Political/identity crisis

I am young, aimless, have basically no identity and no strong convictions or beliefs beyond what I am about to list. Dispositionally, I feel a tug to both left and right wing values. The following are literally the only things I can say I actually believe: -Humans are social creatures and are utterly terrified to go against the grain in basically any context. I don't think everyone is an NPC, but they way 99% of people act, they may as well be. (part of this angst is directed at myself not being able to fully commit to being an unconstrained and free outsider out of a hope that I will one day find community and be a normal person) -identity politics are fuarrrking retarded, but will always naturally form in one way or another -the self-interested nature of man (linked to realism in a geopolitical context), and how things like manners and social conformity (spiritually akin to liberalism and liberal institutions) are really just a facade for how people and how groups (like nations) ultimately serve as extensions of human nature being innately selfish and self-interested. There is no such thing as altruism -The theatrical attention-grabbing politics which has defined 21st century discourse is disgusting and as long as the internet exists, we are literally never going back to logical pluralistic argumentation -the above will only worsen with the erosion of critical thinking as a result of AI, and how every generation is being further robbed of their attention spans. The best way to combat this is to read as much as you can and avoid short-form scrolling soykaf. -Finally, the constellational beliefs that people hold which pertain to a certain ideologies are the ultimately the end result of having an actually coherent worldview (I do not) I could go on but you maybe get the gist.... Beyond all of those, there is nothing else that I believe in. Religion, feminism, economics, left/right ring constellational social beliefs, authoritarian/libertarian governments, I have light opinions on all of these, but my lack of an identity and personality makes any “opinions” that I have on any of these completely malleable month-to-month. Sometimes, I find myself hate-watching and hate-following of online political figures from all sides out of a stupid and desperate compulsion to try and find some kind of belief system or community to at least partially latch onto. I don’t know if me not having a framework of beliefs is the reason I agree with most of what most of these people say in the moment when I watch them, or if its also because not smart enough to by evaluate the first principles and implications of what they say and form my own beliefs from that. To those who actually have a coherent worldview who aren’t also retarded NPCs, what can I do to develop a real identity on this stuff? I think about it all the time.

>>97432 >"Theres no such thing as altruism" let me guess, you are from the Amerikkka or some other hypercapitalist liberal/libertarian region

A big part of politics is not what you believe but what you care about and prioritize, what disgusts you and what you don't mind. Do you value your family ? Culture ? personal prosperity ? Do you want children or a family (would you accept some sort of 'found family'/adoption of unrelated children?)? Do you oppose murder ? Do you oppose it still even if its legalized ? If and when you judge people for their behaviors, what behaviors do you judge them for ?

First off you don't need to have an opinion on everything, and in fact you can't have a well informed opinion on everything. It is better to say you don't have an opinion on something then to have one after doing insufficient research and reflection about a topic. Just because you are told to have an opinion or the war between Russia and Ukraine doesn't mean you have to for example. That is a trivial example but the same applies also to substantial and important topics, although of course there are some you really should think about. >To those who actually have a coherent worldview who aren’t also retarded NPCs, what can I do to develop a real identity on this stuff? I think about it all the time. The first step is to determine what the most sensible and coherent worldview is. What is the best explanation of reality. Many of the topics you listed will flow naturally from this, others such as economics it has some bearing on but will allow for a variety of beliefs. Religion is not just one of these topics but in fact the very worldview itself, the basis for your other beliefs. I would include atheism in this category of religion as well. In the sense of being a worldview, of course atheism doesn't have all the properties that we usually think of with religion, call it worldview/religion if that offends you. If you think the answer is atheism then all the other questions ultimately do not matter. You can not say that anything is morally good or bad because atheism can not support the idea of their being an objective moral right and wrong. You could have a preference on feminism for example, but you can not say if we ought to be feminists or not, you can not say that we ought to do anything. I will suggest that the answer is Christianity, I think that it is by far the most compelling worldview and best explanation of the world, and would suggest you give it some serious research. I first got my real identity on these topics like you talk about when I converted to Christianity from atheism. This will not answer all your questions but will give you a coherent worldview and identity and a starting place for the answering the other questions.

