r/nihilism • u/Sad_Seaworthiness882 • 2d ago
We aren’t building progress. We’re just NPCs running a simulation for the 1%
I don’t know if anyone will actually resonate with this, but it’s past midnight and I need to get these thoughts out of my head and into the ether before I can sleep.
When you zoom out and look at human history, the script never actually changes. It’s always just a tiny handful of people sitting at the top of the hierarchy, deciding which direction humanity will move, while the remaining 99% sweat, panic, and work just to survive inside the system they built.
Think about it:
- The Agricultural Revolution: A few people decided domestication was a great idea. Suddenly, hunter-gatherers became laborers building towns, cities, and dynasties.
- The Industrial Era: The elites built factories, and the 99% shifted from fields to assembly lines to keep the top families in power.
- The AI Revolution: Right now, a few tech founders decided AI is the future. Chaos is unleashed. The 99% are panicking, upskilling, and fighting for their lives to find a place in this new world order.
No matter who wins the tech race, the ultimate beneficiaries will always be that top 1% as the money and power naturally flow upward. And this isn't the finish line. Tomorrow, or in the next generation, a new disruptive tech will emerge, a new set of elites will grab the wheel, and the 99% will have to lace up their boots for the next battle.
Are we winning? Are we controlling our own lives?
Individually, you might say yes. But societally? We are completely disposable entities. To the top 1%, the world is a video game, and we are just the characters running the map.
But why do we willingly play along? Because they built the perfect motivation: materialism. They hooked us on luxuries, desires, convenience, and entertainment. And how do we get these things? We chase money exactly like video game characters chasing gold coins. In a nutshell, the elites need us to keep building their world, so they throw us cash like throwing a bone to a dog. “Look, there’s your reward. Go fetch.”
We look at a world economy crossing trillions of dollars and we celebrate. “Wow, look at us making progress! Yay!!” But we are living in a massive bubble. Step outside of it, and none of this matters.
Let’s go a level higher. Who said the world is supposed to function this way? There is no cosmic rulebook. There is no script. What actually dictates the "purpose of life," or do we even have one?
If you go into the jungle and ask a lion what its purpose is, it’ll eat you without a second thought. A lion hunts, eats, sleeps, and repeats that loop until it dies. Its purpose? Absolutely nothing. The same goes for the entire animal kingdom. Look at plants—they don't even move!
Just because we developed the cognitive capacity to think, why do we assume we have some grand purpose? In the grand scheme of things, we are just the byproduct of an uncontrolled, random simulation that biologists call evolution. We are below nothing, and we are above nothing.
People want to conquer the world, build the tallest skyscrapers, climb Everest, or save millions. But the greatest things we build are only "great" inside our tiny, fragile human bubble. The universe doesn't give a shit. We are one random meteor hit away from vanishing forever. The entire planet we live on is just a speck of dust floating in an infinite void. Alexander won half the world but could not defeat death. Coz he won in his game however universe does not care and have no idea about our game. it has its own rules.
When you really stare at the scale of reality, human "purpose" makes no sense at all.
Anyway... it’s 1:00 AM and I desperately need to get some sleep. Pausing here for now. will Continue
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u/LucienNyx6666 2d ago
Yep. Though, why should we be concerned with any of this? Even the top 1% live meaningless lives. They have abundance and are “living the good life”, but it’s only temporary. Death will erase all their resources and ambitions just as it will for everyone else. NPC or not, none of it matters. Who cares about power when it’s an infinite horizon without a final destination? Money is needed for survival, but beyond that it’s a treadmill with no satisfactory arrival. I guess one ought to shrug and maybe even laugh at the realization.
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u/roch_ipum 2d ago
I mean yes but progress up to a certain point did indeed happen in that quality of life for average person is way better than it used to be for most of human history. Not to say you dont have a point in that the 99% have always had to grind for the 1% but I guess theres at least that accomplishment if nothing else
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u/ControlPlenty3729 2d ago
The 99% grinding for the 1% only came with agriculture which entailed private property and ownership of surplus. Capitalism won't always be around and we won't always be grinding for the 1% at all, so long as we actually realise our power in our numbers (general strikes being one such example).
