What is our purpose in life?
Why are we here?
What does it all mean?
As some point in our lives, we all seem to confront these rather cliché “life purpose” questions. It might be catalyzed by a round-numbered birthday, or having your ass fired from work, or having a former classmate pass away unexpectedly. Many things can cause us to reflect,i wherein our internal conversation will inevitably swirl around these aforementioned questions. We all want to improve the world, so why aren’t we all successful at it?
In a society fixated on golden calves, it’s little wonder that these questions burn so fervently. Nowhere in the shopping mall or car dealership can their answers be discovered. There’s no gizmo, gadget, nor metric on the planet that can possibly give meaning to our terrestrial time, no matter what politicians, economists,ii and the propaganda known as “Happiness Literature”iii say. It’s no wonder that so many of us are dissatisfied to the point of medication.
The simplest explanation for this general dissatisfaction with our own existence is that we’re either unequipped to seek the proper answer or we’re equipped to seek the proper answer but are using the wrong tools for the job. This former group would best be served by exploring the organic majesty that is the diversity of human religion while point their accusatory finger at their swindling nation states for robbing them of their mortal consolation. This latter group has a different, taller task, as befits their ability.
The task of those who are beyond religious doctrine (if not religious heuristics vis-à-vis survival), is to flip “the purpose question” on its head and instead ask “what are the causes?”iv To do so is to use the right tools for the job, and to at least give us a chance at improving the world.
Approaching life from causes works so well because it’s testable in and against the real world. Only through testing can we discern if an action is effective or not. There’s no room for “it’s not working yet but it will!” in this enterprise.v The rigourousness of this approach is the exact opposite of the sort of magical thinking prevalent among socialists. The testability of causes, best understood as Popperian falsifiability, is key to human growth and development, and therefore to improving the world. In fact, As MP shall now demonstrate to a fellow named Dimsler,vi working from causes is motherfucking non-negotiable in this pursuit:
Dimsler: Satoshi had no idea about economics
mircea_popescu: Now how would you know that.Dimsler: He fucking read Murray Rothbard and applied his idiotic quantitive theory of money, which has been debunked for ages. Satoshi had no idea how to distribute new coins.
mircea_popescu: Looky here. All this would make a lot more sense to you if you read the Trilema explanation as to the difference of acting from a cause from acting towards a purpose. You’re trying to apply the acting towards a purpose approach, because that’s all they teach anymore.Dimsler: But the logic isn’t very sound in many of the posted economic studies
mircea_popescu: Ok. So then. Satoshi didn’t proceed towards this goal or that goal, as presumed by this or that purpose-built theory of economics. He proceeded from basic principle. and he, and a lot of other people, couldn’t give less of a shit as to what the ultimate implications are.Dimsler: Bless Satoshi.
mircea_popescu: It’s not that. I don’t care about the man’s memory or anything. I’m trying to explain a fundamental difference in approach.thickasthieves: My main problem with arguments is when they proclaim ideals or extremes are achievable for more than a moment.
Dimsler: mircea_popescu, the ultimate implications are going to stifle any form of adoption.
mircea_popescu: Now how do you know what’s going to happen. See, you’re trapped in this particular worldview, which falsely promises you something.
Dimsler: Because history derp. Quantitive money theory fails on any systems its been tried on.mircea_popescu: The way this promise goes is, “if you limit yourself to purpose-theory, you will have privileged access to ultimate effect.” This is false. you have no better access than the students of cause-theory, for very good thermodynamic reasons. It’s just that THEY do get to control your priors. You do not. Instead your priors are controlled by the authors of your favourite purpose-theory, which is why you imagine Satoshi to be a Rothbard tool. Because if he had been working in a purpose-theory approach, he would have been. But then again, the proposition that he was is easily falsifiable.
This, in a nutshell, is it.