OP my advice for you is to maintain simplicity. Build your understanding with basic principles and guard yourself from misdirection by utilizing a skeptical outlook. Many liars out there lie because they themselves are deceived and they're just repeating what they've been told. Be confident in your own intuition.

Just go outside, talk to people, do things, learn new stuff, struggle, etc. This is how your views are gradually shaped. It doesn't happen if all you do is stay at home and larp online.

>>97432 your identity should inform your politics, not the other way around. If your identity is found in things which are not in your hands (like politics) going ways you desire them to go, you are begging for an anxious life. Read men who have been long dead, lainon, who wrote about their experience of life, God, and the world. You have to become human before you can know how other human beings ought to live, which is what politics is really about. >>97435 I wasn't expecting to bump into a Van-Tilian on lainchan, but here we are.

>we will never go back to logical pluralistic argumentation Bold of you to assume we were ever there. You have an extremely materialistic worldview. By this I mean you seem to believe that values based on anything except material resources are not valid. Materialism is a self-defeating ideology, but it is very popular. Maybe its popularity will help you grow out of it.

>>97435 >You can not say that anything is morally good or bad because atheism can not support the idea of their being an objective moral right and wrong Based and ignorancepilled. Keep stupidmogging those philosophoids.

>>97432 Why do you need to have consistent moral or political beliefs? There's always this obsession with "doing something", and that if you don't have these well-formed principles you'll not be able to do anything. But what if you'd be better served by non-action and present-mindedness. I don't vote or get involved in any education, and my opinions change freely as if I were just playing around. What's wrong with that?

>have basically no identity and no strong convictions or beliefs >identity politics are fuarrrking retarded are you able to make a mental connection between these two statements? if you have no identity, nothing that matters to you, nothing that you are passionate about, no real sense of self or concrete knowledge about who you really are as a person, then of course you are unable to empathize with people who do have a sense of self and the things that they feel emotionally affected by. i think you are externalizing a lot and focusing a lot on what is around you, what other people are doing, what the world is doing, and you are not looking inward at what is going on inside your own head, what you are feeling, what kind of person you yourself are. i think you focus on the external and the things outside of you that you hate because that's the safer play and you constantly look for outside validation or outside stimulation because you are afraid to look inward. i suggest you get off the internet, take a hiatus from your video games and your porn and your anime, spend some time sitting in a quiet place by yourself and thinking about yourself and your life instead of just being a reactionary automaton seeking visceral sensory stimulation just to feel something. tl;dr touch grass

>>97435 >First off you don't need to have an opinion on everything I disagree, on the quibble that you do need an opinion on everything including the ukraine war, but its fine for that opinion to be 'not my problem, not my concern' in many cases. This opinion is required to evaluate whether something matters, and should be investigated to the point that you can hold an informed opinion. Many things matter very little to most people, often people concern themselves with things that don't effect them, or neglect things that do. Of course if your opinion on say feminism is that its not important to you and you don't care to develop a refined opinion, that is not only a political statement but fighting words to many people who care greatly about feminism, and this goes for many issues. Perhaps in this case feminism itself doesn't concern you, but having an opinion on feminism does, as the lack of an opinion may lead to some consequences.

>>97432 Why shove yourself into a typical box? Doing average things and believing average things will give you average results. In fact, I believe identity as we see it in the West has been a very harmful idea that I'm writing a deconstruction of.

>>97445 >Of course if your opinion on [example] is that its not important to you and you don't care to develop a refined opinion, that is not only a political statement but fighting words to many people who care greatly about [the very thing listed as an example] Use some qute prompt to ask an AI to create a refined opinion, I guess... (bonus points if you use Qute browser)

>>97445 Absolutely absurd. This is liberalism's most barbaric trait, which renders all other people into political combatants. Reserving judgment is not the same as opining that a subject is unimportant. Feminism is not unimportant, its antichrist. But I digress. The need to have an opinion on everything and to identify with those extra-curricular opinions is the product of a diseased mind. This advice is valuable insofar as it is evidence that others believe the same lie and will treat you as a political threat, because they believe opinions are what makes their ideology win or lose. This is why your prog sister can't stop bickering with your dad at thanksgiving, because the mere permissibility of wrongthink at the dinner table is an act of political violence.

