How to Overcome Nihilism

"Black people invented John Malkovich" - Economic Invincibility

Nihilism is the disease of the modern age. The structure of society feeds nihilism and depression. There's not much we can do at first as individuals to change society, but we can make changes in our own lives and in the lives of the people we care about that will improve our quality of life tremendously. And, at the end of the day, that will make all the difference.

Nihilism is Garbage

Friedrich Nietzsche: The Anti-Nihilist.
"I am Superman. Look at my muscles."

Nihilism is garbage. If you are a nihilist you are a nobody, a non-entity, a loser, and a defeatist.

I am intimately familiar with suffering. Injuries, disease, constant pain, years of unemployment and a string of dead-end jobs that offer no fulfillment. I know it all, and I'll admit to becoming a little bitter over the years, though I do think it has helped me advance philosophically.

People like to blame God, or speculate on how a life full of suffering is devoid of all meaning. The modern world feeds this mentality. It is designed from on high to make us feel inadequate. Anti-social media want us to feel like all of our frienimies are doing so much better than us when they are often just as miserable. Advertising wants us to be miserable so that we buy more crap we don't need or want. The media live off of suffering: "If it bleeds, it leads." Add to this the armies of Internet "black pills" and doomsayers who sell ebooks and subscriptions to even more doom online, and you have a recipe for nihilism, which Friedrich Nietzsche and personal experience in the world will tell you is currently the dominant philosophy of the West. Once we got rid of Christianity, when we killed God, we now find ourselves in this nightmare world where life is devoid of meaning.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."

From Nietzsche's The Gay Science

Nietzsche recognized that with the advent of the nihilism brought on by the new scientific materialism of modernity (and the full-on celebration of meaninglessness that has come about in post-modernism), we would face an existential crisis. The idea of God is so central to giving meaning to our lives that without it we are no better than ants, toiling day and night for jobs we hate just to keep our heads above water while we fill the pockets of Mammon worshipers who have managed to take the reigns of civilization, all without meaning or purpose.



God is dead, and we have killed him, and we are woefully incapable of filling the void in our current condition. It is one thing to feel at conflict with society and man's laws, but it is quite another to feel at conflict with the Source of all life and morality itself. Eliminating God leads to the enshrinement of the State, as the vacant throne of the Absolute cannot remain vacant in the mind of man for long. Whether the natural sciences or the all-powerful State, something man-made must take the role left vacant by the crucifixion of God. This has led to the worst totalitarianism, as, while God's laws are immutable, there is no limit to His mercy. However, the State has no mercy; it has no room for forgiveness of 'sins' against political correctness, as the State recognizes no authority outside itself. This is why the authoritarian Godless State has led to the worst atrocities in history: the murder of hundreds of millions with industrial sterility and efficiency.

When you no longer believe in God then you will believe in anything, and everything becomes permissible. If God is not your master than you are a slave to your senses. You are like the addict, the drunkard who cannot control how he drinks, but is controlled by his drinking. When you are free to do anything then you lose all of your freedom, because you are no longer in control of your body, but your body is in control of you. And when your body controls you then you are open to being controlled by the powers that be to fuel their endless lust for more power.

The reverse of nihilism, of "If it bleeds, it leads," is the philosophy of Major Dutch Schaefer: "If it bleeds, we can kill it."



The movie Predator shows us that no matter how powerful the adversary, no matter how hopeless the situation, our enemies are no less mortal than we are, and our troubles can be overcome. We just have to become the best possible version of ourselves. We have to become better than we thought we could be. Dutch didn't win because he was stronger than the Predator, or because he was necessarily smarter either. The Predators are thousands of years ahead of humans, having fully developed interstellar travel, cloaking devices, universal translators, and super medicine that allows for rapid healing of what would otherwise be incapacitating wounds. Dutch was able to win because he was able to exploit the weaknesses of his opponent to his advantage. He may not be smarter, but he can think on his feet and is more adaptable.

This is the philosophy of existentialism. Yes, life is full of suffering, but it is also full of joy, and you're hurting yourself to focus on the suffering while ignoring the joy. There are simple steps to reclaiming your joy and to once again find meaning and purpose in your life. Like everything it all begins with a choice. You have to take control of your own life and reclaim your birthright. You can take your life back because you choose to.

