I’m honestly curious. I know nihilism is about life not having any objective or inherent meaning, but I don’t see how that conflicts with their motovation. Can you explain?
Comment on Nihilistic online networks groom minors to commit harm. Her son was one of them
rikudou@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
Ah, fuckers who coined the term have no clue what nihilism means.
NotSafeForWorld@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
rikudou@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
Nihilism is not about making life harder, or sowing chaos, it’s about accepting that there’s no meaning to anything. Sowing chaos does not fit with that. It’s not that nihilism would forbid you from that (it’s a philosophy, not religion), but there’s nothing nihilistic about sowing chaos and destruction of society, so the naming is very wrong.
Havatra@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I interpret it more as “since nothing matters, might as well have fun”, and “fun” is subjective and can be interpretted as enjoying watching things burn in unpredictable ways (chaos & destruction). Human nature can be a bit messed up in that regard.
whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
That can sometimes be an outcome of a moral choice after accepting nihilism (what are ethics beyond our without objective meanings?), but there’s nothing necessarily relating desires for chaos and destruction to subjectivism and nihilism. Some nihilists are all about order and building so the reason they gave is bogus. They just feel the word has negative connotations so they used it without understanding what it means. It would be like saying they are jaywalkers who just want to watch the world burn. Some of them may be jaywalkers, but it’s not the motivation for them being there or necessary for them being there in those spaces.
rikudou@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
The best equivalent I can think of is as describing bicycling as vegan. Sure, some vegans do ride a bicycle, but it has jack shit to do with them being a vegan. And non-vegans ride them too.
So imagine someone telling you they ride a bicycle because they’re vegan and that’s how stupid the association with nihilism sounds.
socsa@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Nihilism isn't really a philosophy as much as it's an absence of philosophy. The idea of that creating a kind of random deviant behavior isn't really that unusual. There's lots of different kinds of nihilism as well. You can say someone is linguistic nihilist if they twist words to mean whatever suits their other interests. You can say someone is a meta-ethical nihilist if they reject the idea of global moral truth but still adhere to a localized moral behavior. You can call someone a metaphysical nihilist if they are unconcerned with the nature of their own being but still don't want to get hit in the face.
rikudou@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
It’s not an absence of philosophy, it is a philosophical belief. Absence of philosophy is not thinking about it.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
They are just trying to stuff you with equation of “rejecting unsubstantiated authority and propaganda” (which is a subset of nihilism similarly to rejection of other unsubstantiated things) to “sowing chaos and destruction of society”.
BTW, chaos is beneficial for any society. Chaos is how they evolve and find exits out of deadlocks. And rid themselves of degeneracy, which always flourishes on top, because those on top are subject to negative selection.
Honestly the whole article is absolutely disgusting police boot licking piece of crap, of the “nothing to hide” and “the law is sacred even if made illegally” and “don’t question demands” kind.
Except, of course, it’s wrapped into the boy being “anti-LGBTQZPN” and “accelerationist-extremist”, which is pretty normal, Israeli and Turkish propaganda too uses these in the way of “look, we allow gay parades and have something appearing like western democracy, so we are good, and our victims are not like that”.
OK, so the description probably is just about a kid with some disorders who got burnt out from the idiots surrounding him. Every time you hear “he was normal and had meaning in life and we understood him and then he got depressed and closed”, it’s probably just that - ran out of spoons to play along to mouthbreather family thinking they understand everything.
The things surrounding it - I think they are good. Between loyalty to entrenched non-transparent authority and rebellion with neo-Nazi symbols I’d choose the latter 10 times of 10.
Also when “accelerationist” means that the institutions have already decayed and it’s better to break them before they’ve born more monsters - I agree with that. I thought the same when I was 15 and realized that democracies around us are not real in the sense that they were even in 1950s.
But, of course, if we assume the article is deliberate propaganda, one can suggest that this is the intended second layer - to make you more sympathetic to such ideology.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
It’s fucking annoying
socialsecurity@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
The same FBI who was caught multiple times grooming mentally ill kids to commit terror acts so they can hit some targets?
Yeah I trust these guys