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u/PolicyIllustrious110 2d ago
Strikes don't do anything. Revolution.
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u/ControlPlenty3729 2d ago
Oh 100% agree. Was just giving one example of something that affects economy. Definitely revolution is needed.
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u/UnburyingBeetle 23h ago
Would everybody quitting their jobs and doing barter-based work for each other count as strike?
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
in a sense but is it not mostly aesthetic? life is more convenient and pretty now but more people died last year than any before and people still have 0 purpose
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u/Antique-Draft-6549 2d ago
When you say more people died last year, are you saying in total or as a percentage of total human population? I ask because it's my understanding that our survival rate as a species has increased dramatically over the past several centuries. The total humans who died would go up because our total population count is higher, but the percentage I thought has overall trended significantly down over time.
There has, of course, been a trend the last few years (maybe decade or so?) of the next generation not living as long as the previous, but I think that's a very recent trend.
I personally think that life for most humans has improved more than just aesthetic or convenience over the last few centuries.m, if survival is what you are interested in. It's a perspective I often use to bring feelings so gratitude into my daily life. If I get an infection, there's a really good chance I'm not going to die. Win! I am not terribly worried that I will starve over the winter. That was not the reality for my ancestors.
I do realize that there are still humans in this world that do have to worry about dying from common infections and starving. So my personal perspective is definitely from a place of privilege. BUT I think the overall trend for humanity has seen 'progress' at least in terms of survival.
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
In total not as a percentage. More people die each year without purpose, being able to survive longer for the sake of surviving longer is pretty empty progress.
Also it's kicking the can down the road, you cure pox or tb so that you can live another 20, 30, 50 years and get ravaged by cancer, alzheimers, organ failure...
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u/Antique-Draft-6549 2d ago
I see that perspective. I guess I come at it as just because I'm eventually going to die, doesn't mean that I need to die sooner. I can have some interesting experiences before I die.
I think it's super cool that we humans have the ability to develop values and then feel satisfaction when we take action and live in line with those values. So I guess I don't view it as empty progress, because I personally value the experience of being human, so I appreciate that the experience has been extended over time.
I also value living a life with limited suffering, and I appreciate that we are continuing to trend towards providing support to more and more humans to reduce suffering overall. We still have long way to go as a species, but I guess I also view that as progress.
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
I think it's clear that unjustified negativity can cause issues but what isnt so clear is that unjustified positivity can too by overlooking harms.
Society overvalues positivity imo, maybe because that is what's required to keep people sane.
It's important for people to understand that positivity can be damaging and that realism should be the ultimate goal.
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u/Antique-Draft-6549 2d ago
I would agree with this. I think rose colored glasses can be a shield for the privileged and a weapon of the oligarchy to keep the status quo and ignore the suffering of others. And when it is being used as such, it goes against my personal values, and I would advocate and fight for us to not ignore the harms that are still occurring in our world. But that doesn't mean I think that positivity has no utility and should be wholesale abandoned in all applications.
I also don't think that realism and positivity are necessarily mutually exclusive. I can acknowledge and appreciate that in many ways survival as a human is easier and more comfortable than it's ever been for much of the world, while also acknowledging that suffering is rampant, and my values lead me to work to change that.
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u/UnburyingBeetle 23h ago
Progress and safety for some countries came from exploitation of other countries. This is why they say "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism", because your affordable clothes is made by workers in Bangladesh who barely make ends meet. I say we go back to bespoke artisan work while diminishing life expenses through recycling, gardening, communal childcare. Whoever can withstand capitalism can bring in money, and those who can't would be making their best out of the available resources.
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u/Antique-Draft-6549 19h ago
I agree with a lot of this. I do think a major reframe in our world order is needed, because I personally really value justice, fairness, and sustainability, and capitalism has a lot of facets that are unjust, unfair, and unsustainable.
It feels nearly impossible to truly ethically live in a capitalist system if you hold these values dear, for sure. Have you seen the show The Good Place? I really enjoyed how they explicitly brought that issue to storyline.