The Last Months of Jesus?

Just watched "The Last Days of Jesus" on PBS, a piece of tabloid propaganda by radical Jewish biblical conspiracy theorist Simcha Jacobovici, who sets out in every single thing he creates to "prove" that literally everything about Judaism is true and literally everything about Christianity is fake. He is willing to spin total yarns to "prove" even the most outlandish things to say some Jewish story absolutely happened exactly as it is written, and will go to the same lengths in the opposite direction to paint Jesus as a scheming political opportunist who had children, founded a dynasty in France, died, and rotted in a tomb. It is co-produced by biblical conspiracy theorist James Tabor, who has worked with Jacobovici and naytheist James Cameron before in the past on fantastical tales of biblical revisionism.

The story, like most of the yarns he spins, appears convincing if you don't think about it, but when you apply even the slightest bit of scrutiny it falls apart.

Just one example dismantles the entire central thesis of the program - that Jesus was colluding with Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, and Praetoria Prefect Sejanus, in an attempted coup against Tiberius to put Sejanus on the throne of Rome and Herod on the throne of Judea, and to remove Caiaphas from the position as head priest with Jesus taking his place (I kid ye not, that conspiracy theory the central thesis of the program). Allegedly it makes no sense for Jesus to be arrested, tried, and executed in a couple days. That never, ever happened, we are told. It had to take place over six months, because news has to travel across the Mediterranean that Sejaus was executed for treason, which caused Pilate and Antipas to waiver in their scheme. Ten minutes later we are told that Sejanus is arrested, tried for treason, and executed in a single day, as if they hadn't just went to great lengths to explain that these single day show trials never happened and could never happen and that the Gospel accounts had to be wrong.

It also says that the Gospel writers never mentioned Sejanus because "it was extremely dangerous at the time to do so", despite the fact that we know Sejanus existed because at least six contemporaries of the Gospel writers wrote about him. The more likely explanation as to why the Gospel writers don't mention him is because they had no idea who he was because why would they?

The film also includes bull face lies that Jesus was a follower of John the Baptist (he was not), that he took over John the Baptist's movement when John was executed (clearly he did not), that Jesus had no reason to dislike the Pharisees because they all believed in the same things (which they did not), that John the Baptist sprinkled water on people's heads instead of immersing them in water, that first century Jews believed there would be two messiahs* - one a political ruler and one the chief priest.

The film also lies about the Last Supper and even the purpose behind Christianity. They say Jesus wanted us to remember his death, and that this was the foundation of Christianity, when, in truth, it is his resurrection and conquest of death that is the central point of the religion. If Jesus died and rotted in a tomb Christianity would be meaningless and Jesus, who said he would rise again and rise us to eternal life as well, would be a liar. The resurrection IS Christianity. It is the singular event that proves Jesus is who he says he is and that he can free us from sin and death.


*I should point out that the word “messiah” has two different meanings within Judaism, and the producers of this film are suggesting otherwise. The “normal” messiah was any high priest or king who was anointed with holy oil, and even included the gentile Cyrus the Great, who ordered the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Messiah as we know it today, who will appear at the End of Days, descend from the line of David, free the Jews, and preside over the millennial reign was one man who would quite literally appear a the End of Days. There were not going to be two men ruling at the same time, one a priest and one a king, there was just one final liberator of the Jewish people. The confusion arises among people who don't know that the one word can be used in two different ways in two different contexts. The producers of this program are deliberately misleading the public (James Tabor has even written a book offering a different misrepresentation, where Jesus is the king and John the Baptist is the priest!).

Hitler versus Christianity

I've already mentioned that Adolf Hitler was not a Christian. Nor was he an atheist. In fact, he tried to eradicate both Christianity and atheism.

Has Non-Fiction Become Dumber?

Over the past few years I've been reading fewer new books. New fiction is, for the most part, self-indulgent, meaningless narcissism wrapped inside a veneer of pretentious twattery. And non-fiction has taken to become more like fiction.



Take a look at books from a few decades ago. Greats like Isaac Asimov wrote great fiction, and also great non-fiction, and you could tell instantly which genera you were reading. Today that line between fiction and non-fiction has blurred to the point where memoirs contain largely fabricated material and novels contain pages of footnotes and references to news articles and scientific papers.



