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Author here. Ask Me Anything.
Is it better, in your view, to be optimistic, or to be consistent in your evaluation?
Should we strive to be more "optimistic" or to be more "accurate" in our personal evaluations?
Author here. Ask Me Anything.
You describe optimism as an "inconsistency" in evaluating good/bad events, the opposite inconsistency to pessimism. Is it better, in your view, to be optimistic, or to be consistent in your evaluation? Should we strive to be more "optimistic" or to be more "accurate" in our personal evaluations?
Personally, I think that if you're balanced and reasonably happy, there are better things to work on than trying to become "optimistically asymmetric."
But if you fit his "pessimism" model, working on becoming more optimistic may be vital to your health.
I 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,…
I love this quote: "the plural of anecdote is not data"
Certainly, an unbiased symmetrical appraisal should be the goal? If the premise is that the effects upon your past success are equally likely to be general or specific regardless of their sign, and any asymmetry between your appraisal of the specificity between positive and negative effects indicates bias, isn't either bias problematic? All the worst initiatives that have crashed and burned around me in my career, sm…
The author naturally struggles with pessimism, so his presentation and experiences are framed around forcibly developing more optimistic thought patterns. For the people you describe, perhaps the inverse should be applied (the same article from that perspective would be an interesting read!).
I would say that it's probably generally better for you (and those around you) to err on the side of optimism.
Author here. Ask Me Anything.
Can't this be taken to unhealthy extremes? Sounds exactly like how narcissists think.
Just look at Trump. He claims personal responsibility for his successes, but his failures are always one-time events that were other people's fault.
Where should one draw the line?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm no fan of Trump myself but the fact that this off-topic trash has gone 6 minutes without being flagged is shocking.
It is relevant to this question in the OP, though >How many times since Never Again has it happened again?
> when someone rises up and promises that things are going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.
I 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,…
What does optimism or pessimism have to do with genocide? The truth is you can view it both ways.
On one hand you can see the perpetrators as optimists working towards their idealised society. On the other hand you can look at the desire to kill stemming from a pessimistic attitude towards those they are killing, viewing them as subhuman or beyond redemption. Jews weren't targeted in the Third Reich because of a drive towards ethnic purity, they were targeted by painting them as subversive. From an outside perspective, it was only by embracing pessimism about Jews that allowed that society to go along with the genocide.