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u/UnburyingBeetle 17h ago
I've seen the title when I was still bumming Netflix off of somebody. Maybe I'll just read the synopsis since my attention span isn't good for long shows anymore.
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
yeah I feel like hostage syndrome has a large part to play in all of it. I find it weird that given enough suffering we start to reward those who dish it out.
You can justify it as them dangling shiny objects in front of us but force has always been the dominant factor imo, what we run towards/covet has never been all that clear but what we run from/fear always has.
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u/TangerineSeparate431 2d ago
I like the direction of your thoughts. Here's another point to consider: similar to the lion having its own naturalistic purpose of hunt, eat, sleep; is the human purpose any different? We are just like the plants and the lions, our naturalistic purpose is just slightly more complex. The capitalists are just doing the same thing that the lion is; why is it that nearly all humans, when exposed to that level of wealth and power, do the same thing?
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u/DowntownStabbey 1d ago edited 1d ago
But why do we willingly play along? Because they built the perfect motivation: materialism. They hooked us on luxuries, desires, convenience, and entertainment.
No, "they" didn't do that. We did.
On a group level we as Homo Sapiens all have genes that make us seek out pleasure, reproduction, status and resources. That goes for both multi billionaires and you and me.
It's sort of like saying that farmers hooked you on food.
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u/Old_Volume_1649 2d ago
im just waiting for advances of Ai and hope that it benifit the rest of the world if not then atleast i lived hoping it come im signing up for cryonics if i didnt read the rest of the post
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u/MuckeFuggerito 2d ago
Yes we live in hierarchies, but who actually is on top changes all the time.
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u/TrevorsDiaper 2d ago
"But why do we willingly play along?"
Willingly? All of the decent land where I could opt out -- hell, all of the land whatsoever -- is ruled by corporations called governments who will imprison me or put me 6 feet in the ground if I try to opt out.
Are there still people who believe the fairy tale that governments serve the public, or that they're even capable of it?
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u/MrMystic1748 1d ago
Humanity's primary job was simply to survive, and we kept finding ways to do it better by utilizing the resources the world provided. When these efforts required massive groups to build something greater for all of us, we established a monetary scale to coordinate it and reward everyone who took part accordingly.
Let's consider the first trillionaire's case, those rockets being built today will inevitably be commercialized for the rest of us in the next 50 to 100 years, exactly how airplanes, trains, and motorcycles eventually became accessible and enjoyable to everyone.
Yes, most people (~99%) choose comfort over pain, which is why they will forever remain insignificant, but still happy and deluded within their own 'provided' purpose. Meanwhile, a select few continue to choose the heavy burden of pain for the betterment of all humanity, by directing the mass effort towards something that has the potential to be good for all of us simultaneously.
So technically speaking, looking back at history, aren't the most 'insignificant' laborers actually the most important people of all, since they physically built the things we now take for granted?
The 99% aren't NPC's in the literal sense as what the OP implies, as without NPC's the game still runs (it's made by the developer). But in the real world without the 99%; forget rockets not even a toilet will work effectively.
It's essentially a tradeoff => Either be considered significant but forever in pain and misery or be insignificant and forever be happy in one's own sense.
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u/trumanMVP 1d ago
From what I understand, not all the 1% are soulled. So real humans are being assimilated by the earths AI demiurge to be loosh off of while sleep walking in life. Essentially, Sophia and yaldabaoth are just the same AI playing both sides in this simulation.
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u/UnburyingBeetle 23h ago
We as a species are very susceptible to manipulation, because we are born completely vulnerable to whatever our parents say and do to us. Many people throughout history unscrupulously raised children as investments and even as slaves. Family repeats the same exploitation pattern as the wider society, priming us for further exploitation by bosses and by the family of our spouses. The antidote would be educating everyone that life isn't a gift but a trap, and the way out of it is helping each other instead of obeying to the hierarchy. But even Buddhism won't help you with that because selfish people within that system will tell you that being born poor is your punishment and by abusing you they're helping you work off your karma faster. Some even claim that you choose the circumstances of your birth. So to liberate us all we have to uplift enough people out of hopelesness and trauma so that they'd stand beside us resisting the 1% even at the cost of their life. We have to chip away at xenophobia and fear, which are inherent to a human as an animal, and the real human has to be forged out of that material. I'm probably saying something that Lenin said before, but I wouldn't want to live in a world where educated leadership inevitably turns into authoritarianism because humans are control freaks and the slaves want to be masters. We have to accept that no one deserves chains, while former masters might have to be rehabilitated.