>>97454 >This is why your prog sister can't stop bickering with your dad at thanksgiving fun fact: most people, anywhere on the political spectrum, don't have any political arguments with their relatives at thanksgiving. The idea that such things are common is literally political propaganda. You're not immune.

>>97454 >reserving judgement is not the same as opining a subject is unimportant I'm not really following the ukraine war. I don't really have an opinion who is winning, or what the most important or interesting developments are, strategically or technologically or otherwise. If you ask me who's winning, I'd reserve judgement. The reason being that I have decided that the war itself is unimportant to me. If the war were important to me, then I would be paying attention, I would know these developments, I would have been following it and I would have opinions on it. Likewise for pretty much any political topic. Likewise for pretty much any political topic that you want to reserve judgement on.

>>97455 Unfortunately, this is an example of an actual phenomenon witnessed personally. >>97456 I'm not following your argument. The reason you would reserve judgment on a fact's truth (X is winning the war) is because you do not know whether X is winning the war. It is not a choice built upon the opinion that the war is unimportant. Few people think war is unimportant by the definition of the term, as it necessarily includes human suffering of the most brutal kinds.

>>97461 >Unfortunately, this is an example of an actual phenomenon witnessed personally. You said "you", as if the reader is likely to have also witnessed it personally. I have not, and in fact most people have not.

it's interesting how all of the people who rail against "identity politics" are people with no identity

>>97466 i had to think about this a bit... how do christians and muricans and christian muricans not have an "identity"? they rail a lot huehuehue. but they definitely have an "identity". even if synthetic.

>>97610 because their identity to them is basically like the "default identity" so it's not something they ever have to think about or be constantly reminded of, they see themselves as the normal, the center point while everyone else is somewhere out on the periphery. it's like when white people refer to non-white foods as "ethnic foods" or americans expecting everyone else in the world to speak english

>>97615 that's not the same thing. being self-centered is not the same as lacking. not even remotely.

>>97466 We have such a profound identity that it is the framework upon which all degeneracy is a parasite. Everything else is a defection from normalcy and truth. Building up a false sense of identity in your abnormality is a malnourished way of life that anyone would avoid if possible. Even ethnic identity is a means of obtaining normalcy when your family is not living among their compatriots. I can empathize, but it's a cope. I'm glad they can find people who help them feel home away from home. Those who latch on to "identities" are the ones with no identity. The one's who "have no identity" are the only ones with any secure identity.

>>97684 nailed it. people who change their sex... instead of continuing life, they waste our time trying to make us give a soykaf and validate them. it's what so many of them *literally* ask for. if you're a degenerate, set an example and just carry on living. if that's too hard, rope is cheap...

