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[Solifuge]

It wasn't meant to be mean, it was just a blunt opinion based on observation.

Still wandering through a bitter and fruitlessly existential state, so don't take my criticisms too seriously.

[Il Palazzo]

Oh, whatever.  No one cares.

...because you're so insignificant in the face of the universe's vastness.

Tada! Epic rerail, if I might say so myself.
(may say so? might say so? what's the correct form?)

[Max White]

Tada! Epic rerail, if I might say so.

Tht was rather skillfull!

[Ancre]

I'll back you on that. Unless one's talking about a specific person whose expressed gender is known, one should use neutral words.

The french would disagree.

Eh.  Sorry, sorry... I know you probably didn't intend offense, and I probably should have just let it go.  It's been a rough little week.

Well, I guess if you need a verbal punching bag, I'm good for that too. I think I too, sprung to my own defence a little fast, most likely because your point wasn't realy adressing the issue presented by my argument, but rather how I presented it. It always annoys me when people do that.

The French would not disagree, as they too possess the word "quelqu'un" and the neutral pronoun "on."  To be sure, "on" receives male conjugations, but it is expressly neutral and cannot be used to express masculinity or femininity.

That only work up to a point, because you'll soon enter the cursed realm of verb declinaisons or whatever and either a- start to make strange sentences that obviously sound like you're trying to avoid something, or b- start adding -e-s to every word that can be masculine or feminine to include every possible option in your sentence, and then you sound like some leftist jerk.

But anyways, I don't understand why people get so annoyed about it. In french the gender of the words doesn't make any sense so there's no need to make a war about it imo. 

(I'm french )

Anyways, back on topic, it happens to me as well. But what I first thought when reading this post is that : Super-soaker !

[SalmonGod]

On topic.  You are not insignificant.  Perspective is everything.  Every perspective is its own universe, with just as much gravity as the objective universe, because without it the actual universe would be nothing.  These orders of scale are in themselves something that only exists according to our perspectives, after all.  What is an object?  It's made of particles, but we see it as the sum of its particles.  What is the universe?  A bunch of particles.  What are we?  A bunch of particles.  Without your perspective to identify some groupings of particles as different from other groupings of particles, could we even say that there is objectively a universe?  There's only a universe to us.  Our perspective creates it.  Without that, there's just a mass of particles.  A single object that without the relativity of human perspective is not even a large object, just an object.

You know what makes me feel insignificant?  Thinking about the way everything is made up of systems of particles in ever increasing orders of magnitude, and realizing that I am a particle in some system.  Think about cells in your bloodstream travelling through your body to perform various tasks.  Now think about yourself driving in your car throughout the city to perform various tasks.  If a blood cell were intelligent, how would it feel about knowing that it is actually a part of a larger being?  Different groupings of humans have interactions with other groupings of human beings with the actions of individuals adding up to a sum that is greater than its parts, just as the interactions of groupings of particles in our bodies gives rise to us as intelligent beings.  Is our intelligence the only kind, or are there more abstract forms that we are a part of?  I saw a TED talk a while back where the guy talked about the development of the internet and compared the number and interaction of users, databases, websites, etc to the neurons of a human brain.  I can't help but wonder.  What is the internet thinking?  (I fully expect a slew of internet memes in response to this)

But this is just stuff I dream about for fun.  The way I see it, experience is existence, and the only experience we have is our own.  So it's impossible to be an aware being and be insignificant.  Without you, the universe as you know it doesn't exist.

[filiusenox]

We are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the Multiverse.
But if you work hard Humanity will eventully rule the galaxy/universe.
So work towards making humanity better and your life is not igsignificant.
I mean you don't know the names of the guys who built the colisuem but you damn well know people built it.

[Il Palazzo]

the grand scheme of the Multiverse.

the what of what?

But if you work hard Humanity will eventully rule the galaxy/universe.

1.Seems unlikely, or at the very least not certain. 2.Certainly not in your life time, so what do you care.

You are insignificant. Deal with it.

[Vector]

I recommend that everyone here read Nietzsche's "On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense."  It's the best essay I've ever read on this subject, and is also very short.

(If you need something to build you up afterwards, I recommend Camus)

[nbonaparte]

If you're looking for something to heal your place in the universe after the nihilistic realization, anything Carl Sagan has done is good.

[Sowelu]

When you think about the butterfly effect as relates to potentially intergalactic civilizations, nothing you do AT ALL is insignificant.

By writing this post, you have read it, which consumed a little time, so that when you join an online game you wind up matchmade into a different room, and end up meeting a new friend who you wouldn't have otherwise met, and eventually they introduce you to your future spouse, and then one of your children grows up to be an international assassin who shoots the guy who was about to invent the first warp drive--which, admit it, only delays the tech for a few more years.  Except that now the potentially-hostile aliens are randomly wandering through a different part of space, and...you get the idea.

Man, just think about what your RESPONSE post will do to the galaxy.

[Vector]

... And why does any of that matter?

[TolyK]

I affect universes quite a lot.
Toady made a universe generator.
 

[Sowelu]

... And why does any of that matter?

Touche'.

Although in the end, if it impacts the answer to The Last Question, I would say that it finally becomes significant.

[Max White]

Reality is perception.
Perception is subjective.
Subjecive things and dependant on people.
No people, no reality.
Therefor, in keeping some level on reality, we must exist. It is important that we do.

Don't swallow it? Well never mind, I don't either, but I'm sure it makes somebody out there happy.

[Vector]

Don't swallow it? Well never mind, I don't either, but I'm sure it makes somebody out there happy.

I was going to rant, but then I laughed