Author here. Ask Me Anything.
Q: Is there video online?
Optimism
11–20 of 165 posts
Re: Optimism
#12Author here. Ask Me Anything.
Q: This seems familiar. Have we discussed this before?
A: Yes, I wrote an essay about my experience after reading Seligman's work on optimism seven years ago, and it was discussed on HN.
Re: Optimism
#13Make America Great Again!
Which candidate was it that was running on the pessimism platform?
Re: Optimism
#14I learned everything I need to know about optimism from Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander when it explains why optimists are dangerous. --- Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything,…
This feels like a very sad way to view optimism. It's from a work of fiction which only makes a guess about Hitler's worldview. If optimism is a delusion, then so is pessimism, but only in the other direction. Neither view can tell us more than how we feel about the things around us.
Re: Optimism
#15Make America Great Again!
I'm no fan of Trump myself but the fact that this off-topic trash has gone 6 minutes without being flagged is shocking.
Re: Optimism
#16I learned everything I need to know about optimism from Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander when it explains why optimists are dangerous. --- Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything,…
As the presentation says right at the beginning, "Optimism" in this context has a specific meaning defined by Dr. Martin Seligman for his work. It refers to the way people explain good and bad things that have happened to them in the past.
It does not speak to people's expectations for how things will happen in the future.
In technical contexts, practitioners often use words in ways that do not match the common parlance.
Re: Optimism
#17'Personal, permanent, general' - all of this is easily explained with 'feeling vulnerable'.
When you feel vulnerable, every little thing is about to crush your soul, so you take everything personally, it will result in permanent damage because you're so vulnerable and the world of full of danger aka very general and accurate assertion.
This is an accurate worldview from the perspective of a child with parents who don't do a good job of building the kid up into a competent adult (everyone I know)
So the solution is to grow into a self-sufficient adult.
Most adults I know are incompetent at most things in life, the ones who are depressed/unhappy are either more sensitive/aware, or have just been dealt a harsher hand in life.
The solution is always the same, and it'll take years, decades even.
But a few small victories toward self-sufficiency will hopefully propel you to believe in your faculties a bit more - we're very capable little creatures :)
Re: Optimism
#18I learned everything I need to know about optimism from Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander when it explains why optimists are dangerous. --- Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything,…
Yeah, that's not really optimism. But rhetoric is a powerful thing and can make pessimism seem like optimism, and Shalom knows that.
Real optimism is waking up and saying "I have hope that this world can be a better place, all I have to do is do my part to be a better person, and be encouraging and inspiring to others that today can be a better day than yesterday."
Speaking of rhetoric, is it any wonder why journalism, media, and politics are all pure rhetoric, with no real substance? About 2500 years ago, there was a large group of people who said rhetoric was the path of the future, and a small group that said "the truth" is the real key to a better future. They had a great debate, and the smaller group lost. For losing, the leader of the smaller group had to drink poisoned hemlock.
Re: Optimism
#19Re: Optimism
#20I learned everything I need to know about optimism from Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander when it explains why optimists are dangerous. --- Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything,…
This is a pessimistic view of optimism. You have to work on your optimism =)