One great example is The Great Hedge of India by Roy Moxham. You start with a fantastic premise: the second largest man-made barrier the world has ever seen was once a giant thorny hedge that ran across India and today almost no one knows anything about it. Then you read the book and 80% is the author talking about himself, his travels, and his research in writing the book you are now reading. Almost nothing about the book is about the hedge itself, the book is little more than a self-referential exercise in seeing how recursive a book can be by referring to itself and the process of writing it as much as possible.



Or The 37th Parallel by Ben Mezrich. The premise is fantastic: UFO sightings and animal mutilations cluster around the 37th parallel, which is the same area where most secret US military bases are located. You then read the book and you find absolutely nothing on the phenomenon of the 37th parallel until the very last chapter. You find very little about UFOs either. Almost the entire book is about a crazy man who lost his job because he was obsessed with UFOs, the furniture he bought his wife to get her to stop nagging him about his obsession with UFOs, the misadventures he had with his equally crazy sister, and the billionaire frenemy he has who started a top secret corporation that works with the government to build private spacecraft. And it's not even written like a biography, it's written like a novel where the author injects his personal opinions throughout. About 10% of the book is fact, the rest is a story with a plot and characters and a twist ending and melodrama concocted to sell books.



Michael Drosnin's Bible Code series contains a handful of intersting facts about a statistical study of the Torah woven together with a whole heap of narrative about how the author is Indiana Jones and has to save the world. Elaine Pagles' books on early Christian history similarly contain as much narrative about the author's own quest to research and write the books as actual history.



New non-fiction has being transformed into some sort of quasi-fictional "thriller" where a kernel of fact is sewn into a narrative with characters and settings and PG-13 dialogue in order to appeal to the dumbed down twitterati and snap-crackle-and-pop chatters with three second attention spans and fifteen word vocabularies who like mass-market corporate "edgy" comedy vomit. Ten page magazine articles are expanded with loads and loads of filler to create 250 page books so wannabe Hollywood screenwriters can keep their heads above water.

Deadhead Mountain

Donnie Eichar in his book Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, tries to censor everyone who reveals the bullshit "secret" "true" reason behind why 9 experienced skiers died in the Ural mountains mysteriously. He is not interested in the truth, he wants you to buy his shitty book. Well, here's the "secret" and here's why it's a total load.



The shape of the Kholat Syakhl mountain produces a Kármán vortex street when the wind hits it just right. These vortices of air generates infrasonic noise that 22% of the population are highly susceptible to (and, coincidentally, ALL 9 skiers were in that 22%). The noise causes them to go crazy and stuff ("hijacking their bodies" and "wreaking havoc on their minds") after they listen to it for a few hours. They run out of their tents naked in a panic. There was no moon that night, and the temperature was 40 below freezing. The combination of extremely low temperature and injury from bumping into things in the dark killed them.



Of course, it doesn't explain how ALL 9 of the skiers were in that magic minority that is susceptible to infrasonic waves like this. It doesn't explain why one skier was missing a tongue and another was missing eyes. It doesn't explain why they had internal crushing injuries and broken bones but no bruises or any external injuries. It doesn't explain why a few bodies had dark orange skin and were highly radioactive. It doesn't explain why no one before or since, of the thousands of people who have been there, have ever experienced this phenomenon, including the natives who live in the area, and multiple teams of researchers who investigated the deaths.



It doesn't take into account the lights they saw in the sky (which were later identified as Russian missile launches, as the mountain is near a top secret military base) and any possible motive the military would have for killing them to keep their missile tests a secret.



No reason is given why the author did not go to the mountain and set up any equipment to listen for these infrasonic waves. He's throwing away all other hypotheses as obviously wrong and setting up his own as obviously right without actually conducting a test to see if these waves are actually produced by the mountain or not? He didn't actually conduct the test? He based it on similarly shaped mountains that produce kind of similar infrasonic effects that have never ever killed anyone so far.



I shit you not.



There, I just saved you the $20 for the book and ruined the author's fun by exposing the secret ending.



Now, here's what we do know:



•FACT: This was during the coldest time in the Cold War when both the US and USSR were testing a great deal of new weapons.



