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Why are we so pessimistic?

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Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#121

Post by benj111 »

js8 wrote: post #111
benj111 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If most people are pessimistic for that reason, why havent they done anything about it? If you're worried about the zombie apocalypse, you start prepping, you don't start complaining about how rubbish the world is because the apocalypse is coming and no ones prepared for it.

We haven't because we are much more social than we realize. We don't want to break social conventions, if possible. We don't want to tell people who are talking with joy about having kids or exotic vacations or luxury cars that they should hold back. Even though we all know that these things are the cause of the problem. We are facing a collective procrastination of sorts. Just like when you procrastinate, you know v…

"We don't want to tell people who are talking with joy about having kids or exotic vacations or luxury cars that they should hold back"

But those people, according to you have been worrying about climate change for over 30 years, so they should have made the decision not to fly to their holidays, to buy an electric luxury car.

If everyone is aware of this and spends time worrying about it then you shouldn't have to pressure other people, they would already be doing it.

The fact is, a large number of people don't believe / don't care (enough). That's why you need peer pressure.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#122

Post by clarry »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #72
DisruptiveDave wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This point also confirms my relativity of perception thoughts. Yes, compared to me, the bottom 50% certainly has more adversity. But why stop there? The bottom 50% in America is likely the top 20% somewhere else (I'm making all of this up, of course). Then the bottom 50% of that 20% is likely the top 1% somewhere else. And on and on it goes. I don't believe that thinking about nameless, faceless people thousands and…

I think you are on the right track. I'm not sure the article is. Because the article keeps talking about objective realities. But human beings experience life subjectively. Making more than your brother in law is a big ego boost. Having the highest degree in your family, even if that is only a BA. Human beings judge ourselves subjectively. Technology has broken down borders, increased our self awareness and provided…

> So again, our individuality is lessened. But worse, you are average. Mediocre. When there's 100 biologists in the world, you can always find some way to be slightly different. With 3,000,000 biologists in the world, how could you expect to shine?

When there's 100 biologists in the world, you probably aren't one of them. You would just be some mediocre uneducated nobody. How do you expect to shine?

Of course, be it 100 or 3,000,000, at least you'd have the opportunity to shine if your world were the small town you were born in, not the whole planet (or continent).

There's a problem but it is not education that lessens our individuality.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#123

Post by benj111 »

AstralStorm wrote: post #116
benj111 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It means no car trip to Myrtle Beach, or no piano lessons for the kids, or worse, having to put it on the Credit Card" That's your example of facing adversity? Did you read the article? If you're lying awake at night worrying whether you can afford little Timmy's piano lessons you aren't in the same boat as a cave man that's worried about getting eaten by a lion.

There's more. If Timmy does not make the competitive job market he might as well have been eaten by the lion. Which depends on access to right tutoring and right connections more than right skills. Getting eaten by a lion is less misery. And a lion you can fight with a few guys. Job market? Might as well be hitting a tank with your bare fists. If anything, it's the lack of control and not the level of adversity that…

Are you trolling?

Getting eaten by a lion is in no way similar to not getting a 'good' job, in fact I'll go further and say it's not similar to not getting a job at all.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#124

Post by AstralStorm »

narnianal wrote: post #91
Bakary wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately even the people who supposedly "see reality" are just seeing a subjective mental model of it.

You probably have experienced two people fighting with each other, both only living in their own information bubble, both claiming to see the truth. I agree with you that your understanding goes deeper realizing that both are just as much true and untrue, and just as much good or bad. But now comes the strange part. From this higher understanding you can't gain any more happiness. In fact either of them might be more…

Because people who are less able are the ones who die in the crisis. (presuming they survive the onset)

The resourceful ones live through. Do mind that being social is also an ability. As is being ruthless...

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#125

Post by AstralStorm »

tim333 wrote: post #38
c1ccccc1 wrote: post #36

>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…

The article gives a bad summary of the actual question here https://www.gapminder.org/test-questions/how-many-children-w... >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.

