this really is all meaningless. Fun but utterly inconsequential. I'm alive for a while then I die. Heroin alley or health farm - makes no difference.

[Triple Zero]

Brainfart:

Everything was fine before we developed consciousness.

Animals lead totally fulfilling lives. They waken, they hunt, they feed, they fuck, they fight, they sleep, they die.

Consciousness plays no role and is not a factor in the lives of animals, therefore their lives are perfect.

First of, from what I've read about consciousness neurobiology research so far, animals are conscious. Their brains display a lot of phenomena equivalent with ours that are associated with consciousness. Some species are even "self conscious", meaning they can pass the "mirror test" and stuff like that. The biggest differences seem to be that 1) most animals are a lot less smart than us, and 2) animals completely lack the language to meaningfully communicate consciousness to us.

One thing I read about for instance was a neurobiologist researcher that became vegetarian because of his research, because he could no longer deny that the neural circuits for suffering and misery in animals, and they way they related to any kind of awareness, were different to those of humans, in any meaningful way.


Anyway, apart from that. Let's go with your idea, that animals are somehow of a "simpler" mind and therefore they lead fulfilling, perfect lives.

That still doesn't make sense? Why would their lives be fulfilling and perfect instead of empty and miserable, just because they lack the brain faculty for reasoning or thinking about it? If anything, their lives would be neither fulfilling nor empty, and  either perfect nor miserable--because they're unable to distinguish between the two?

And if that's somehow desirable, why not go back further?

We're conscious now,
but before we evolved consciousness our lives were so much better because we just followed our instincts (or something).

but before we evolved brains our lives were so much better because we just were sort of animal robots (like insects) and we just sort of cruised through life on auto pilot, such as how a house fly extends its sucker-mouth-thingy when its feet detect sugar or food.

hey but before we evolved a nervous system our lives must have been so much better because we were basically just plants, and our lives were caught in the wonderful simplicity of delicious chemical reactions happening or not happening. Roots would grow if they were near food and water, therefore gaining access to more food and water! Brilliant! Perfect!

hey but before we were alive ... we were rocks and water and stardust, which was fucking AWESOME, like catching a train ride without a ticket, because you'd get everywhere you were supposed to go, just by letting the laws of Physics do their thing and if you were lucky you'd be zooming through space for aeons as a tiny bit of asteroid debris and all sorts of awesome stuff would fly past.

oh and before there was matter ... things were just brilliant, there'd be this seething mass* of plasma particle wave crinkles in time and space and potential and possibility. (*actual mass sold separately)

And before THAT, man, you know, past the triple veil of negative existence? That is where they keep the GOOD stuff.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Before all those things we weren't bitching and whining about it. That's the only thing that's changed. Our existence is still the same as it was when we were chunks of stars but now we bitch and whine about it a lot more, and take drugs to numb the pain. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Animals get depressed.

'nuff said.

[LizKing531]

I picture it as a pendulum swinging back & forth - the "me" is the pivot point & the pendulum is the range of experience, if you will

Perhaps our "intelligence" & subsequent further methods to "ease the pain" is simply the pendulum swinging farther - animal "intelligence" can be described by the same pendulum, it just doesn't swing as far. Humans can be quite brilliant & quite stupid -

Like Notorious say - Mo' money - mo' problems

Take the good & take the bad - there you have the facts of life


I like to picture individual existence like a solar flare - small bit shooting off momentarily out of the big ball - eventually returning into the same big ball - except these flares have a consciousness - we (as in humans, animals, plants, etc) consume/feed on available energy sources around us until we die & are buried/shit out/cooked/eaten/consumed  - essentially becoming an energy source for something else -

(damn - my verbiage blows compared to the mental picture I was going for....)