Why are we so pessimistic? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#141

Post by lifeisstillgood » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #16

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #8

Humans have to assess all incoming information (gossip round the campfire, stirring in the long grass or twitter feeds) and aa strong bias to pay more attention to potential negatives in the environment will in general allow us to avoid disasters (like getting eaten) In our evolutionary environments that would be balanced out by "good fortune" - a old tree has just produced fruit perhaps, so we would get our optimism…

"In short what used to be good news (hey I got to eat today) is just normality and so that leaves just downsides (perhaps an analogy of a roller coaster with half of it underwater - being above water is taken for granted and so there is only dips down and long slow climbs back to normal.)." I think it comes down to income inequality. A lot of people don't share in benefits of a rising economy so they become cynical a…

The phrase "hey I got something to eat today" was meant to be our paeleolithic ancestors on whom all our modern human reactions are based - we evolved in a world that had (say) equal amounts of good (berries !) and bad (snake!) - so our optimism and pessimism had equal workouts in the environment

now I would suggest our pessimism gets much more work out

However an interesting podcast (frwkonnomics) has someone last week saying their research showed that we are more pessimistic when stressed and more optimistic when less stressed (indicating that perhaps it is just the stress of the information overload leading to pessimism rather than the information content)

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#142

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

sigstoat wrote: post #84

sonnyblarney wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't believe that thinking about nameless, faceless people thousands and thousands of miles away is particularly effective " But this is what is implied by the opening statement 'The Average American' etc. etc. , no? The 'The Average American' does face 'adversity', because most people are barely getting by. Imagine middle aged parents without spectacular health care coverage, someone gets a cavity and needs a ro…

> The 'The Average American' does face 'adversity', because most people are barely getting by. > ... > It means no car trip to Myrtle Beach were you trying to make the point that people concoct adversity where it doesn't exist? because i think you're doing good work on that front. keep it up.

Yes - a 'car trip' to a crappy dive like Myrtle Beach and it's shady Motels as one's only, tiny respite from a life of slinging coffee at the Waffle House, in the balance of financial emergencies from something as trivial as some basic dental work - absolutely implies 'adversity'.

In case you're having trouble contextualizing: a family in that situation is an inch from ruin. They will never have anything, and odds are, they'll hit a bump now and again and it will get messy.

Those kinds of families are always coming in and out of financial difficulty.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#143

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #105

sonnyblarney wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't believe that thinking about nameless, faceless people thousands and thousands of miles away is particularly effective " But this is what is implied by the opening statement 'The Average American' etc. etc. , no? The 'The Average American' does face 'adversity', because most people are barely getting by. Imagine middle aged parents without spectacular health care coverage, someone gets a cavity and needs a ro…

"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.

So if your threshold for 'adversity' is getting 'eaten by Lions' I would imagine you're trolling?

My point was to illustrate a family that might have next to nothing - and who's only aspirational escape from slinging coffee at the Waffle House is a low-budget weekender at a slimly dive like Myrtle Beach, will with one tiny blip of a minor medical issue, have that taken away, and possibly go into debt.

Could you imagine a life of serving at a restaurant, never able to afford even the most basic getaway, going ever deeper into debt for basic things like 'visits to the dentist'? When you tack on just a couple of 'issues', it all comes apart.

Those families have $500 'net worth' and are at any time inches away from ruin, no retirement savings, no way to send their kids to college. If they have a bad day at work, or if their boss doesn't like them they could lose their jobs. If they inure themselves playing softball - it's calamity. Getting one credit card to pay off the other. 'Pay day loans'. Unable to cobble together 'first and last months' rent. Bad credit. A minor offence and unable to make bail. A car that breaks down, no way to get to work, and a boss that doesn't care one bit. Coming down with something as minor as 'late onset Asthma' which is $50/month of meds they cannot afford.

That is the grinding adversity that about 1/2 of America faces with no way out.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#144

Post by Bakary » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 10:24 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #140

Bakary wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea." - Robert Anton Wilson The idea of there being an right and wrong direction to history is flawed at best. The current rejection of liberal values didn't come out of nowhere either. Some people are unhappy and feel the system has failed them. This was the same reason that pushed liberal ideas to the forefront in the first pl…

What do you mean liberal? Even drugs are not legalized, up until recently homosexual marriage was not recognized. People toil about the same hours, though more often mentally than physically now. You have no direct choice in how to pick candidates for Senate or presidency - you can only pick from choices presented to you, and even there tribalism of the masses beats any individual choice. (The best you can hope for i…

In this sense, (and what I believe to be the sense of the original quote) I mean a person who wants to see societal change.

