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Pessimism is a barrier to progress

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Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#151

Post by RichardCNormos »

decremental wrote: post #81
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #62

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.

Similarly the vocal and rich advocates for climate change policy buying beachfront property on Martha's Vinyard. To say that these people are merely hypocrites is being too generous. They don't believe what they're saying at all.

You're being downvoted severely for going against current leftist orthodoxy, but you should know that a lot of us out here agree with you.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#152

Post by id »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #136
id wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/GatesJets Hard to take Gates seriously on climate change. Imagine everyone was living like this.

So, I still don't like Gates for various historical reasons. Even some of his climate stuff annoys me. But, it's highly likely that if you ranked the whole human race on how much they'd done to reduce climate change, he may well be at the top. So if it's about "doing his share" then he's probably doing okay. But regardless, I don't want people to stop flying, I want them to stop releasing fossil C02 in the air becaus…

I don't hate him for being rich, I simply want him to stop polluting excessively. It would help the climate and his message alike.

And I don't buy that you can do your share by talking one way and doing the exact opposite privately. It's like being an animal rights advocate who (openly) tortures animals in their free time. Simply doesn't work that way, even if you save more animals than you torture.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#153

Post by grooot »

boringg wrote: post #137
BurningFrog wrote: post #85

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 :)

I think you miss that one persons effort if collective done has an impact. So if everyone recycles or lowers their energy use it has impact. However if one person doesn't, that in and of itself won't change the trajectory, however if everyone did it would. I'm sure there is some kind of name for this.

Yes - it’s called the tragedy of the commons.

Trying to shame people into using less never solves this problem. It just means there is more available for the shameless. The solution as are either to regulate the commons, or find a better way to meet our needs.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#154

Post by wahnfrieden »

boringg wrote: post #139
wahnfrieden wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think plastics recycling was originally campaigned for by big oil? It’s a pacifying non-solution that gets people to focus on their neighbors behaviors instead of anyone with power

self-removed for inaccuracy.

how rude, are you just uninformed right now? https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/822597631/plastic-wars-three-...

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#155

Post by wahnfrieden »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #124
wahnfrieden wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think plastics recycling was originally campaigned for by big oil? It’s a pacifying non-solution that gets people to focus on their neighbors behaviors instead of anyone with power

No, big oil has always opposed plastic recycling, because it reduces their sales of gas feedstock. They have always pushed "blaming the consumer for trash", and disparaged "producer responsibility" and "plastic recycling" (except in blaming the consumer for not recycling, but that's just a variant of blaming them for trash). It's weird to now see people pointing to the same organisations that opposed these things, an…

You have a lot of confidence to begin that wall of text with “No” https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/822597631/plastic-wars-three-... etc, get informed

you’re sorely missing what my point could be if you think it’s nihilism / hah fine to be wasteful, another spin on the individualist solution making I attacked in my comment

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#156

Post by badwolf »

decremental wrote: post #93
jackmott42 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which advocates in particular? Why do you think buying a beach homes implies they don't believe what they are saying? Are you arriving at the most convenient conclusion for yourself, rather than the most likely one?

Former president Obama stands out. Why would you spend a considerable amount of your wealth on a home that is about to be swallowed up by the ocean on account of us barreling headlong into imminent climate catastrophe? You wouldn't.

Perhaps Obama is optimistic that we'll pull our heads out of the sand and do what we need to do to prevent his home from being swallowed up by the ocean.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#157

Post by antris »

hbarka wrote: post #146
antris wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could interpret it charitably, where the person states that when looking at actions after the fact, it can be said that being optimist about an action that turned out to not work caused you to waste time.

> after the fact Past tense is hindsight. Optimism/pessimism is a future tense attitude.

Yes, I'm talking about after the fact analysis of whether optimism wasted time or not. I didn't say that optimism or pessimism is hindsight. So I'm not sure how your comment relates to anything I said, except you taking three random words out of my comment.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#158

Post by _ea1k »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #87
Riverheart wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Optimism usually sounds dumb because most people don't justify it well. It winds up sounding like marketing. All promise, no substance. A pessimist will generally provide right/wrong but specific reasons why it won't work out.

Blind optimism sounds like marketing. Actual optimism grounded in some sort of reality just sounds like regular conversation.

Optimism is believing that good cars exist and can be a lot of fun. Pessimism is complaining that one person's Corvette is going to wreck the planet.

Optimism is believing that good electric cars exist and can be a lot of fun. Pessimism is saying that they'll never work and are terrible because our grid will collapse if too many people buy them.

Optimism is also believing that both problems are remarkably solvable.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#159

Post by boringg »

grooot wrote: post #149
boringg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and he only tried to join in on climate change way after it was politically convenient and he was trying to build his image. As well he has said some poor ideas about climate change solutions when he was first stepping his toes in the water. Which is fine if people don't hold onto your words - as someone with a fair bit of power its detrimental to other initiatives. Since then I still don't know which of his ini…

> he only tried to join in on climate change way after it was politically convenient and he was trying to build his image Who can you say this is not true about?

Most people who were in the industry long before it was politically convenient.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#160

Post by decremental »

grooot wrote: post #147
decremental wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former president Obama stands out. Why would you spend a considerable amount of your wealth on a home that is about to be swallowed up by the ocean on account of us barreling headlong into imminent climate catastrophe? You wouldn't.

Do you really believe that his home is imminently about to be swallowed by the ocean?

I definitely don't and neither does he.
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