Wow it's really hard to pin down a definition of Nihilism. Anyway, I always saw Nihilism as a view that nothing is meaningful, that everything means nothing. But not that nothing matters. If you have no meaning to ascribe value to anything or anyone, you wouldn't find meaning in unnecessary harm or discomfort to others, in a harm reduction mindset.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

To me, the definition is "the belief that there is no intrinsic meaning to human existence." You then have two choices: despair that nothing matters (pessimistic nihilism), or recognize that we humans create our own meaning and strive to enjoy existence on those terms (optimistic nihilism). One way I heard it expressed recently was "The universe doesn't care. But people do."

[–] dunz@feddit.nu 2 points 3 months ago

Exactky. We can pick what we care about.

[–] dunz@feddit.nu 1 points 3 months ago

Hurting other people makes me unhappy, therefore I choose to try and make other people happy, because that makes me happy and I enjoy being happy.