The examples you've provided actually give a pretty good picture of it. A person who was liberal 20 years ago would look at what you've described and wonder what the heck happened. They might also look at the current topics of social reform and probably not recognize themselves in them.

Essentially, anyone who has a teleological view of history tends to get burned within their own lifetime as the world inevitably moves past them. You get "assigned" a set of topics and social struggles from the environment and historical you grow up in. Since the next generations grow up in a different soup, they don't follow the same lines of thought. The person who scoffs at their grandpa for being lukewarm about same-sex marriage becomes the grandpa lukewarm at their grandson's simulated AI life-partner.

>you can only pick from choices presented to you, and even there tribalism of the masses beats any individual choice.

Going off on a tangent here. You are part of the masses. You are not in traffic, you ARE the traffic.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#145

Post by marcus_holmes » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

leoreeves wrote: post #127

marcus_holmes wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's really interesting, thanks for sharing.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#146

Post by mbfg » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

oblib wrote: post #26

mbfg wrote: post #7

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…

I can agree that the rhetoric and division is heated right now to levels near what it was in the mid `60s - early `70s but I don't think we're as close to that tipping point as some might feel. By the mid 70s things calmed down a lot. It feels to me like we peaked in the year after Trump was elected and things have been easing since. I'm basing this mostly on my FB feed but I think it's a fairly good barometer to gau…

At this point, it might not matter what the trumpists think, or how many there are. I seriously wonder if trump and the party in general just wont leave, whether its thru gross electoral cheating or otherwise.

I expect most will claim I'm hyperbolic, and I understand why they would say that, but it doesnt dissuade me. Every society ends. Almost always abruptly, and with high levels of surprise.

If I had told you in 2010, about today, would you think I was nuts? I'm sure you would have.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#147

Post by benj111 » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #143

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.

So if your threshold for 'adversity' is getting 'eaten by Lions' I would imagine you're trolling? My point was to illustrate a family that might have next to nothing - and who's only aspirational escape from slinging coffee at the Waffle House is a low-budget weekender at a slimly dive like Myrtle Beach, will with one tiny blip of a minor medical issue, have that taken away, and possibly go into debt. Could you imagi…

I used lions as an example because the article uses the same example.

I've never heard of myrtle beach prior to your comment so that nuance passed me by.

Still if myrtle beach is that bad why go there? And piano lessons are firmly in the realms of the middle class, not 1 pay cheque from disaster poor.

Which circles back to my prior comment, so no I'm not trolling.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#148

Post by cryptica » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #110

cryptica wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The adversity is real. Most people have horrible lives. People who are sedated in this so-called "safe comfortable state" are the ones who are being taken advantage of the most. It's like in The Matrix, it's not until you unplug yourself that you realize that the world is worse than it has ever been. Opportunities essentually don't exist at all. Also the argument that "if they don't realize it, then it won't hurt the…

For most of human history - and in many places around the world today - living a "horrible life" means that it's about to end if you don't actively find food, evade guys with guns, and stay healthy. Being able to waste your entire lives on video games, star wars, star trek, etc. is a privilege of having your entire lifetime basically assured. That we've evolved for the former situation and seem to be miserable in the…

There is a difference between "Being able to waste your entire lives on video games" and "Being forced to waste your entire lives on video games"... And it's not a black and white thing, it's a spectrum. More and more people are being essentially forced into virtual worlds because the real world is not giving them a chance to feel basic satisfaction.

If the odds of achieving your goals and leading a satisfying life in the real world approach 0% (e.g. because of hyper-capitalism and monopolistic, anti-competitive, centralizing market forces), then it's completely understandable that you'd want to escape into virtual worlds which give you the dopamine rush which your real life continuously fails to deliver.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#149

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 4:06 AM UTC

leoreeves wrote: post #127

marcus_holmes wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's evidence implicating magnesium deficiency in depression and anxiety, so make sure your diet contains ample quantities of this element.

Re: Why are we so pessimistic?

#150

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