>To those who actually have a coherent worldview who aren’t also retarded NPCs, what can I do to develop a real identity on this stuff? I think about it all the time. Read actual books, ideally from a variety of authors. What you need to understand is that ideologies which you attribute to NPCs often contain certain "hooks" in them or particularly designed traps such as circular reasoning, just-so stories, unfalsifiability, etc designed to silo you into a consumer demographic or a field of employment. This isn't deliberate, it is simply what is most profitable: sell images that make sense given the viewer's tendencies. You are not immune to this, in fact your ideology seems to be one of the more NPC ones I've seen on this board. >Ultimately a facade for human nature and how it realizes This shows you lack reading comprehension because liberalism has no dishonesty around this subject. It is the very project of a stable, secure, and maximally free world-order given the presumption of certain characteristics thought to be human nature. Your failure to recognize this shows also your inability to think outside of the "NPC" (as you would put it) ideology you have internalized because hand waving your viewpoint off as "it's natural" is nothing more than an excuse not to examine what you've been told. >There is no such thing as altruism This hobbesian ur-liberalism, in addition to being unscientific, is basically incapable of predicting the future because it begins with the presumption that all things can be rationalized as individualistic self-interest. While there is an argument to be made for altruism with the self-interest assumption, it is the assumption not of self-interest, which is unfalsifiable, but that the rationalization thereof takes precedent. For the simple reason that, it creates a language which can rationalize any activity and is therefore not capable of making predictions outside of its own just-so stories (e.g., expecting disappointment, and then looking for something to be disappointed over). You are merely depressed, politically speaking, and have not considered that your depression is exactly what the propaganda youve internalized wants you to feel in the first place. >Theatrical attention-grabbing.. we are never going back It is extremely unlikely that you are referring to an earnest account of the rationalistic debate you idolize. Chances are you were merely told this was the case in the past, and given some evidence that a past and some documents did in fact exist without the context of how decisions were really made. >This will only worsen with AI Basically the centerpiece of your ideological morosity. I could say something about your age showing here: before gen AI was a thing, there were other things people were claiming this about, however the reality is that I did not come to this conclusion without also doing historical research. For instance, it was claimed that the printing press would dilute and profane language which was previously only used by highly educated religious elites. What we saw instead was the equivalent of hundreds if not thousands of great leaps forward in cultural and technological development. The question you should be asking is whether "AI" which largely refers to transformers and nothing else, is as important, technologically speaking, as the printing press and it absolutely isn't: it won't have a significant positive or negative effect in comparison to something like the computer, and being a type of computer program it certainly won't be more impactful than computers are. In fact many of the things being said about transformers now are no different from what was said about computers in the late 1900s, in the era of cybernetics. Returning to your question, I would actually not recommend having an identity about this stuff at all. Defining yourself by a belief system is a form of anticipation and, ultimately, suffering that leads to further disappointment. What you should instead do is clear your mind and pay close attention to the moment you're in. You have already correctly recognized that you've been sold lies about the future as well as the past but haven't yet let go of those things, perhaps because you are still looking for hope in them. If there is anything worth looking for hope in, it's the possibility of new knowledge and experiences, as well as new discoveries, which can be made spontaneously or in an organized manner through meditation and by taking charge of your own plans and inputs. Personally, I also find hope on the infinite creative potential that exists not just among humans, but all life and in the random actions of the universe as well. You could also read this piece about the eight circuits of consciousness by Timothy Leary that I've just gotten into. It's pseudoscientific horse soykaf but has an interesting way of framing things and doesn't take itself too seriously anyway: https://www.paratheatrical.com/pages/talkingraven/INTOXICATION.html I think that forming an organized critique: understanding why this is wrong, but also why someone might believe in this sort of thing, in terms of specific details, is an extremely valuable media literacy skill that allows you to think through the readings and ideologies you encounter without vacating them in terms of agreement and disagreement or positive and negative overarching sentiment. You could also try reading something lighter that isn't so serious, like a fiction book. That tends to make me feel better.

Can we stop with this "NPC" crap already? That has got to be the most embarrassing, sad, telling meme that imageboard culture has yet to produce and it's even more telling than ever now that it's been co-opted by billionaire solipsists like Elon Musk. Life is not a digital simulation, it's not a video game, it's not a movie, it's a big chaotic analog mess with no absolute structure or hierarchy or discrete 1 and 0 states, there's no winners and losers or main characters and extras or players and NPCs, and the simplistic models we come up with for trying to make sense of it or emulate it are maps not the territory. It's bad enough that we have billionaire solipsists who think that way running the world, you don't have to make it worse by letting them instill you with their insane delusional thinking.

>have basically no identity and no strong convictions or beliefs Good. Better nothing than something stupid and gay. Nobody needs you to be the next warrior for some nonsensical social cause. What they need instead, even if they might not want it, is someone who thinks for themselves, is honest with themselves, and isn't just another loud moron who made the top 10 current talking points their whole identity.

