101–110 of 189 posts
Blind optimism leads to blind progress. The purpose of pessimism isn't just to stop progress but to question its direction, and the metrics ("kpis" if you will) that define it.
I'm more of a Star Trek person - I hope we all become great people, competent, professional, curious, and generous, and that we can create a post-scarcity society that's fair to everyone after taking on our problems in a rational way.
Is it possible we'll fail to prevent a major climate crisis? Yes. Is denying climate change, the effectiveness of vaccines, or the results of elections the thing we need to do right now, and does it help? Absolutely not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://twitter.com/GatesJets Hard to take Gates seriously on climate change. Imagine everyone was living like this.
What you or I, or even Gates do in our personal lives has absolutely no effect on climate change. Solutions or failures happen in other contexts. Gates does some real work in those. The whole "I must recycle all my plastic bags or the planet will die" mentality is, to me, a weird form of delusion of grandeur. Seeing past that can be both freeing and depressing :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://twitter.com/GatesJets Hard to take Gates seriously on climate change. Imagine everyone was living like this.
This is the dumbest take on Climate Change and I can't believe the HN crowd falls for it. Thought Experiment: Say, Bill Gates (and other VIPs) is respected enough that he can convert 5 Skeptics out a 100 Climate Deniers. So, In order for the successful climate actions Bill Gates has to change the minds of say 10,000 leaders in various positions across the world. That means he effectively has to meet 200,000 people ac…
>Pessimism sounds smart. Optimism sounds dumb. [...] There is an “optimism stigma” that is pervasive throughout society.
Does it? Is there? I am thinking you associate with and consume from the wrong circles.
To me this is not the case. I find full pessimism (nihilism?) disappointing, and often not thinking situations through. I have yet to find a situation where I had not been able to find some optimism (, and yes I had my share of horrors).
If I had a choice between a full pessimist and a full optimist, I would always take the optimist. I think the movie "What Dreams May Come" by Richard Matheson is fitting.
That is all about me. As for society (people I come in contact with), most, despite sometimes horrific situations (e.g. cancer, war, torture, starvation, near-death) they mostly have optimistic outlook from small to big pictures, their life situation, to getting that next meal. Even when they get into a pessimist thought, they abandon it.
I also do not think it is a binary choice, and realism is on this scale somewhere.
This feels like a "terrorist/freedom-fighter" thing and so is effectively saying nothing. Like, Bill Gates accepts climate change is happening, that we should do something to avert the problems, and thinks that we can do that as a species. He thinks that renewables and EVs etc. will all help, but aren't enough and we should look for newer solutions. He has invested in multiple different solutions, presumably because…
I don't see any of your example indicating a pessimism.
Pessimism != < the most optimistic
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup... Do as you preach, and others will follow. Flying your private jet to a conference, and tell Johnny Average that he shouldn't use his car to drive to his workplace is a shitty thing to do. And he's far from being the only one doing that.
Personal carbon budget. But then the upper middle class twats couldn't go on vacation to Bali and we can't have that no sirree!
Edit: the point that I'm driving at (if it wasn't clear) is that we seem to all want upward mobility to be a thing, but boy do we hate those that actually experience it. That seems almost like it's own kind of pessimism to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you or I, or even Gates do in our personal lives has absolutely no effect on climate change. Solutions or failures happen in other contexts. Gates does some real work in those. The whole "I must recycle all my plastic bags or the planet will die" mentality is, to me, a weird form of delusion of grandeur. Seeing past that can be both freeing and depressing :)
It can be freeing to lie to yourself, but it remains a lie. Of course limiting personal pollution has an effect.
I have a disagreement with the article's premise. >Pessimism sounds smart. Optimism sounds dumb. [...] There is an “optimism stigma” that is pervasive throughout society. Does it? Is there? I am thinking you associate with and consume from the wrong circles. To me this is not the case. I find full pessimism (nihilism?) disappointing, and often not thinking situations through. I have yet to find a situation where I ha…
Define progress. Is it more/better technology? Is that progress something we want?