Purpose-theory is a NYSE stock, it’s a mortgaged home, it’s a webwallet, it’s the appearance of ownership and control where there’s precisely none to be had. If you “own” these things, you are what’s owned. Full stop.vii
Cause-theory is Bitcoin, the Internet, PGP, the WoT, and the only means by which individuation is possible in computer times. Full stop.
———————————————————————————————————
In Summa: You cannot have a purpose, you can only have causes.
———————————————————————————————————
Of course causes aren’t perfect. Of course life isn’t perfect! But reality isn’t competing with perfect. It never has and it never will.
Should you be so fortunate as to discover this first-hand, when you work from causes, you’ll see that some things are better than others. This is discernment.viii
This is sine qua non for adaptation,ix and by extension, survival.
If you want to improve the world, first you have to survive, y’know?
___ ___ ___
- Hell, even Yom Kippur ticks the box. And annually! Speaking of which, Shana tova!↩
- The vulgarized, mathematized branch of philosophy known as “Economics” is at this point so barberous it’s laughable.↩
- This is one of the hokiest and most despicable branches of psychology/econometrics. It maintains that “happiness” can be measured, and worse still, that it can be numerically derived from such existing metrics GDP, income, leisure time, “freedom,” and disease incidence. One of the worst spreaders of this mental disease is Daniel Pink, who maintains that “autonomy, mastery and purpose” are the keys to fulfilment, as if any of these were available ex nihilo and in the absence of strong shepherds.↩
- A notable blend of these two questions is found in Jewish literature, which calls its adherents to tikkun olam, meaning “to improve the world.” This is not only a call to action, but also a call to understand the world as it is before imagining how it might be. Without knowledge of the world as it is, how could one possibly say that it’s been improved upon?↩
- That is, there’s no room for pre-orders.↩
- I don’t know much about Dimsler other than that he can’t PGP and that he Reddits. Neither is a particularly good sign.↩
- This is one of the primary reasons why Bitcoin is such a big fucking deal: because it makes ownership, as defined by one’s ability and authority to destroy something, possible for a unit of account. Not since physical gold was a thing has this been the case. Bitcoin is so not perfect and yet so much better than anything else in the world. And that’s what the competition is between: things in the world.↩
- Also known as “racism, sexism, speciesism, trolling,” etc. to those who belong in Churches and Mosques.↩
- “In any contest with an objective scoring criteria, the objectively fit behaviours will overcome the objectively unfit behaviours. Which means that you don’t get a chance to elect what you’d like to do or not to do. Which means that it doesn’t matter what you think is right or what you think is wrong. Or fair. Or nice. Which means it doesn’t matter what your previous identitarian or ideological investments were, nor what you thought they were.” via The USG wasted another hundred million dollars it previously stole from average, hard working US citizens. Nobody cares.↩
[…] those of you on welfare,v for those few of us working from causes, there’s hope. Soon enough, we’ll be writing and producing our own movies. And, who […]
“…Murray Rothbard and applied his idiotic quantitive theory of money”
Funny how most people discredit Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises, saying “it doesn’t work”, yet Keynesian economics -you know- doesn’t work…
But Keynesianism is still better than nothing, right guys??
Sorta like a map of Jakarta is really fucking useful if you’re in Melbourne.