Current predictions are at the number being close to constant as births slow down everywhere. Global birth rate is around 1%, halved in 20 years. There's even predicted quarter of a chance that population will stabilize completely in a century.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#126

Post by nostrademons »

luckydata wrote: post #96
DisruptiveDave wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This point also confirms my relativity of perception thoughts. Yes, compared to me, the bottom 50% certainly has more adversity. But why stop there? The bottom 50% in America is likely the top 20% somewhere else (I'm making all of this up, of course). Then the bottom 50% of that 20% is likely the top 1% somewhere else. And on and on it goes. I don't believe that thinking about nameless, faceless people thousands and…

Nah, this is very dangerous thinking, that somehow we're so much better than every other country. Truth to be told, aside very limited exceptions, life in the USA is quite bad for a lot of people, and very risky. Most countries have a better safety net than here, either through government or familial ties.

In the developed world, yeah, the U.S. is behind a lot of regions like Taiwan, Canada, Scandinavia, Western Europe, Australia & NZ in terms of the social safety net.

Among the world's population at large, no way. Even homeless Americans are way better off than the average person in Asia, Africa, or South America. In China people regularly work 9-9-6 (9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days a week); if you lose your job, you have zero social safety net other than your savings and your family; your property can be confiscated if you piss off the wrong party official; and there's a callous disregard for life so that if you get run over by a taxi it's your own problem. In parts of Central America the nominal government has no control, and you can be caught in a random crossfire. My wife served in the Peace Corps in Peru; she stayed with the richest woman in the village, who owned a house with 3.5 walls and a regular stream of reptilian visitors. That woman's occupation? Brewing moonshine in 55 gallon oil drums, to serve as the village's primary beverage and social lubricant.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#127

Post by leoreeves »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #114
Medicalidiot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Developed world, we don't have to hunt our food. We don't freeze outside. We have comfortable lives in that we have are physiological needs taken care of. Yet, happiness is at an all time low and our psychological needs are neglected. I believe that OP is onto something in that humans are programmed to struggle with something, and if we don't, we start having issues. In my mind this is similar to an autoimmune…

When I went through my depression, I did some reading on it, and this comes up in the literature. Essentially, people who struggle to feed themselves don't get depressed. Depression is a first-world problem because we have the time and luxury for introspection and contemplation. A large part of what got me out of my depression was making meaning for my life. Discovering what really matters to me, and living my life b…

> Depression is a first-world problem because we have the time and luxury for introspection and contemplation.

That's a myth unfortunately:

> Now, for the first time, researchers went beyond deaths to examine the global causes of illness and disability. They found that the single largest cause of disability worldwide was mental disorders – largely, the common illnesses of depression and anxiety. They caused a seventh of all the disability in the world. In the poorest countries as well as the richest, and at every socioeconomic level in between, mental disorders were the greatest thief of productive life.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/30/busting-the-...

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#129

Post by js8 »

benj111 wrote: post #121
js8 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We haven't because we are much more social than we realize. We don't want to break social conventions, if possible. We don't want to tell people who are talking with joy about having kids or exotic vacations or luxury cars that they should hold back. Even though we all know that these things are the cause of the problem. We are facing a collective procrastination of sorts. Just like when you procrastinate, you know v…

"We don't want to tell people who are talking with joy about having kids or exotic vacations or luxury cars that they should hold back" But those people, according to you have been worrying about climate change for over 30 years, so they should have made the decision not to fly to their holidays, to buy an electric luxury car. If everyone is aware of this and spends time worrying about it then you shouldn't have to p…

> they should have made the decision

Yes, at least in the interest of their own kids. But we are just humans and we fail for human reasons.

> The fact is, a large number of people don't believe / don't care (enough). That's why you need peer pressure.

The peer pressure works both ways. There is also peer pressure to have these fancy things.

Peer pressure is, in a way, a neutral thing. It can work against action or for action. However, without effort it will just pick a high-entropy state of inaction.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#130

Post by shearskill »

viburnum wrote: post #79

I guess if you ignore climate change and homelessness and migrants in cages then yeah everything is cool. I know there’s a huge market for telling rich people it’s ok to be complacent but have some self-respect.

I’m with you on this... guess that makes me a pessimist.
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