On Faustian Nihilism

 A big reason voters cling to social status is to distract themselves from the knowledge that they have nothing else to even try to cling to. 

 Essentially since the greeks got Sophist'd in the face, things have been done out of sheer inertia. Doing them for the sake of having something to do. Over the centuries, eventually the doers realized it was silly and pointless, and not only that, in recent centuries, when everyone stopped believing in the spiritual, it has been verbally (and correctly) been proven to be pointless. E.g, refer to the existentialists. 

 Why do you eat? Because it hurts if you don't eat? Is that it? If you had a suicide button in your house, what justification do you have for not pressing it? Generally, the true answer is: no reason. Voters don't like having no reason, however. "La la la la I can't hear you." They seek distraction. Diversions. 

 Uphold god? Nobody really believes in god. Nobody strategically appeals to god to solve problems. Also, what does that even mean? Uphold the race? Uphold the country? Okay, for what purpose, though? What are these tools for? Eating to uphold something that lets you continue to eat? 

 Civilization has been pain. Nobody lives a life that's more pleasant than unpleasant. What's all this effort for? To uphold the very thing inflicting all this pain?

 First hint: if you embrace the pointlessness, and likewise embrace the dislike of pointlessness, a point reveals itself: investigating why you don't like it. 

 Imagine that as a political platform. "Life is pointless and I don't like it. If elected, I will make the purpose of this country to discover why pointlessness is unpleasant." Most voters wouldn't even be able to understand the plank, let alone decide to support it...

 There are numerous ending-less video games that make it particularly clear. Mine resources, to build tools, to mine more resources. They can't imagine doing anything except for the sake of doing things. It's all buildup, no payoff. 

 From this, we can work backwards and see that even the games with endings are the same. It's a series of obstacles. Work, not play. What is the ending? Is there a single VG ending that can even approach being as rewarding as entertaining as running down a hill? So many games punish you by...making you play the game more.
 They could make games that were inherently rewarding. If they knew anything that was inherently rewarding. Instead, they make them punishing, and dangle a fake reward. A trick, a manipulation. Only by accident are games actually fun.

 From these games, we can work backward to real life. If you still need to. 

 

 Going to work your whole life, maximizing output, to support your kids, so they can grow up to work their whole lives? Ref: inferential horizon and clogged mental RAM being confused for the whole world. Get rich, so you can leave an inheritance, so your kids can get rich, so they can leave an inheritance to the grandkids, so that....

 Have to support your nation so it can win wars, so it can be a great nation, and win wars, so it can...what? 

 The zero-decoration, soulless-looking buildings you see reflect the state of the empty, soulless husk of the culture that built them.

Of course the real reason is Caino masochiens. Yes, the point of civilization is to be painful, to inflict pain upon the citizens. The pointlessness is part of the point - yes, because it's uncomfortable. Voters seeking divertissement only to prevent their Darwinian instincts from whining so hard the voter has to address a root cause. Everything working as intended. 

 It has to be this way. The solution is stupidly straightforward. Discover something  you personally find intrinsically rewarding, and try maximizing that. Try shit, see what happens, either it works or you learn what to try next. Completely normal prototyping behaviour. Every engineer knows how to do this, as in if they don't know, they don't count as an engineer. While the conventional payoffs are all not payoffs for various reasons, there are lots and lots of payoffs that haven't been tried.

 Interesting architecture is inherently rewarding. Worth the expense purely for its own sake. New technology allows totally novel actions. For example, hang gliding. Novel actions imply novel feelings. Novel sensations, adding to the great library of consciousness. The problem is the opposite of difficult. 

 P.S. A [meaningful] action is merely one that's more profitable. When the romans build a bridge that stays up for 2000 years, it seems very meaningful....because 2000 years of amortizing the cost is a lot. Per-profit cost of that bridge is effectively zero. Free bridge, too cheap to meter. Something extremely profitable but short-lived is equally [meaningful].
 The bridge lets you reach a hill that you can run down. So to speak. The bridge frees up money for making better buildings.

 P.P.S. The urge to be part of something greater merely means being profitable to the tribe, so the local bigman likes you. Being explicit: you can do the falsification thing by identifying a bigman and seeing if contributing to his pack in ways he appreciates feels [meaningful].

 Caino masochiens acts as if the problem is difficult, acting out a cosmic play where the conceit is that they're cursed by the heavens. They let the black government define the purpose of life as upholding the black government. (So it can do...what?) If you accept their ludicrous premises, such as the idea that money and fame are worth amassing, you'll get dragged into their intentionally self-defeating delusion.