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Opt Out of Cynicism
181–190 of 336 posts
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's this black and white. 'Candide' makes a good argument against the other side of the coin, toxic optimism or whatever you want to call it. Horrible things absolutely do happen and ignoring this doesn't make things better. Maybe the problem is an inappropriate amount of faith. Not in the religious sense of the word, but as in confidence in external things. The optimists have far too much, the cynics…
>Often the question that should be asked is "why aren't you doing the things you know you should do?" Why is there a "should"? Is there a unique and universal way to determine what someone should do? Given the same situation two different people can act in two different ways. Is there a rule implying that one is right and the other is wrong?
By this I mean acting according to your own judgement. It's not an objective should, but a subjective one.
Moral incontinence is a problem most people will struggle a lot more with than convoluted scenarios involving trolleys.
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's this black and white. 'Candide' makes a good argument against the other side of the coin, toxic optimism or whatever you want to call it. Horrible things absolutely do happen and ignoring this doesn't make things better. Maybe the problem is an inappropriate amount of faith. Not in the religious sense of the word, but as in confidence in external things. The optimists have far too much, the cynics…
>Often the question that should be asked is "why aren't you doing the things you know you should do?" Why is there a "should"? Is there a unique and universal way to determine what someone should do? Given the same situation two different people can act in two different ways. Is there a rule implying that one is right and the other is wrong?
Nothing of the sort is implied. Everyone can have their own should (or not, as the case may be). But if you know you should do something, presumably you're past such useless philosophising. I know I should be nicer to the people I love, and
> Why is there a "should"? Is there a unique and universal way to determine what someone should do? Given the same situation two different people can act in two different ways. Is there a rule implying that one is right and the other is wrong?
strikes me as a rather obtuse response to that.
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#184I have a constant battle in my being between cynicism, stoicism and romanticism. I feel like a mixture of all three no matter how immiscible the underlying philosophies are. It's like a constant battle between diogenes, marcus aurelius, and keats.
I think it's important to be realistic - but also to be earnest and let yourself be taken away by emotion on occasion.
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#185But what do I mean by being cynical? When you’re conversing with someone, it often easy to detect the frame through which they view the world and the interaction with you. Cynics think that the world is never changing on a fundamental level, but it only changes cosmetically, and superficially. Cynics may look at some new trend and call it “lipstick on a pig”. According to cynics, the world operates in a certain way,…
> a cynic may think that media’s only purpose is to sells your attention to advertisers Thinking this makes me a cynic? I don't think so. This is a fact that gets proven right every day on the internet. If anything I'm a hopelessly deluded optimist who thinks the web can actually go back to its pure beginnings when people said what they wanted without worrying that some advertiser will pull their funding.
Yes, it is cynical to see only this side of the coin.
What about passionate creators who use advertising as a means to finance their vocation? What about the wide informational and educational value of media?
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#186The opposite of cynicism is naivety, not optimism.
A cynic doesn't manifest unwarranted faith in people and doesn't automatically assume people have good faith.
Cynics recognize that people can be motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals, anger.
Cynics also have an attitude of distrust toward claimed ethical and social values.
It's probable most of us exists today because their ancestors were cynics.
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#187I completely disagree that cynicism is about complaining.
Cynicism is, as the author says, about never challenging the status quo because you believe it's an already lost battle.
Cynicism can be about complaining, but only if you don't do anything about the situation you complain about.
I've always been one to complain about a lot of things. When I was studying CS my friends and classmates were annoyed that I was always voicing my complaints to the staff / teacher / university, and I was known as a professional complainer.
Well guess what? More often than not, complaining got me what I wanted.
I complained to the university that a teacher was just showing us Youtube videos and not evaluating any of our assessments, he got investigated by the school in his next class and isn't teaching there anymore now. I complained that a project was graded based on time to completion, when the time was depending on how fast the teaching assistant was answering each group, they decided it was unfair and didn't grade this project.
Complaining is almost the contrary of cynicism.
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#188I completely disagree that cynicism is about complaining. Cynicism is, as the author says, about never challenging the status quo because you believe it's an already lost battle. Cynicism can be about complaining, but only if you don't do anything about the situation you complain about. I've always been one to complain about a lot of things. When I was studying CS my friends and classmates were annoyed that I was alw…
How about complaining on the wrong channels? E.g. venting frustration about the patent system on HN?
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#189LOLz well done, selling happy faces to the most cynical crowd on the internet :D Look at these comments! My oh-my. Seriously though, good piece - if a bit shallow. It's a good start. People need to hear this. Cynicism is the only evil in the world. The opposite, of course, is innocence - and, since this can't exist in pure form, the closest second is gullibility. Not ONE person here will agree that gullibility is a g…
> Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good?
you can be both
but if you don't try to not be wrong, you'll never be good.
Re: Opt Out of Cynicism
#190LOLz well done, selling happy faces to the most cynical crowd on the internet :D Look at these comments! My oh-my. Seriously though, good piece - if a bit shallow. It's a good start. People need to hear this. Cynicism is the only evil in the world. The opposite, of course, is innocence - and, since this can't exist in pure form, the closest second is gullibility. Not ONE person here will agree that gullibility is a g…
The ones who fight cynism are the most cynic.