•FACT: There is a Soviet military base within the vicinity of the mountains where the hikers were staying.



•FACT: There were reports of lights in the sky were confirmed to have been Soviet rocket tests.



•FACT: The Soviet Union has a long history of testing air-burst weapons such as the Father of All Bombs.






•FACT: The internal crushing injuries the skiers received are consistent with the powerful shock waves produced by these types of explosives.



•FACT: The Soviet government had every reason in the world to cover up the deaths as they had with other accidental casualties of military experiments, such as the anthrax leak at Sverdlovsk in 1979.



Can this hypothesis I've cobbled together over the past ten minutes explain everything about the Dyatlov Pass incident? No. Does it do a better job at explaining at least some of the details than the total bullshit explanation a Hollywood screenwriter came up with and repackaged as non-fiction because he wanted to get a movie deal and drum up positive press for his potential future pay day? Absolutely.



By the way, I've used first-person pronouns with less frequency in this review than the author did in the original book.

Devil's Pass

Saw a movie called Devil's Pass. It's a "found footage" movie, meaning it's shite and there are scenes in porno night vision. A group of kind of plain looking people and a fatty with a face like a jack-o-lantern who have never acted before in their entire lives are making a mockumentary about the Dyatlov Pass incident, where some Russian hikers died under mysterious circumstances.



Of course they make sure to leave the cameras rolling during all the parts that have absolutely nothing to do with the documentary they are working on just in case they die and someone decides to make their home movies into a horror flick. This includes night vision sex, I shit you not. The "film makers" actually record themselves having sex. Of course fatty cheeseburger, who is the main character and her character's name is her real name because none of these people are actors, is jelly and some guy gives her a bottle of Jack because we're going to be camping in the woods for one night and have to have sex because we have to earn our R rating.



There's an avalanche or something and the kind of plain girl gets thrown into the camera with a wide-the-fuck-open mouth because that's how everyone dies. The guy who does her gets his leg broke and he's surprisingly coo with two amateurs resetting the bone, which is sticking out of his leg, by hitting it with a board while someone off camera breaks some celery. I'll admit that was the one moment where I winced. Celery really does sound gross.



So some Ivans find them in the morning because they stupidly launch a flare that goes all of ten feet and they shoot the cripple because they're racist against cripples. Fatty Cheeseburger, Jack, and some other guy then go to the bunker they found the other night and they go inside because being locked inside a Cold War bunker to die in agony over several days is better than getting shot, or taking your chance running knowing the people following you have a finite number of bullets and they've already used several. And there's like trees and shit, you can't just duck?



Inside they find two tunnels leading off in the same general direction and the lights start blowing out because zombies. You know it's going to be zombies because it's a found footage film, it has to be zombies. So they go down the other tunnel and find pictures of the Philadelphia Experiment, which was originally featured in Playboy, believe it or not. Jack just so happens to be an expert on the subject.



Inside the tunnel they find obviously CGI zombies who kill the other guy. Fatty Cheeseburger and Jack lock themselves into another room and find a worm hole with spider veins. They theorize that the worm hole will take you wherever you focus, but it has to be someplace fresh in your mind. Now even though I could picture every square inch of my house with my eyes closed these two idiots focus on the outside of the bunker where two men with guns are waiting for them.



They then appear outside the bunker as corpse men in 1959. Reds take them inside the bunker, which was new at the time, and undress them for some reason. They also take the camera, which is rather considerate, and place it where we can see the bodies because that's exactly what a soldier would do when he finds a piece of alien technology with a couple of bodies. The Reds leave and we see the two naked bodies hanging from meat hooks for some reason and we see... surprise!... NOT! The two zombies are really Fatty Doo Doo and Johnny Walker! They've been alive/undead inside the tunnel since 1959 because it's a found footage film and there's only so many different ideas we can use for those.



The sad part is IMDB shows production stills and they had some really decent makeup effects for the zombies. Why they decided to go with early Tomb Raider quality CGI is beyond me.



Oh and that camera Ivan Drago places on the operating table? He left it on since 1959 and the batteries didn't go dead until 2013 when Fatty and Jack found it. I got to get me some of those batteries. The batteries in my camera last 45 minutes tops.