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Opt Out of Cynicism

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Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#191

Post by peoplefromibiza »

DeathArrow wrote: post #178
marginalia_nu wrote: post #170

Earlier 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?

> Is there a rule implying that one is right and the other is wrong?

most of the time, yes!

We are not living in a void, we live in societies, complex societies. with lots of rules, dos and donts, should and shouldn't.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#192

Post by kashyapc »

The inimitable Hans Rosling[1] used to call himself a "possibilist":

People often call me an optimist, because I show them the enormous progress they didn't know about. That makes me angry. I'm not an optimist. That makes me sound naive. I'm a very serious “possibilist”. That's something I made up. It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason, someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview. As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic. It is having a clear and reasonable idea about how things are. It is having a worldview that is constructive and useful.

           • • •
In his book 'Factfulness' (definitely read it), he talks about "bad and better":

Think of the world as a premature baby in an incubator. The baby’s health status is extremely bad and her breathing, heart rate, and other important signs are tracked constantly so that changes for better or worse can quickly be seen. After a week, she is getting a lot better. On all the main measures, she is improving, but she still has to stay in the incubator because her health is still critical.

Does it make sense to say that the infant’s situation is improving? Yes. Absolutely. Does it make sense to say it is bad? Yes, absolutely. Does saying “things are improving” imply that everything is fine, and we should all relax and not worry? No, not at all. Is it helpful to have to choose between bad and improving? Definitely not. It’s both. It’s both bad and better. Better, and bad, at the same time. That is how we must think about the current state of the world.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#193

Post by circlefavshape »

iamacyborg wrote: post #127
moksly wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a really sad outlook to me. After decades in Enterprise IT, many in the public sector of Scandinavia you’d probably expect me to be a cynic, and if you go through my post history you’ll see very recent examples of what looks like it, but I’m actually always rather optimistic. The healthy survival strategy in a world of shit isn’t to give up, it’s to fight on and hope for the best. It’s to come to the conclusi…

> everyone is working for a better world My inner cynic is howling at this statement.

A good friend of mine is a very senior civil servant in Ireland, and he says similar - most politicians are smart people sincerely trying to make the world a better place. I believe him. What's the alternative? Believing that all the world's problems would be fixed if only someone good-hearted would attempt to solve them?

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#194

Post by peoplefromibiza »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #21

Another good quote for the OP is Miguel De Cervantes, author if Don Quixote: "there is madness in too much sanity, and the greatest madness of all is to see things as they are instead of as they should be". He would know: Cervantes killed a rival on a duel at 17 and fled to sea. They were attacked by pirates and he fought well before getting his hand blown off and taken prisoner. He lived in captivity but befriended…

a cynic would have probably avoided the duel and lived a less turbulent life.

p.s. I don't think Don Quixote is a great example of optimism...

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#195

Post by iLoveOncall »

amelius wrote: post #188
iLoveOncall wrote: post #187

I 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?

I think we can make the distinction between complaining and venting at that point, and the second one would at least serve the purpose of putting your mind at ease for some time.

And to be fair I don't think your example is particularly well suited here, because changing the patent system would most likely need more support than just your own actions, which can be gathered via HN. It can also lead other people to reflect on the issue and take actions themselves.

I would still classify that as complaining.

If I had to choose an example of venting, I'd say that I could go on HN to complain about the neighbor's dog that barks all day long. Nothing would come out of that, and I don't need anyone supporting any action on this problem, so it'd be venting.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#196

Post by [deleted] »

kashyapc wrote: post #192

The inimitable Hans Rosling[1] used to call himself a "possibilist": People often call me an optimist, because I show them the enormous progress they didn't know about. That makes me angry. I'm not an optimist. That makes me sound naive. I'm a very serious “possibilist”. That's something I made up. It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason, someone who constantly resists the overdram…

[deleted]

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#197

Post by ratww »

jacknews wrote: post #12

I don't think cynicism is just about stasis, but about spotting when optimistic messages are hiding a power-grabbing scheme of some kind. Or just being willing to 'follow the money', and look behind the curtain, etc. Plenty of new things are important developments, even when there are selfish actors behind them. But also plenty of new things are just scams.

> about spotting when optimistic messages are hiding a power-grabbing scheme of some kind

IMO that's not being cynical. That's actually an universally positive trait: being able to spot power-grabbing schemes.

The problem with the negative side of cynicism described in the article is that, (to follow your example) the power-grabbing scheme is not the thing being detected, but rather the display of optimism. Every display of optimism is treated as being a power-grabbing scheme, or worse, naivety.

The things cynics end up attacking in the end isn't the power grabbing per se, but the optimism.

The answer is not to attack everything optimistic, but also neither to attack nothing. Life is hard.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#198

Post by yholio »

Cynical people don't found unicorn startups, don't win marathons and seldom the Nobel prize. On the other hand, not being cynical increases your chance to achieve such goals by 0.00001%, while your chance to end up a broke hobo, a beat down athlete or a 50 y/o teaching assistant waiting for tenure shoot up exponentially.

All in all, cynicism sounds (to a cynic) like a pretty good adaptation strategy to the real world.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#199

Post by hoseja »

jd115 wrote: post #168

LOLz 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…

Good is an optimizing function for groups of cooperating people. Once the groups get so big they are taken over by psychopathic elites (this is mostly inevitable) is when the concept of good is ultimately detrimental. Sacrificing for your fellow man is only desirable when that man does not deliberately position himself to consistently profit from such sacrifices.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#200

Post by mycowerk »

yholio wrote: post #198

Cynical people don't found unicorn startups, don't win marathons and seldom the Nobel prize. On the other hand, not being cynical increases your chance to achieve such goals by 0.00001%, while your chance to end up a broke hobo, a beat down athlete or a 50 y/o teaching assistant waiting for tenure shoot up exponentially. All in all, cynicism sounds (to a cynic) like a pretty good adaptation strategy to the real world…

I'd argue the optimum strategy requires you be at least a little optimistic.

Humans are biased to outweigh the importance of losses vs gains when considering expected value. At a minimum a some optimism is required to offset this bias.

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