I think Reddit should engage in a lot more moderation. There are tons of actually harmful subreddits with toxic concent. Just imagine a 15yo going through puberty to then stumble across /nihilism (btw this subreddit deserves to be deleted imo, it is harmful and people literally tell people to do something to themselves).
I am convinced that 99.9% of people who identify with pessimism, nihilism or even pessimistic nihilism are mentally ill. Don't roll your eyes, here me out I beg you.
You are not smarter than all people around you. Everyone around you is not coping with illusions. There is lots of meaning in this life and you can create meaning for yourself and others. It might actually be YOU whos dealing with illuions.
Nihilism is flawed, it likes to declare it knows what is the ultimate truth – but it doesn't.
A person with an ill brain, which is chemically imbalanced, that can only experience the negative, certainly is not in the position to decide whats true about human existence and the universe.
You should also not follow the ideas of a mentally ill person, especially since severe major depression exists.
Happiness and meaning are no illusions, they do exist. Theres lots of it! It is a given fact, meaning can be subjective or even objective. Existence is complex, it cannot be reduced to rational points of views. Emotions are what makes humans special, relationships, love, compassion and empathy cannot be reduced to „illuions“.
What matters is your perspective. As long as there is no other intelligent race, we must assume or perspective is the best way to go. But like I said, a healthy brain won't focus entirely on the negatives.
Like Schopenhauer claimed, there only is suffering or the absence of suffering. This is so wrong, I don't even know where to start.
Then there is … lets just call it cosmic anxiety. The sun will likely die in a fee billion years, the universe will continue to expand, etc.
This is mostly the number 1 argument for nihilism – here and now do not matter because one day we die and in billions of years our sun might die.
At this point, it should be clear why this does not come from a mentally healthy state of mind.
But again, they are so sure that this its true I must say I think thats impressive. It is quite absurd. Our understanding of the universe is arguably at the beginning. Few decades ago we knew way less. Just 100 years ago we got general relativity. A little more than 100 years ago, the first plane was constructed, now we have Eurofighter jets.
For me it astonishing that people are able to act like we know it at, I guess there is arrogance in depression.
By the way: for something to be meaningful, it has not to be throught something divine and it can be temporary. These people think if something isn't „forever“, whatever that might be, it is not worth having.
(Theres also tons of edgelords in these subreddits but lets just ignore them for now).
The problem, at its core, is the following:
People can't understand that their thoughts might be wrong, might be harmful. Yes, your thoughts most likely aren‘t true when you're suffering from mental illness. Thats why therapy and meds are extremly important. I‘m not gonna mention the topic of suicide, what they say in these subreddits is just disgusting and I truely despise it.
To allow these subreddits to exist is morally wrong – it might push people into a harmful and wrong (yes, it is wrong and I hope more people are able to give into it) philosophy
Not really a fan at all but Jordan Peterson also has made many great points against nihilism.
!! I labeled this with the suicide-content warning, although I‘m not referring to the subject directly. But it is a major part of nihilism and pessimism, thats why it needs to be labled like that.