Life Is a Ponzi Scheme (2009)
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Life is an emotional Ponzi scheme.<p>We enter adulthood and realize that life is without meaning or worth, but remain in emotional debt to those who raised us, our families, our friends, or anyone else who made an emotional investment in us, and who would feel sorrow if we were to kill ourselves. Thus we cannot kill ourselves if we wish to bring no sorrow upon those who invested in us, even if we think life not worth it for ourselves – we must live to repay our emotional debts, and to justify and satisfy others’ investments.<p>Most then address their emotional debt by starting families and having children in whom to make emotional investments of their own. They make themselves emotionally solvent by creating emotional equity in another human being, who will in time come to realize the meaninglessness of his own life, but who will himself be indebted to his parents. Individuals thus satisfy their emotional debt by drawing down on the emotional debt of their children, who must then address their own emotional debts in turn. And the process repeats itself.<p>It may be Pareto optimal to escape the continual process of debt repayment and painlessly destroy the human race.
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