Ask HN: How do you justify your existence?

I was born, and I haven't died yet. What justification could I possibly need?

There is no justification for existence. It just is.

I don't believe I need to justify my existence. I'm here, I'm living a life that I hope doesn't leave too big a footprint on the planet, and I'm enjoying that life (most of the time, anyway).

I use both free and non-free software all the time. I have a gaming PC with Windows and a laptop with Trisquel on it for my daily driver. Call me a hypocrite if you must but you can get the best of both worlds if you allow for that and aren’t so zealous for ‘the one true way’.

I don't, baby. <Lights cigarette>

Since one doesn’t need permission to exist, I do not think it makes sense to ask how a person justifies their existence.

There isn’t some cosmic ledger that keeps account of the credit you earn to exist.

Now, I exist because I’m in a very long line of the Darwinian process, but it will end with me because I won’t be procreating.

Hah. Why do you need to justify your existence? Sounds like there is more behind this question. What are you really asking?

I would only feel a need to justify my existence if my baseline activities gave a net burden on the world, like if I wrote robocalling software for a living. Or maybe if my activities were inconsequential to anyone at all.

No moral framework. Have fun, experiment, do drugs, help others, learn stuff and then die. Pretty easy actually.

What/who in the world does justify its existence and to whom?

Why would I need to justify it? Justify it to whom?

By not adopting marxist based ideologies

easy.

people live and conduct business inside of my work product, perhaps for generations.

I never thought of having to justify my existence

I suppose the moral framework I've got is that you don't have to justify your existence. For me I try to basically do what I think is probably right, or at least make personal changes in that general direction (e.g. I'm not vegan or vegetarian but I do skip meat/animal products a lot). But you know, existence comes before any of that.

Beyond that it's not really justification so much as survival instinct. But it wouldn't be right to make others justify their existence, so you shouldn't have to justify your own.

In my mind justifying anything implies an appeal to a higher power who is demanding an account for actions.

Are you concerned with a power demanding reason for your being human? If so, What power? Why do you consider such, "higher"?

My existence is self-justifying, or more correctly, requires no justification. As Rand put it, life is an end in itself, i.e. the ultimate end of all your actions and purpose.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/ultimate_value.html

Not OP, but for anyone who’s curious I believe they may be referencing George Bernard Shaw’s infamous quote [0] (which FWIW I think expresses a morally abhorrent way of going about things)

[0]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7WBRjU9P5eo

It’s just a gift from the gods(don’t waste your time reach them it’s impossible). You can just do whatever you can/wan’t but remember you always face the consequences and thats it.

(Warning: Semi-religious response) We are, as Lutheran theologian Philip Hefner once put it, "created co-creators" doing our infinitesimal bit in advancing The Great Project of the last 13.8 billion years (that we know of), helping to build a universe.

https://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/06/metanarratives_...

What you're referring to as existence is better referred to GNU/existence, or GNU stop of existential dread

It sounds like people are getting thrown off by the headline where you ask them to justify their existence, which kind of derails the discussion.

The more interesting question you pose is: What is your moral framework?