31–40 of 150 posts
There's really no such thing as pessimism. People can only be: - realistic - optimistic (a.k.a. delusional)
If you've always lived in a society where things are generally bad then it's likely that at present times things are getting better even if only slightly. On the other hand if you're living in places that have generally always been good, it's likely that things are starting to regress. Given that most of the people who comment about such things on social media and otherwise or likely from the latter camp, it's not su…
Well, inevitably you die ?
And this is true on many levels. Like, it's easier to wreck a car than build a car. Generally easier for bad things to happen than good. For good things, (and to avoid bad things) takes work, and there is limited capacity for that.
Of course we seldom stop to consider the amazing luck and circumstances that put us here in the first place.
But why should we? It's only temporary and in the rear view mirror anyway. Going forward we have the future to worry about. And the future is full of pitfalls. At least some of which are bound to get us.
From our perspective I do believe reality has a pessimistic bias. But sometimes maybe we should remember this is only our perspective.
That's a bit reductionist and dramatic, but when you cut through the bullshit, this is happening every single day around us. Nobody wants to admit how easy their life is, how very rare actual, significant adversities are. It's part of human nature. For the time being, at least.
That question about the number of children in 2100 really bothers me for some reason. Sure we can make some pretty reasonable projections, but they will be just that: projections. Even assuming no black swan events, the error bars 80 years from now have got to be enormous. The numbers could be wildly different depending on how bad climate change turns out, and what kinds of technologies we develop. If you're trying to prove that other people are overly pessimistic, it makes more sense to show that they are wrong about currently available data. Otherwise they can just say that your answer to the question is overly optimistic.
I have another point of view here - there's power in overcoming adversity. Nearly every movie produced tells you that. But your average American doesn't face real adversity anymore. We are extremely comfortable. Extremely safe. But there's something inside us that needs this adversity, it needs to triumph, to overcome challenges. This is why we run marathons, punish ourselves in the gym, climb mountains. Some of us,…
Most people sling coffee, serve food, work in factories, panic around in delivery vehicles all day, and with one wrongs step or bad health outcome they could be in doom. Lack of job stability, longer retirement, lack of community ... these things take their tole. Kind of a permanent existential anxiety.
Just 'keeping on doing', facing the daily grind and all the little things, taking care of kids - without falling down (because the cost could be catastrophe) is actually 'facing adversity'.
>Rosling’s “Factfulness” starts with a quiz of 12 questions—ranging from “How many children will there be in 2100?” to “In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has almost doubled, stabilized or reduced by half?”—to which he then applies his “chimpanzee test”—the likelihood that a random choice is superior to that of humans. Humans always seem to fail the test: even CEOs…
>In 1950 there were fewer than one billion children (aged 0-14) in the world. By 2000 there were almost two billion. How many do UN experts think there will be in 2100? 2bn 3bn or 4bn?
so it is asking about a present number.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Russian propaganda canard is worrying, because it is this thought-terminator that prevents considering that there are actual people with real reasons for voting the way that they do. Are the Russian spy agencies conducting propaganda? Of course they are. Are they the reason Trump was elected, or people voted for Brexit, or the Yellow Vests are marching in Paris? Hell no.
With how close the election was, it's a very short jump to conclude that hacking the emails of both the party and campaign of one side successfully directed the narrative enough to flip the election. You can easily see here that Russian cyberattacks were effective in washing out any message by the target candidate: https://news.gallup.com/poll/195596/email-dominates-american...
I have another point of view here - there's power in overcoming adversity. Nearly every movie produced tells you that. But your average American doesn't face real adversity anymore. We are extremely comfortable. Extremely safe. But there's something inside us that needs this adversity, it needs to triumph, to overcome challenges. This is why we run marathons, punish ourselves in the gym, climb mountains. Some of us,…
I agree for many of us ... but I think 'life is not easy' for the bottom 50%. Most people sling coffee, serve food, work in factories, panic around in delivery vehicles all day, and with one wrongs step or bad health outcome they could be in doom. Lack of job stability, longer retirement, lack of community ... these things take their tole. Kind of a permanent existential anxiety. Just 'keeping on doing', facing the d…