>>97737 >Better nothing than something stupid and gay. There it is. Every time I have these arguments with you people we always eventually arrive here at the same place, pure self-absorbed nihilism. It's better to be nothing than something stupid and gay, it's better to be dead than to live in a world where I don't get exactly what I want, it's better to burn the whole party to the ground if I don't get to open the first present. You're an adult baby.

OP should look into Sartre. Being and Nothingness is not an easy book to read but you can check out secondary literature and podcasts by philosophers. It should wake you up from your identity delusions.

>>97752 It's funny watching you appear in random threads to tear down honest people. They (and i) are laughing because you're screaming about a way of being that is clearly superior to your own. Just stop, realize that none of it matters. Have a laugh, get over yourself.

>>97765 >honest people You're not being honest, you're just engaging in performative nihilism, telling yourself that it's all a joke and you're just here for the performance, like the guy who suffers an utterly humiliating defeat in an internet argument and tries to assure everyone that he never actually cared and was just trolling the entire time. Do you think people haven't seen this pattern a million times before and nobody is going to be able to crack your brilliant code?

>>97765 >It's funny watching you appear in random threads to tear down honest people. They (and i) are laughing because you're screaming about a way of being that is clearly superior to your own. Just stop, realize that none of it matters. Have a laugh, get over yourself. >you just want to tear down honest people who are tuned into the truth, the absolute truth of the world which is a real virtue that i believe in >but also none of this matters, there is no higher truth, it's all a joke, have a laugh, get over yourself

>>97774 >>97773 cute double post. also though, you can automate my side of this issue, so go argue with a gpt. you'll have more luck changing the mind of an empty machine. >>97765 is kinda right though... most nihilists just go about their lives, and when the topic comes up, there's a lot of autistic screeching from people like >>97773 . why should the nihilist change exactly? you haven't really made any points except arguing about "preformative", talking about how apparently we need "others to validate our belief" and other silly bullshit. nihilists just don't care. i will say, shaking a hornet nest and throwing it at another person is quite funny, but it isn't like that's their whole lives, right? but you.... you need your beliefs affirmed. you need it all to mean something, or to have more depth. you need it to be more than a clown show. and i mean, i guess if it helps you sleep at night. go for it. but don't expect me or anybody else who agrees with my world view to support, or pamper you for it, or pretend that it isn't a silly game of cope. have you ever read Legotti? He's pretty funny. a lot of people get turned off by the nihilism, but it is genuinely funny stuff. you might be able to pop the cork on all that pent up pressure if you just go laugh for a minute. just vibe and enjoy yourself. but know that every time you screech and go on off the rails like you are want to do, i will be there to laugh. it is enjoyable. not out of malice, but it is funny watching somebody who is so so sure... so so so confident... it all has to mean something... and I can just ignore the mere possibility and focus on what is real. i can enjoy things without it needing to be a validation of my own beliefs. if it means something to you, good for you. but the hollow empty husk of reality isn't much good if it just rots there. i prefer to go find fresh pleasures for my own enjoyment elsewhere than pretend the dead will rise again. besides... consider the smell? iewwwww...

>>97781 >>>97765 is kinda right though... >just vibe and enjoy yourself. Switching to typing in all lowercase is not going to convince anyone that that's not you. There are not that many people lurking this board, these kinds of tactics aren't going to work. You're humiliating yourself.

>>97784 what? sorry, you sound a little schitzo. maybe that's your underlying issue lmfao. also... why does it matter? Would You Feel Better If I Type Like This? Is your world so fragile? are you... so fragile?

>>97786 oh... that explains a lot actually. i feel bad for him, i hope he can find peace in the emptiness out there. poor dude.

>>97787 >i feel bad for him I don't. People like that rule the world now. He'll probably become a celebrity influencer or CEO of a huge company or President of the United States someday.

>>97788 that's ok, people who cling to anchors of meaning are so often the ones who lack it so deeply. he'll just go about CEO-ing around, realize that it meant nothing in the end :) .

