
If God Is Dead, Your Time Is Everything (2019) - waingake
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/if-god-is-dead-your-time-is-everything
======
teilo
Hägglund's argument falls apart once one recognizes that a judgment occurring
after death is just as terminal an event for the believer as death is for the
unbeliever. This, of necessity, means that for the believer, one's time before
death is also everything, and thus the premise of his argument collapses. How
one views that time, of course, is radically different for both parties, but
the outcome is not necessarily different. For the believer attempting to
escape eternal damnation, socialism could be an equally valid means of serving
one's neighbor.

~~~
lcall
There is a different view of the nature of final judgement. I explained
somewhat, in the thread parts following this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22857328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22857328)

Also, because that judgement involves our choices, thoughts, words, & actions;
I personally think that forced kindness is inadequate in many ways including
effectiveness in helping others and for the effects it has on the heart of the
giver. More on that (if one cares to read & drill in a bit) at maybe here

[http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581821.html](http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581821.html)

...and
[http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581757.html](http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581757.html)
.

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LatteLazy
A shout out for including Marx, I had to actually read his work and it's
mostly not about Marxism etc. He was very detail orientated but could also
step back to see the big picture and try to understand the human side of
Economics. Don't let his expectations about the rise of the proletariat put
you off!

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keithnz
since people are having trouble with the wall of text, the bit that gets to
the "argument" of it pretty quick without having to read all the article

"Savagely compressed, Hägglund’s argument goes something like this: If what
makes our lives meaningful is that time ends, then what defines us is what
Marx called “an economy of time.” Marx is, in this sense, probably the most
secular thinker who ever lived, the one most deeply engaged with the question
of what we do with our time. He divided life into what he called the realm of
necessity and the realm of freedom. Hägglund adopts these categories: the
realm of necessity involves socially necessary labor and the realm of freedom
involves socially available free time. Rationally, Hägglund says, we should
strive to reduce the realm of necessity and increase the realm of freedom. But
capitalism is systemically committed to exploiting most of us, and to steadily
increasing the amount of labor at the expense of our freedom. Capitalism
treats the means of economic life, labor, as though it were the purpose of
life. But, if we are to cherish this life, we have to treat what we do as an
end in itself. “The real measure of value,” Hägglund says, “is not how much
work we have done or have to do (quantity of labor time) but how much
disposable time we have to pursue and explore what matters to us (quality of
free time).”

~~~
jackhiggs
This is such a naive and bourgeois argument isn't it? Free time is only
valuable or meaningful if you have the means to make it so, and have been
given opportunities to cultivate interests. If you're living in poverty, the
quantity of disposable time will not make up for the lack of cash.

~~~
keithnz
I think it shows the problems of trying to boil down things such as "what
makes life worthy?" to a very simplified rule. I think if we look at other
disciplines other than philosophy, like psychology to look at the things that
give people a sense of well being, we get more nuanced answers that while
influence the kinds of political systems we should have, don't dictate what
exactly it should be.

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loup-vaillant
I have a major problem with the idea that death makes life precious. As if the
value of something was determined by its inevitable demise. As if being
everlasting made it worthless. This reeks of post-hoc rationalisation to me:
we believe we can't avoid this Absolute Horror, so we embrace outright.

Sorry, no. Death does not make life precious. It just forces us to make the
most of what little remaining time we have. We then concentrate as much value
as we can in our first 80 years or so, since those are the only years we get.

A more distant death may dilute that effect, but not entirely: with more time,
we get to do and experience more things. Thus, the value of life _increases_
as it lengthens. Perhaps not linearly, but it's not at all clear there's an
upper bound.

~~~
wayneftw
> Death does not make life precious.

Yes it does. Especially if you're the one living it.

Even if it's a lifeless object - the rareness of something easily makes it
more valuable. For instance, diamonds would be worthless if DeBeers didn't
artificially constrict the supply.

> ...with more time, we get to do and experience more things. Thus, the value
> of life increases as it lengthens.

You're confusing quantity with quality. As if a human with 80 years of being
catatonic would be more valuable than someone who lived, loved and adventured
for only 40 years.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> > _Death does not make life precious._

> _Yes it does. Especially if you 're the one living it._

So, you want to die. More precisely, you want a limit on your lifespan. Not
just so you give your place to the youth or avoid over population. No, you
want your life to be limited, because if it wasn't, it would be worthless.

I can accept that. But then you should be able to answer this: _when_ do you
want to die? Where's the limit?

> _Even if it 's a lifeless object - the rareness of something easily makes it
> more valuable._

The value of _one_ diamond decreases as we have more _total_ diamonds. But it
doesn't decreases so fast that the total value of diamonds _also_ decreases as
the total amount of diamonds increases. Value may increase sub-linearly with
quantity, but there's no way it _decreases_.

The same goes for lifespan. If you genuinely think the value of _an entire
life_ decreases with its length at some point, then there is an ideal
lifespan. Life should be no shorter, and no longer than this ideal duration
(on average).

I ask again: do you have _any idea_ what this duration might be?

> _You 're confusing quantity with quality_

And you are assuming we couldn't have quality in quantity. Couldn't we
possibly live, love and adventure for 80 years? 100 years? 1000 years?

How much life has to offer, really? How much can we experience, how much can
we learn, before life stops being worth living? When do we start hitting
diminishing returns, _for reasons other than bad health_? (Just to get that
out of the way: we probably agree that it's better to live 80 healthy years
and die of a sudden stroke, than live 60 healthy years, then gradually decline
until we hit 80 and finally die.)

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aetherspawn
I kept reading

.. and reading ..

.. and reading ..

.. and still no point made, so I gave up.

~~~
teekert
I just read the title, imho it is probably this:

No god > No afterlife > These X years are it > Best invest in becoming happy >
Happiness is not joy or money > Most Human happiness is in rich social
interactions and feeling safe > Rich social interactions and a big family
means dying with a lot of grand children, this would make most people happy >
Feeling safe is about not leaving your relatives in debt or having to cook
meth to pay for cancer treatment > Socialism (which I would argue is the
American word for what most "socialist" countries call "common sense"
-society).

~~~
perceptronas
Article argues that capitalism should be abolished completely instead of being
altered. So it is socialism, not "American common sense society"

~~~
teekert
In that case, I disagree! I love capitalism, I'd argue it's just ill and it's
illness is called "lobbying, misinformation and companies' involvement in
politics". We can, as free humans, choose to build a society where one is
helped when one needs help.

~~~
aloisdg
So instead of right wing liberalism and authoritarian left, something in the
libertarian left. Freedom, decentralization, support for all. Whoever you are,
you are welcome to the anarchy movement. No capitalism here though, you are no
going to pay for the help you need.

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ykevinator
Why must atheism be articulated? Shouldn't it be the default?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I'm sure that sounds perfectly reasonable to an atheist...

