When it’s all over, you don’t get to ask “was it worth it?” - it being over means nothing comes afterwards. Up until that point, you have to make a choice - what do you value most in life? Happiness? What is positive and negative? How can you know if you’ve not explored all the choices thoroughly enough?
I value authenticity. I would rather be as grounded in truth as possible, as interested and satisfied with my pursuit as I see fit, than happy based on ignoring logic. I don’t need anti-depressants - they are for people who haven’t followed through on the philosophy far enough. I actually find more contentment in knowing, challenging and accepting difficult truths - not a downward spiral at all.
You only think you’re using the space between stimulus and response. You can believe in nonsense to fill the gap if you’d compromise all else to feel a way that you believe is right - you were going to anyway. Perhaps there are some causes that would change this that you have yet to experience, perhaps there aren’t because either you can’t or you’re only able to want something else than truth beyond certain thresholds that you won’t cross.
What if they’re high on unicorns and rainbows? There’s more than one way to enjoy yourself, some ways might be better than others along a variety of different measures. It’s nice to see people enjoying themselves in any way, but the enjoyment is compromised by pity in many of them.
To re-connect this with the thread, I can see how people who are not perfectly reasonable might select other imperfectly reasonable people - even more than more reasonable people. There’s no objective reason to pursue reason. I, for one, am put off by unreasonableness in others, which severely impedes my chances of finding someone with whom I am happy to get to know - not nearly as conducive with sexual selection as someone who, for example, values happiness over truth. We each have all kinds of approaches, some of which are more common to one gender than the other. Whether one is more privileged than the other overall, I’m not convinced, but I do know that where one comes out on top, the other comes out on top in other areas. One way females come out on top is that they are less disposable than males, and one way males come out on top is they’re physically stronger and more aggressive. Each situation can be turned into something pretty shitty, but one being shittier in one way than another isn’t proof that one is privileged and the other isn’t.
Is there really an objective way to measure this one?