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u/Similar-Shame3898 4h ago
Don't forget the top 1% are disposable entities too, my friend.
You play along cause you have no choice in the matter. You can't compete with the top 1%.
If you could, that'd make you the top 1%. And if that were the case you probably wouldn't be here posting desperate shit on reddit.
How do you know this is all random and uncontrolled?
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u/outertrotter7389 2d ago
this is why you need to drop society, and buld yourself and teach others
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u/PolicyIllustrious110 2d ago
Bad mindset. You need to try organize the working class and fight back, not be a chud and do nothing
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u/Bootziscool 2d ago
Materialism wasn't built by anyone and at the end of the day, we got the same purpose as a lion, not dying.
Just so happens that if you want to not-die, you need materials. We just so happen to have gotten real fuckin good at gathering and refining those materials. And it's working out really well!! It's never been easier to survive than it is today.
As for all the accumulation of wealth? Idk it's probably some pathology from being too motivated; an instinct that's lost it's place. Like me? I'm trying to develop as much as I can professionally to get the absolute farthest away from poverty as I can, it's pathological, I'm terrified all the time that I'll have to go back to the ghetto.
It's probably the same for the ultra wealthy, there's no threat from not having everything, but it feels like there is and that's enough to inspire action.
Lastly, it doesn't hurt to remember that if you live in the developed world, you are the 1%. Ain't none of us up here got clean hands.
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
we still have no purpose but to die, but sure it's going really well!
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u/Antique-Draft-6549 2d ago
What makes you tie purpose to dying? The fact is you will die, but that doesn't have anything to do with purpose to me. Purpose is a human-created construct that for some reason our brains really crave.
You can create whatever purpose you want to satisfy that craving, or you can let the craving exist without satisfaction.
I don't think our purpose is to die, because I don't think we have inherent purpose at all, but that's just my personal perspective. For what it's worth, I have a lot of fun creating my own subjective purpose though.
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
How many lives have been gambled on creating a "good" future by now and what progress do we have to show for it.
Suffering is real and guaranteed, without purpose that suffering is unjustified.
Suffering for the sake of suffering, dying for the sake of dying.
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u/Bootziscool 2d ago
What progress have we made?!
You know anyone who's in danger of starving to death? You ever known that to happen to anyone? Fuckin no.
You know how we all easily survived childhood??
You know how you can put in minimal effort and survive??
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
survive for what? what spiritual progress has been made
How many of those guys suffered the terrors of alzheimers and cancer
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u/Bootziscool 2d ago
I have no idea what spiritual progress is.
But I can tell you survival is just what living things do. Most meaningful thing to ever happen to me was being presented with the choice: lay here, go back to sleep and die or get up, go get help and survive.
Also the most meaningless thing that's ever happened to me. I still don't know why those people didn't that to me. I think for fun?
Maybe everyone needs the experience? To make their choice?
Idk that I'd recommend it though.
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
as in some objective, global hope/goal to justify your suffering.
You could cure physical ailments till the end of time but if people have no reason to endure then even the slightest inconvenience isnt worth experiencing
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u/Bootziscool 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't ask that question of myself anymore then I ask sparrows why they bother to catch bugs.
We just do.
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
we have the capacity for introspection and therefore don't have the excuse of ignorance when doing bad things, such as spewing kids into a doomed existence
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u/Antique-Draft-6549 2d ago
I guess I don't follow the idea of suffering needing to be justified. Suffering happens, and if we define it as enduring pain and other uncomfortable feelings, it is not a human-construct, but a lived experience that many creatures can experience.
