“If it seems to you like nothing you do makes you happy, and you can’t even imagine what would make you happy, it’s not because the universe is made of particle fields. It’s because you’re still solving the wrong problem. “
Imagine being offered an option of spending the remainder of your natural life-span inside a virtual reality machine where all your material problems (poverty, obesity, loneliness etc) are solved. Plus as an added bonus you would be able to consume unlimited quantities of virtual heroin without damaging your health or your virtual social life.
If the “meaning of life” is a meaningless concept, shouldn’t every reasonable person jump on this offer? Would you?
There is a tendency for older generation to feel nostalgic for the time of their youth and for the younger generation to strive for changing the status quo. So I wonder whether the modern perception of moral progress (as opposed to perennial complaints of moral degradation popular among our ancestors) comes from the youth being more economically and politically empowered than ever before, which allows it to dominate public discourse.