*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Loggos]

Not all of them may miss the point, some may simply disagree with SE's conclusion.
I disagree with OP on joining Emet-Selch because as it was pointed out the Ascians' plan was genocide and that is absolutely insane and beyond cruel. There is no way to justify this.

But I also really disagree with SE's broader insistence that any "perfect world" (or any world striving for perfection) can only fail and nothing else, no matter how hard they try to hammer that point home.
As beautiful as the third part of the last dungeon is visually, the message it tries to tell feels so simplified, pseudo-deep and clichéed to me that it does nothing to convince me of their point. It feels like "brute-force" philosophy in the sense that they really want to make a "smart" point about life, death and immortality but all nuance, far-sightedness and reason get lost.

So whereas I completely agree with everyone regarding the actual topic of this thread, saying joining Emet would be really, really bad, I also really disagree with the overarching message SE tries to convey regarding the very idea of a "perfect" society or a society approaching "perfection".

[Nothv13]

But I also really disagree with SE's broader insistence that any "perfect world" (or any world striving for perfection) can only fail and nothing else, no matter how hard they try to hammer that point home.
As beautiful as the third part of the last dungeon is visually, the message it tries to tell feels so simplified, pseudo-deep and clichéed to me that it does nothing to convince me of their point. It feels like "brute-force" philosophy in the sense that they really want to make a "smart" point about life, death and immortality but all nuance, far-sightedness and reason get lost.

It can come back to the nature of life. All life struggles, it is intrinsic to life, from bacteria all the way to humans. In a way we need it. In our society now, on a whole, we are so comfy and lack struggles like far in the past (or other societies no nearly as well off as we are) that we will look for even minor issues and make them so divisive that the entire society suffers from it. Taking this to the extreme if we reached a point where we fundamentally become immortal, no longer have the lows to compare to the highs this can lead to massive amounts of depression as you get numb to the stimulation and thus seek more and more of it. The extreme that the last part of the dungeon shows is that they've gone so far, death is the only thing that can release them from it.

[Rulakir]

But I also really disagree with SE's broader insistence that any "perfect world" (or any world striving for perfection) can only fail and nothing else, no matter how hard they try to hammer that point home.

Agreed 100%. The last part of the Dead Ends was just weird. Their society was fine before Meteion. Whether we want to theorize that she warped the dynamis of their world with her presence or literally pestered them to death, their civilization didn't begin to collapse until after she'd arrived. I found the premise ridiculous and straight out of a "guess I'll die" meme.