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Opt Out of Cynicism

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Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#301

Post by ahtihn »

necovek wrote: post #254
oblio wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two things to unpack here. First, the major one. Yes, it is an insensitive example so a better one should be one. Secondly, regarding your comment regarding progress, human progress is also not linear. It's not even constantly and universally pointing in the right direction (there are frequent regressions, some bigger than others), let alone advancing at a constant speed.

I said as much: it's not inapplicable, just insensitive. TL;DR: I am letting you know how this example made me feel . Take it any way you want. It's so much easier for me to process any realist take on something that may have concerned my own health or my parents' health (we've all had serious health conditions), but shouts of the crowd "hey, we are empathizing" when it comes to premature babies makes me gulp (and my…

To be blunt, your feelings are your problem. There is nothing wrong with that analogy. All yohr comment does is discourage people from trying to relate anything to common life experiences because someone might've had a bad one.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#302

Post by unmole »

nescioquid wrote: post #293
unmole wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what I'd rather see than bald assertions of "person bad". Can you point to such an assertion in the GP?

The assertion that Frankl is "nonesense" and his ideas were a "schtick". That was the sole content of the comment. If there's a reason to be critical, I want to know why, not be treated to name-calling.

It was in response to a comment that stated the gist of Frankl's argument i.e. the change in outlook was a difference between persevering and perishing in the camps. The context is right there in the quotation.

To me, the idea that people died in concentration camps because they had bad attitudes is as nonsensical as suggesting gravity is a social construct. You might feel my dismissal needs more explanation. I respectfully disagree and this is a hill I'm willing to die on.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#303

Post by jessaustin »

DeathArrow wrote: post #122

The article kind of leaves the impression that being cynical is bad. The author didn't say why is the case nor did he try to provide a proof. It doesn't seem to me that cynicism and optimism are opposites. You can be both cynical and optimistic. If you are going to trust all people and their claimed motivations without thinking, you are going to set yourself as a victim. For example, thinking that politicians and big…

If you are going to trust all people and their claimed motivations without thinking, you are going to set yourself as a victim.

Would it be cynical to wonder who benefits from such credulity? b^)

Actually the most vocal seldom benefit from their "optimism". Sometimes they are hired by those who do benefit, so they get a sort of indirect benefit.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#304

Post by kashyapc »

necovek wrote: post #254
oblio wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two things to unpack here. First, the major one. Yes, it is an insensitive example so a better one should be one. Secondly, regarding your comment regarding progress, human progress is also not linear. It's not even constantly and universally pointing in the right direction (there are frequent regressions, some bigger than others), let alone advancing at a constant speed.

I said as much: it's not inapplicable, just insensitive. TL;DR: I am letting you know how this example made me feel . Take it any way you want. It's so much easier for me to process any realist take on something that may have concerned my own health or my parents' health (we've all had serious health conditions), but shouts of the crowd "hey, we are empathizing" when it comes to premature babies makes me gulp (and my…

Hi,

With all due respect, and not taking anything away from your painful experience, I don't think a "better example" needs to be found. Why? The incubator analogy works precisely because it is so relatable—even to those who do not have kids. We should not rob people of such powerful analogies.

People shouldn't feel like they have to carefully walk on eggshells to use such analogies, all in the fear of offending someone. I hope you don't parse me wrong.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#305

Post by KarlKemp »

drewcoo wrote: post #115
rewq4321 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a general failure of communication here, and throughout the current social discourse on "cynicism". There's a sort of false trichotomy at play in this post, and on Twitter I've noticed a dichotomous version: "Should we be happy that we're improving, or sad that there's so far to go?" (That's my summary of it, anyway) Why not both? We should appreciate how far things have come (it is truely astounding)…

Call me cynical, but I think the communication here is just virtue signaling. Both the content of the message and the act of displaying it.

It's signaling something, but not virtue: criticism implies expertise. People observe the respect experts get and start imitating the behavior. Since they don't have anything actually insightful to add, they fall back on generic opposition to everything, also called cynicism.

It's cargo-culting for non-(non-?)academia. HN, the world's #1 source of smartitude, may just be its purest crystallization.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#306

Post by KarlKemp »

dsign wrote: post #171
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…

> Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? I'm stealing this.

