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J F wrote:A few weeks ago I started reading Nietzsche, entirely because of your writings: it had nothing to do with those massive walls of philosophy texts you have posted but rather the easier to read bits on videogames and the cruelties you inflict on others in online forums. "Where did he learn to think like this?" Well now that I know I'd like to apologize to you and Nietzsche for considering his writings pointless. I now understand what true greatness is: a bad-ass German with a very cool mustache. Everything I ever THOUGHT that was noble was indirectly caused by Nietzsche or someone that he had controlled.
I started with The Anti-Christ, I've read it twice over now and will probably be reading it again and again throughout my life. It's by far the easiest to get through; as a former Christian I could relate to it so much. I can barely comprehend the most basic sentences of the Genealogy of Morals and Zarathustra is all riddles. It's a very surface level understanding I'm sure. I've looked at discussions about his books, watched YouTube videos trying to explain them but by far the thing that makes it easiest is seeing how Alex Kierkegaard's frightening mind works.
I hope to someday reach even a quarter of the level of understanding you have.
I was never really taught good philosophy in school, and even when I went to look for it myself I didn't know where to go. Every "great thinker" I was told about seems like, at best, a footnote compared to Nietzsche.
His (and usually your writings) bleed logic, experience, and have not the smallest drop of mercy. There's no fears or insecurities in them. That's really how the world is run isn't it? Countless religions, philosophies, morals, ethics, works of art, and political systems all made as elaborate ways for the herd to not have to face their own weaknesses? Isn't that why "slave morality" is so popular? It's much easier.
Everything about the universe seems so much more organized now! I'm greedy for power now!
What really got to me in the Anti-Christ was a passage, almost at the end, on 'the poisonous doctrine, "equal rights for all," [that] has been propagated as a Christian principle: out of the secret nooks and crannies of bad instinct'. That's it! That's it so much. Nietzsche wasn't just talking about Christianity, who cares about a dying institute?! He was talking of so many poisons that I have in my mind, that almost all of us have, all those falsities. The peoples want equal rights, to be called equal, to be thought of as equal precisely because they know they are inferior. That is everything about "slave morality" that is the stupidity of the Jews. "If we are all equal, all passive, no one will hurt me." And what of men so brilliant, so shining that their very presence reminds the people of their own faults? Well that's why Alex Kierkegaard is banned from so many forums, why Nietzsche is never discussed in the open, why both of them must be painted as Nazis (and also why the Nazis must be painted as "evil"). That is why there must be so much "that is an opinion", "everything is relative", and other excuses: a protective darkness so we never have to look at ourselves. This is why you are so frightening, why you are indeed a monster and your very existence is a cruelty. You burn too bright, you scorch our eyes, and melt away our skin. I disagree with so much of what you say but it's all so bright and dazzling.
Your game criticism is extraordinary and (assuming the videogame industry does not destroy itself) will no doubt go down in history as the only thing worth reading.
Some mistakes I'd like to point out.
J F wrote:"Where did he learn to think like this?" Well now that I know I'd like to apologize to you and Nietzsche
I did not "learn to think like this" by reading Nietzsche, or any other author or books in general. By 10 or 12 years old my dad was already telling my mom that "your son will become a demagogue". Even as a small boy people were already remarking that I am incredibly exact in my conversations. Every teacher I ever had was swearing up and down that I was one of the brightest pupils they've ever taught.
90% of what you see me write comes from biology: my superior physical abilities and brain power. Only around 10% is cultural. Granted, without this culture there would be no texts at all -- I would be an ape in the jungle grunting with everyone else (though still grunting in an extremely superior manner, etc. of course). But it's a huge mistake to see in culture the main factor. How many people have read Nietzsche, after all? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? How many of them think like me? Zero. Not even Baudrillard could do it.
"A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out." - Georg C. Lichtenberg
J F wrote:Every "great thinker" I was told about seems like, at best, a footnote compared to Nietzsche.
And every car ever made seems like, at best, a footnote compared to a 2014 Ferrari F12berlinetta. But only because the comparison is unfair, because without all the other cars (and even the carriages and horses before them), the Berlinetta wouldn't have even existed.
Planetary Annihilation is definitely a better game than Sid Meier's Civilization. But the amount of enjoyment I am getting from PA today is roughly equivalent to what I got out of Civilization in 1991. That's not to say I would get the same amount of enjoyment out of Civ IF I PLAYED IT TODAY. But that's only because I've already played both Civ and PA.
In short, great works (and great men) are more or less EQUAL if you regard them FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF ETERNITY. If you can't seem to sufficiently appreciate Heraclitus, or Larochefoucauld or Baudrillard, that's more your fault than theirs. That's why it took you so long to start reading Nietzsche, for example, while I was hooked from the first page. Your brain is coarser, your understanding is coarser, and hence your appreciation of the great texts and their authors will also be coarser. Of course you are doing a better job than most, but I still feel the need to point out that you could be doing a lot better.
J F wrote:His (and usually your writings) bleed logic, experience, and have not the smallest drop of mercy.
Hint: the points where you think that my writings are not logical, are the points where you fail to understand my logic (of which there are an infinite number to correspond to the infinity of lifeforms -- the idea that there is only one logic is illogical). Here's some more Lichtenberg for you:
"If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13."
J F wrote:(assuming the videogame industry does not destroy itself)
The idea that the videogame industry could be destroyed by anything other than a killer comet that wipes out the entire species is laughable. There have never been any videogame industry "crashes" and there never will be until humanity ceases to exist. Whoever talks about videogame industry "crashes" is a poser pseudo-hardcore who spends all day online, neglecting both to play and enjoy games, and all the other affairs of his life. Industry doomspeak is an instant red flag: the person who engages in it knows nothing about videogames, and is sick from spending too much time online to boot.
Apart from all that, I enjoyed your message, thank you.