People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study • Hacker News Board

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#191

Post by katzgrau » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #159

tomp wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s not what’s being discussed. Does optimism actually make you live a longer and more successful life, or is your life equally short and shitty, you just enjoy it more?

Many of the wealthiest people are unhappy

Wealth is a poor measure of success. In fact, I'd argue it's a side effect of success.

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#192

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:43 AM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #97

ekianjo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keeping informed is the duty of a citizen in a democracy Says who? Are we taking votes away from ill-informed people? I don't think so. And even the act of being informed would be a massive task in itself. Where do you start? What does being informed even mean? How much depth is enough? Just following local news in details would take the good part of one's day, so being informed on a much larger level is pretty muc…

Moral duty, not legal. Parse it as "keeping reasonably informed", not "keeping totally informed".

That still does not change that it cannot be achieved easily in all domains you are susceptible to know about.

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#193

Post by craftinator » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

lonelappde wrote: post #105

craftinator wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You beat me to this by 5 minutes. It seems pretty obvious that the path of causation tends in this direction, rather than the other. And even if there is a signal going the other direction, extracting it from the noise caused by "people who have health and financial stability" seems impossible, unless the sample group were all of people who have lived to at least 85 without having these traits.

"seems pretty obvious" is not how science works

Thank you for your fantastic insight! If you read the part of my comment that is not the first sentence, you'll see where I give logical reasoning supporting that first sentence... Sort of how a paper supports it's abstract. "Seems pretty obvious" translates to "becomes clear with simple logical reasoning", probably should have revised that for the snob crowd. I actually prefer logical reasoning in my science, what about you?