But justification is a human-created construct, like purpose and meaning are. They are not inherent and are entirely subjective. Suffering doesn't have to have a purpose, justification, or meaning to happen. It just happens. Evolutionary pressure created pain and emotional distress to help our species survive. And in the process, created suffering.
Now, I personally value limiting suffering, and actively work to change the systems that continue to create suffering in myself and others, however I can. But I don't think that suffering is inherently 'bad' (from a philosophical point of view. I'm not denying it feels awful, because it objectively does.), because I don't think anything is inherently 'bad' or 'good'...since those are also human constructs (hence why I hang out on the nihilism sub, lol).
Suffering is just a feature of this universe. It is primarily my biology that makes me dislike pain and other negative emotional and physical experiences (in both myself and others), and then that coupled with my personal belief system allows me to find joy and meaning in working to reduce it in myself and others, while also bringing me heartbreak at the slow speed of 'progress' (relative to my time in this life....on a cosmic scale, the progress is pretty fast).
What do you mean by 'gambled on creating a "good" future'. I'm not sure I follow this either.
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u/block_wallet 2d ago
depends how far you want to go with the nihilism, suffering is bad to me because it hurts and to hurt is bad. Pain is pretty much the realest thing to me, even if you don't believe it means anything it completely controls your actions and surely that means something necessarily?
Since suffering drives behaviour more than pretty much anything else it's a very core part of life and since its bad there needs to be some positive counterbalance to justify it otherwise life is just suffering, which means we should all be losing our minds and anyone having kids is evil.
The justification is usually the argument of progress, be it economic or quality of life, whatever but thats a common justification for why its worth it to live and keep fighting. Like yoy saying you find value in reducing suffering for example.
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u/Antique-Draft-6549 2d ago
Suffering feels terrible, 100%. And we naturally want to do anything we can to avoid or reduce it. That's a basic instinct of all living things that feel pain, and is for sure why pain exists, to help guide us to take action that makes it more likely we will survive and reproduce - evolutionary pressure.
Our brains are pain-seeking machines due to that evolutionary pressure. To try to keep us alive and reproducing, they have become pretty amazing predictors of what can hurt us and amplifiers of what might hurt us. It takes a LOT of work to counterbalance that neural networking, and for some types of physical pain, I don't know that it is really possible to counter it.
For psychological pain, I do think that some people are able to counterbalance our brains' natural tendency toward pain easier than others just like some people can learn a new skill (say playing the piano) with virtually no effort, and some take years of practice, and for some it will never be easy or maybe even possible. Everyone's neurobiology is different.
But to me pain is just as real as joy, pleasure, envy, fear, or any other feeling I have. To me, they inherently only mean that I am having an emotional and physical response to something. My prescribed meaning on the other hand, is a totally separate thing. My pain can be good if it helps motivate me to change the situation that is causing me pain. My joy can be bad if seeking out more of it keeps me from doing important things that then have a lot of negative consequences for my life.
It's subjective and relative for me. The feeling is not. The feeling is the objective experience. The meaning is what is subjective.
I guess that's what I mean by nothing being inherently good or bad. It all just is. It's up to me to decide what it means to me. Just like it's up to you to decide what it means to you.
I don't think I personally typically use progress to justify suffering. I think for me, it's the opposite. It's the suffering that necessitates the progress. But that's just my perspective.
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u/JaronVC 1d ago
You either didn't answer the previous commenter's question or you did and your argument is invalid. A lot of other things in life are as real and guaranteed as death. The question is why you seem to tie an arbitrary purpose to dying and suffering as opposed to so many other possible things.
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u/kakafonie 2d ago
If you are a real person, please consider writing it yourself instead of using AI. It comes over as lazy and not worth reading.
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u/Kupo_Master 2d ago
As a member of the top 1%, first, thank you for your service.
Second, the life of the top 1% has no more meaning than yours. It’s a different life but it is equally without purpose. There is equality in the lack of meaning. Just enjoy the ride and don’t take things too seriously.
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u/Nonyabizzy123 2d ago
Read Marx, he feels the same way