[…] inability to exist in Computer Times, and I’ve subsequently used the term in reference to cause-theory, socialistoids like Marcus the neo-nazi, and the inability of democracy to elect strong […]
[…] they were thankful for their new liberties and freedoms, they soon found themselves adrift at sea, lost and without cause. To unyoke this infinite expansion of wants from the finite, gold-bound resources of the state, […]
[…] rather a devout and self-referential anti-puritanism. La Serenissima’s anti-puritanism is developed from causes rather than towards explicit ideals, and it’s propelled by two incredibly powerful forces […]
[…] is par for the course when working from causes; unusual, if not downright exceptional, though this may be. […]
[…] paper into a friendship with the guy ? saifedean: It’s on my hard-drive, a long Talebian/Popperian/Hayekian fisking of climate science and its pretenses of knowledge. Taleb was the reason I went […]
[…] given” and what I’d do without them. As if they had distinct and separable causes. As if it’d be an interesting gedankenexperiment to ask “What would you do if you […]
[…] badly twisted to construct a narrative of progress.xi This narrative prizes science, suppresses religion, and muddies reflective […]
[…] that Redditards are nowhere near approaching causes, what is their purpose? […]
[…] don’t you dumb apes just work from causes? Like I […]
[…] social interactions, group dynamics, and the fundament of cooperation as something other than survival- and/or power-driven considerations, he decides to wave his magic wand and make morality something […]
[…] ladder, how else are you supposed to bring life into this world, and thus, provide meaning to your own existence? It’s little wonder that men incapable of personal success advocate for equality in all its […]
[…] between the two news services are as stark as they are because each approaches the world from different causes. The former works from the premise that physical offices are required to house people with […]
[…] also the surest way to disaster. The unintended consequences that must inevitably result from working towards purposes instead of working from causes guarantees that centrally planned states will not only cause untold […]
[…] Princeton is searching for purposes, is it any wonder he’s what’s feeling owned […]
[…] life has any point at all, an admittedly debatable point when you’re working from causes, it’s progress. This being so, if you’re not willing to die in the pursuit of complete […]
[…] with new, youth with age, power with eagerness, and ideas with reality, all while leveraging the causes and forces shaping our world. And I must concede that it does away with those ridiculous […]
[…] initially a philosophical consideration. The King’s purpose, to be sure, is not his “purpose” but rather his utility as it relates to his need to foster and maintain the support of his […]
[…] – relies upon to enact its morally untenable and practically unworkable purpose of complete mentaliii and physicaliv taxation as a means of achieving global Africanisation. […]
[…] it’s not at all clear to me that either of us is ever likely to ever convince the other that working from causes as opposed to working towards purposes is the indisputably superior approach. Only time and effort can settle this score with […]
[…] with such Utopian ideals and naive “purposes” as tikkun olam, is it any wonder that Judaism is matriarchal ? Or are such […]
[…] hell of a lot smarter than Chomsky and Vltchek could ever hope to be,iii certainly when it comes to working from causes rather than towards purposes, which, really, is a truer test of intelligence than IQ ever was. […]
[…] old working from causes vs. towards purposes discussion, more on which can be found in the seminal Finding Your Life Purpose Isn’t Your Path To Improving The World. Survival Is. […]
[…] or not certain means are appropriate for bringing about certain ends. We cannot act towards purposes, only from causes. We can only fight for the Right Thing ™ in the moment, pray to Hashem […]
[…] your purpose, mind. There’s no purpose to be had. […]
[…] keep in mind that all their highfalutin’ book learnin’ serves a very distinct purpose : to understand the world before acting in it. From this foundation, a few Maccabees toppled manyfold Greeks, just as a few Kibbutzniks toppled […]
[…] This was catalysed by recent conversations with friends, which were both positive and productive, as well as “So this is how The Giver started” (linkrotted) over at RCWG*, from which we see a typical libertard reaction to pain and choice : “all life is beautiful and worth infinite+1 dollars, you guys are Nazis because you think differently, and the state should make all bad things illegal mkay, particularly those related to individual freedoms.”** This is, of course, utter and patent nonsense. Lives are at best worth a bitcent, pain can be very motivating, and large nation states as we know them today are Godzillas who wreck everything they touch. This isn’t a matter of my wishing how the world should be either, this has nothing to do with purposes and everything to do with causes. […]
[…] societies worked, you see. That’s how all functional societies work. That’s what working from causes looks like. […]
[…] strength deciding, narrow interest presiding, Politics isn’t purpose, but the continuation of war By other means. Sacrifice or be sacrificed, All Dane-geld and no […]