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Bonus points for the unironic use of Tyler Durden.

What all these posts have in common is that they come from people who get dismissive, or even angry, when other people care. To a certain subsection of the internet, nothing is more criminal than caring. About politics, gender, class, representation in video games, anything. They dismiss racists and people trying to stop racism as equally stupid for trying to change the world -- which is ironic, because that attitude is changing the world by making it dumber. They're like people saying "Fire is a natural phenomenon!" while your house burns down around you. They're using these "profound" observations to absolve themselves from the need to challenge their comfort zone and actually contribute to society, and then they continue to live easy lives while other people suffer. It's an attitude of "This doesn't affect me personally, therefore it's not a problem, and anyone who cares about it is hysterical and ludicrous," with an added dose of insufferable smugness.

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Keep that in mind the next time you get passionate about trying to change the world you live in and people oppose you on the basis of "caring is dumb." The guy snarking about how humanity is doomed because of the latest Trump policy isn't going to have his life made worse by that policy. The guy calling anyone who engages in any kind of politics brainwashed has the privilege of getting to drift through life unaffected by those same politics. Don't get distracted by the people -- usually, but hardly always, well-off white dudes -- who are lucky enough to be detached from the worst of the world's problems and then act like they just finished their first week of Philosophy 101 because of it. If it ever sounds like they're the majority, that's because the people who would be hurt the most are just getting down to business and trying to get shit done.

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And if you're one of those people who looks at modern problems and says "Yup, life sure does suck, and I'm smart and clever for pointing that out!" before returning to your comfortable lifestyle of contributing nothing of value to the world, there's something I'd like you to keep in mind. When I said earlier that my default state of mind is existential dread, I wasn't really joking. But when that starts creeping into my head, I think of a scene from Persepolis, in which Pearl Epolis (or whatever the heroine's name is, it's been a while) encounters a dude going on about how life is meaningless bullshit and all politics is a sham. In response, she angrily points out that people have died for the freedoms he considers pointless.

Sony Pictures Classics

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You don't have to agree that life isn't absurd and pointless. But you at least have to acknowledge that other people don't feel that way, and that drive-by "I am the one sane man in a sea of doomed ignorance"-style comments are insulting to them. Because otherwise you've moved beyond nihilism and into sociopathy.

Mark is on Twitter and has a book.

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Clones are being used as suicide bombers in an occupied Tehran, a boy suspects that his loving parents intend to kill him on his thirteenth birthday, and a house is just, like, ridiculously haunted. Check out Mark Hill's book Little Lost Things!