Good artists copy, great artists may steal; but they also happen to have excellent judgement in what to steal.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#307

Post by shrimpx »

brazzy wrote: post #142
shrimpx wrote: post #136

What do you do when the context itself is cynical? Like an authoritarian regime. In those cases “just being optimistic” is a laughable suggestion. This extends to the class and race struggle within “free” societies. To me, there’s a deep link between being oppressed and being cynical. When you’re left without choices you develop a “fixed” mindset.

Everyone has choices. Authoritarian regimes are overthrown, slavery outlawed, political and economic participation broadened. The world is, very objectively, tremendously better to live in for the vast majority of people, than it was 200 years ago. Sure, there are contexts where the individual's choices that could lead to substantial improvement are so risky and the chances of success so small that it's rational not…

Sure. But notice that in the case of American black people’s plight, that’s the voice of the oppressor: “just be optimistic, work harder”. Meanwhile the oppressor cynically tightens the screws of oppression, e.g. by codifying racism into laws while making it illegal for black people to vote. So I would be careful insisting, again, that the victims of racism just choose positivity. Sure, there is a deep truth in that — ultimately you have to chose positivity to survive. But repeating that over and over is a cynical badge of racism.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#308

Post by adamrezich »

scaramanga wrote: post #92

ITT: Instead of being an overt narcissist, be a covert narcissist! :) An apparently popular and easy way not to complain about problems is to simply stop yourself from perceiving them. The bigger the problems get, and the more you are confronted with them, while you forbid yourself from recognising that any conflict exists, the more it begins to look like the problem is your own lack of faith or "positivity". So the…

a family member went through a traumatic substance abuse incident a few years back and went to rehab. when he came back, what you're describing here was his new, apparently instilled mindset toward life. ignore unhappy things, enjoy happy things, begin to exhibit increasingly, worryingly, alienatingly bizarre/erratic behavior, arguably worse than the initial (legal) substance abuse. this mindset seems to be the new generalized prescription these days and I hate it.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#309

Post by darkerside »

temp8964 wrote: post #72
darkerside wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cassandra was always right, and always powerless to change anything. If you are speculating (not investing) and nothing more, then sure, you only want to see what is. If you're creating, executing, advising, or actually investing, anchoring on what "is" risks losing to competition that suffers no such limitations. If you believe you have no power to change things, then it's a self fulfilling prophecy. If you believe…

No body blankly believes nothing can be changed, or believes everything can be changed. The two extremes are both obviously wrong. It's just important to understand what you can change and what you can't. So the starting point is about understanding how the world works, not just daydreaming.

If you're understanding is based on what's been observed before, you will never progress beyond it.

During the Enlightenment, all this science stuff looked extremely stupid. If people didn't persevere through the cynicism, we wouldn't have advanced the way we did.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#310

Post by not1ofU »

kashyapc wrote: post #304
necovek wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said as much: it's not inapplicable, just insensitive. TL;DR: I am letting you know how this example made me feel . Take it any way you want. It's so much easier for me to process any realist take on something that may have concerned my own health or my parents' health (we've all had serious health conditions), but shouts of the crowd "hey, we are empathizing" when it comes to premature babies makes me gulp (and my…

Hi, With all due respect, and not taking anything away from your painful experience, I don't think a "better example" needs to be found. Why? The incubator analogy works precisely because it is so relatable—even to those who do not have kids. We should not rob people of such powerful analogies. People shouldn't feel like they have to carefully walk on eggshells to use such analogies, all in the fear of offending some…

Well said. My response was going to be a lot less measured than this, and I would be an asshole for saying the first thing that popped into my head, so I am glad you got there before me. To re-phrase what I was going to say in a more senensitive way, to the OP, to me this reads like (and really no offence), you would prefer for other people to miss out on good knowledge due to the small chance that someone may feel a little bit bad for a short time. Its a bit like a "think of the children" argument, but there aint no children here, well accept for me maybe.

I am sorry you had to go through that though. Also the threads above this comment are some of the best I have read on here in the last month or 2, and there has been some seriously good content (to me at least), in that time.

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