Life felt meaningless

>go to college
>spend several thousand dollars on tuition and textbooks
>had to take out student loans
>graduate, get a well-paying job
>pay off car for 5 years
>pay off student loans for 10 years
>pay off house for 30 years
>pay taxes and insurance on top of that
>have no money to spend on myself for 10 years
>every single job now has a net salary of pre-college minimum wage for 10 years

is it worth it?

anyone remotely intelligent realizes that life is worthless and god (aka magic) does not exist.

it's sad that we were not born in a time where the pure sciences were needed more heavily.

Saying God doesn't exist is like saying reality doesn't exist.

The problem is that life actually is meaningless

Ok, you don't seem go understand evolution; however, you seem to be somewhat aware of that.

>In evolution, it would have been more optimal of everyone was a hive mind of sorts, working merely to pass on their genes and have no individuality

Cooperation and altruistic behaviour will only develop when there is positive selection pressure for it.

The degree of altruistic cooperation typical of hive and colony dwelling insects such as bees and ants, should only be expected of organisms that share a high percentage of genetic material with one another.

Female workers typically share 75% of their genes with one another due to the haplodiploid sex-determination system that is characteristic of Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants, hornets, etc.).

Human siblings and parents typically share only 50% of their genes with one another; grandparents and grandchildren drop to 25%, while cousins are stuck at a measly 12.5% relation.

Therefore, human families are far less cooperative than those of ants, let alone entire societies; the average genetic relation to a stranger is typically less than 1%.

I should also remind you that ant colonies are comprised of sibling female workers, the queen and a small number of male drones.

Ant societies are giant families that share more of their genetic material with one another than any mammalian familial group ever could; therefore, they are brilliantly efficient and cooperative.

However, despite our relative paucity of genetic relation humans have developed cooperative behaviour for a number of reasons.

1) Relatives typically act somewhat altruistically toward and cooperatively with one another, due to their high degree of genetic relation; this is referred to as kin altruism.

2) Many social animals engage in altruistic and cooperative acts with one another, on a 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' basis; this is known as reciprocal altruism and is practiced by other primates and even vampire bats.

3) Animals that engage in long term mating typically act altruistically towards their mates, which we will briefly touch on later.

Now, animals that engage in reciprocal altruism have also developed methods of avoiding exploitation:

Vampire bats have fast metabolisms and are therefore prone to starvation if they do not feed regularly.

When a starving bat has had an unsuccessful hunt, he will head over to a bat with a belly full of blood and give them a nudge.

The well fed bat will then feed the starving bat by regurgitating some blood.

Now, the important part is that the feeder remembers the starving bat and vice versa.

If the feeder one day finds himself starving, he will head over to a bat that he has previously fed and give him a nudge; thereafter he will typically be fed.

You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

However, if the previously fed bat refuses to repay the favour then the other bat will refuse to feed him ever again.

This is what we would call a grudge and humans experience it all too well, ranging from becoming mildly disgruntled when somebody doesn't say thank you, to attempting to kill your mechanic for ripping you off.

The latter example involves violence, which we won't go into here; however, now that you have an understanding of the link between genetic relation and altruism I'm sure that you can see why violence can be a rather effective behavioural strategy in certain contexts.

>Why do we want to be appreciated for ourselves?

Well, humans are social animals that live in social hierarchies.

Therefore, like other primates we must navigate social groups by means of evaluating the social prestige and dominance of others and ourselves.

We feel the need to be appreciated by others for a number of reasons.

Kin altruism leads us to feel the need for validation from our family members, while social prestige leads us to require validation from others.

High social prestige is positively correlated with access to resources, high value mates and an increase in social dominance (power).

Mate value is also linked to prestige and dominance, which leads to individuals with high mate values typically enjoying a high degree of social prestige.

Hence, Chads and Cindies are oh so very popular in high school.

>if the goal of evolution is to pass on genes, how did the concept of love exist?

Well, what we refer to as love is typically resultant of varying combinations of oxytocin and vasopressin (attachment), dopamine, neuroepinephrine and serotonin (attraction) and the androgens testosterone and oestrogen (lust), associated with an individual.

We experience familial love for obvious reasons and typically do not experience lust within this context, again for obvious reasons; we have developed an innate incest aversion mechanism that prevents inbreeding and subsequently the spread of recessive deleterious genes.

We experience love for long term mates, which promotes cooperation and altruism and thereby increases the likelihood that one's offspring will prosper; two caregivers are better than one.

We also experience love for friends, in the form of attachment and attraction; however, we may or may not feel sexual attraction/lust towards our friends.

>surely wed just want to bang every cave woman in sight

Well, I don't know about you but some part of me typically wants to bang every attractive woman I see.

Doing so would be referred to as pursuing a short term mating strategy.

Males and females pursue both long and short term mating strategies; however, females are far pickier when it comes to mates as they have a lot more to lose/contribute more and they typically pursue short term mating strategies around ovulation.

Long term and short term mating strategies often clash and give rise to conflict; therefore, we have developed complimentary programs/subroutines for reinforcing each.

Lust is the primary driving force behind short term mating and it can be very persuasive; however, we also tend to feel guilt and anxiety when contemplating or acting on such a desire when we have a long term mate.

In this respect, guilt acts to reinforce the long term mating strategy.

There are other complimentary and negatory subroutines that relate to mating strategies, but we won't touch on them here as this post is already rather long.

>and think of them as mere reproducing device

Well, animals typically do not think about the reasons for their behaviour; they tend accept their desires and drives without question and humans tend to only question their actions in the face of conflict/clash.

Anyway, I hope that brief summary has helped; I'd advise you look into evolutionary biology, as it'll no doubt clear many things up for you and it's a fascinating area of study.

Are you a professional quote maker?

Just get a cool group of mates, do drugs, drink, eat nice food. focus on something you find interesting (sci/math/hist/art/etc) and pick up a creative hobby that you can do with your mates like music or art and just chill

God may well exist but if so it isn't any of the gods our religions envision.

Just remember Zarathustra. See what you really like, what you really want, and when you see, never turn back.

The meaning of life is a question, not a statement. With your analytical ability consider what questions truly are and what they encompass. Think of them abstractly: what are questions and what else is similar to questions?

Queries, are the foundation of all learning and human consciousness itself. Metacognition is the process of asking one's self implicit questions about their own mind and ideas. The hgihest form of questioning is to ask questions about questions, such as "how do I answer this question?" or "how do I get better at asking questions?" Note that the latter query has the quality of self-improvement: in searching for tentative answers for it, one becomes increasingly better at in subsequent queries. It leads right into epistemological questions and from those into science.

Focus on your set of fundamental questions and pursue them - this will lead to a fulfilling search for meaning that achievement for achievement's sake cannot provide.

A few weeks ago I read a nice arguments why humans became monogamous. (which should answer your question because love is great evolutionary property for monogamous species)

They did a simulation for different types of societies in a agricultural environment.

They found that because human settled into small town the rate of STDs was the limiting factor for polygamy. And monogamy societies were evolutionary preferred

>He fell for life meme

playing vidya