This thread and what it devolved into just makes me all the more certain that people need values, they need something to believe in, something bigger than social media quibbles and binge-worthy TV shows and MOBA games and alternative health supplements and foldable smartphone displays. Without something to believe in people just become petty and weird and secluded in their own private worlds, they lose sight of reality and start to behave like lonely children isolated in their rooms talking to their toys.

>>97793 Chin up, you're well adjusted and full of meaning. Stop sulking in your room and go experience meaning, those values.

To respond to what OP was saying, you are not alone at all in feeling the way you feel in this modern dystopia, I would venture to say that most people are probably feeling this right now, totally alienated and dissociated from everything especially since the pandemic, it almost seems like everyone went into quarantine and never really came back. I think it is easy to become dehumanized and disconnected when your only window to the world is stuff like news and entertainment and social media, all these peripheral experiences that don't really seem real especially when you've been bombarded with so much of it that it has left you completely desensitized, all of it just seems like a bad movie or something. Of course you will have nothing to believe in if you exist in a world where nothing moves you or affects you on a deeper level. That doesn't make you a miserable cynical person or an insane alienated weirdo, it just makes you a human being who has spent too much time plugged in and has forgotten what it means to be alive. I think the only thing to do when you find yourself in this situation is to try to remember that all of this spoonfed digital media bullshit is not the beginning and end of existence, that despite what it's done to your mind you are still a human being with feelings and if you step away from all this stupid crap and immerse yourself in physical analog reality and let yourself detox you will find yourself being moved by all kinds of things, both good things and bad things but all of it will be real, all of it will have real stakes, all of it will remind you that you are really alive at this moment and that this isn't just some stupid pointless simulation. From what you say I assume you are a young person still living at home with your folks and you still haven't figured out who you are and what you are really about - so maybe it's time to go find out. Fill a backpack with some clothes and food and other things you need and run away from home, travel across the country, hang around with other homeless people and junkies and weirdos and learn about their fuarrrked up lives and let them teach you how to score and live by your wits on the street, or if city life isn't your style then head for some rural nowhere town and let the hillbilly vagrants out there teach you how to live in the woods and eat roadkill squirrels like a wildman, turn your life into adventure with real stakes where you might get arrested or beaten up or murdered or be hungry and cold and filthy and tired, immerse yourself in life as deeply as possible and then you will find all kinds of things to care about and believe in.

>>97796 >Go get em tiger! Yes, and make sure you get plenty of rest, a rounded diet, and remember to take your vitamins! >Fill a backpack with some clothes and food and other things you need and run away from home, travel across the country, hang around with other homeless people and junkies and weirdos and learn about their fuarrrked up lives and let them teach you how to score and live by your wits on the street, or if city life isn't your style then head for some rural nowhere town and let the hillbilly vagrants out there teach you how to live in the woods and eat roadkill squirrels like a wildman, turn your life into adventure with real stakes where you might get arrested or beaten up or murdered or be hungry and cold and filthy and tired, immerse yourself in life as deeply as possible and then you will find all kinds of things to care about and believe in. And learn proper grammar between opiate binges. It helps comprehensibility when you go to spoonfeed your personal mythology to others!

>>97797 It's over. I've moved on.

>>97803 It begins; I've moved in.

>>97432 Here are my advices: Never stand for your ideas. If your ideas can not survive on their own, they are not worth existing. If a new idea contradic one that you already have, you must build a cage in your mind. Two ideas enter, one idea leave. Trust no one, especially not the people whose job is to make you think one particular thing like politicians and journalists. In particuar, always question the people who want you to not trust yourself and remember that the people who want you to distance yourself with the people who disagree with them are your enemies and they try to gain power over you. >To those who actually have a coherent worldview who aren’t also retarded NPCs, what can I do to develop a real identity on this stuff? I think about it all the time. Stay open minded and look for the opinions of the people who disagree with you. With time, you will forge your own point of view on one thing after another.

>>97826 PHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa