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Opt Out of Cynicism

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Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#131

Post by estaseuropano »

cristoperb wrote: post #74
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…

> The point of this story is not that cynics were wrong but that one never would have survived his ordeal It's interesting you'd use that story to make your point because about 2,000 years earlier Diogenes, the founder of Cynicism, was supposedly captured by pirates on the Mediterranean and sold into slavery. Not only did he survive but the man who purchased him was so impressed that he appointed him to run his house…

But cynicism the philosophy is not the same as holding a cynical mindset all day.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#132

Post by iamacyborg »

thrashh wrote: post #90
Barrin92 wrote: post #68

I'm pretty sure I fall into the definition of a cynic given in the piece "according to cynics, the world operates in a certain way, the elites are always the same, and will always be the same. The cynics think we are always playing the same game that has always been played. For example, a cynic may think that media’s only purpose is to sells your attention to advertisers - like I did here. And often they might be rig…

IMO cynicism is not a problem on an individual level. It’s when the group has a lot of cynics is when we have a problem. Have you ever had to work with a group of “low energy” people? They’re not only just low energy — they’re energy vampires.

The converse is true, too. It’s absolutely sapping working with folks who’ll just repeat bullshit and call you a cynic for trying to helpfully point out the flaws in their thinking.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#133

Post by DeathArrow »

moksly wrote: post #124
louhike wrote: post #118

Isn’t it cynicism (or idealism) just a survival strategy which happens because of your experiences? I know I tend to be more cynical than most of my peers but I always attributed that to growing up in poverty unlike them. Sometimes it seems a lot of people think others can apply their way of thinking or seeing the world and it will make their life instantly better. But I don’t think it can happen if they don’t live i…

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…

>The healthy survival strategy in a world of shit isn’t to give up, it’s to fight on and hope for the best.

The best survival strategy is to fight to improve your situation, not fight to change the world.

>The moment you become a cynic is the moment you lose your connection and with it, your ability to impact things. Because a manager who has the wrong view of your corporate culture, isn’t going to change unless you inspire them to be better and that applies to everyone.

Being realist or cynical would help you recognize the situation as it truly stands without looking at it through tainted glasses. It gives you more power, not less. Also, as a cynic, your goal won't be to inspire the manager to change, because that won't be a fight you are going to win. Your goal as a cynic would be to put yourself in a better position in that company.

As a cynic, I didn't try to fight the way things are laid in the company. The moment I found a position which seemed reasonably better at another company, I gave my resignation.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#135

Post by young_hopper »

Borrible wrote: post #126

He is right. Optimism is, so far, the best cure for reality. At least the part not under control, so almost all of it. But, you may prefer it in its more elegant form of survivorship bias. Reality is a harsh mistress. Most have to put on their beer goggles to embrace her.

Just curious, why does reality have to be "cured?"

Living means feeling pain and pleasure, triumph and defeat, love and hate, grief and bliss. I would challenge anyone to prove that you can have any one of those without its opposite.

Borrible, your reality does not have to be feared. You can embrace it. Only then can you experience.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#136

Post by shrimpx »

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.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#137

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

I live in a country where free speech is being suppressed more and more each day, and this “no-complain” mentality is exactly what purveyors of state propaganda use against the opposition to silence criticism.

It is easy to talk about tackling problems head-on when they are solvable on the individual scale, but anybody who encourages this “no complaining” mentality and without any qualifiers should not be taken seriously. It’s likely that the author doesn’t yet know the purpose that complaints or criticism play in feedback loops and how they trigger improvement… and even then, anybody who’s lived long enough would know that there are just some things that are bigger than our own selves and which aren’t battles worth fighting, unless you already have some kind of privilege or advantage or cosmologically-written fate that could increase your chances of effecting the change that you want to happen.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#138

Post by yesenadam »

nescioquid wrote: post #104
unmole wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your last paragraph remind me also of the Viktor Frankl's "Man Search For Meaning" where the change in outlook was a difference between persevering and perishing in the camps. Which is complete and utter nonsense. Sure, it makes for nice advertising for Frankl's Logotherapy shtick but it's not an accurate picture of what happened in the camps.

I suppose you were there with Frankl and can tell us all about it and how you managed to survive. Did you ask to have your ladle of soup scooped "from the bottom" or did you have a superior strategy for survival? Your comment is a vacuous, bald assertion that Frankl is "nonesense" and his ideas were a "schtick". Next time you comment, consider shedding light on the matter rather than merely smearing and adumbrating.

I believe the GP is largely spot on. Evidence is not easy for me to link to now—when I looked into this a few years ago, I looked up a few of the books linked to in the substantial Controversy section of Frankl's wikipedia page. That section was erased by Frankl's grandson a couple of years ago–yes, hard to believe. Before that, it said something like - Frankl only spent a week at Auschwitz, not the many months the book gives you the impression of. Before then, Frankl also himself did medical experiments on Jews (yes really, pretty horrific ones) and tried to get the Nazis interested in them. I read in detail about these claims in chapters of the books that used to be linked to, and in a couple of sources those books mentioned in turn. They seemed true, as far as I could tell. Maybe you can find them from the page history.[0] Also it mentioned that when Frankl tried to give a talk in New York in the 1970s he was shouted down by Jews calling him a Nazi. After learning more about him, that doesn't surprise me. It seems scandalous that Frankl's grandson has been able whitewash his story like this on wikipedia. I'm not a regular wikipedia editor, so I didn't know what to do about that besides register a protest on the talk page.

I also read and loved Frankl's book decades ago, and discovering something of the real story was highly disturbing. Also it seems that in actuality, positive mental attitude didn't keep you alive in the camps, although it sounds nice that it would. Survival was much more random. I believe people whose relatives died in the camps were/are highly offended by his suggestion that if only they'd had a better attitude they would've survived. It seems like victim blaming. The page also linked to a discussion of that, from memory. Sorry I don't have anything more concrete than that. It would be nice to restore links to those books, essays, etc to at least the talk page of Frankl's wikipedia page! Although it seemed like just Frankl's grandson deleting anything negative. (I haven't looked at Frankl's page for a year or 2, maybe it's changed)

[0] Finding out when Frankl's grandson (who has commented on the talk page I think) did his first edits, and looking just before that, might be a good way to find the old Controversy section.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#139

Post by beebeepka »

I wonder how old is this person. His views strike me as those of a young developer who wasn't around the so called communist days in Bulgaria.

In fact, I'd go as far as saying stuff like this comes almost exclusively from people who may have smelled the bullshit but never had to deal with it. You know, like how young attractive women tend to see things.

Then again, maybe I am wrong and that was my cynicism talking

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#140

Post by Borrible »

young_hopper wrote: post #135
Borrible wrote: post #126

He is right. Optimism is, so far, the best cure for reality. At least the part not under control, so almost all of it. But, you may prefer it in its more elegant form of survivorship bias. Reality is a harsh mistress. Most have to put on their beer goggles to embrace her.

Just curious, why does reality have to be "cured?" Living means feeling pain and pleasure, triumph and defeat, love and hate, grief and bliss. I would challenge anyone to prove that you can have any one of those without its opposite. Borrible, your reality does not have to be feared. You can embrace it. Only then can you experience.

Sweety, were exactly did I say I don't like to fuck with her?

That was probably more in your mind, than in mine.

I do love her because she is the way she is. But then again, I'm not on the losing side.

So, tastes may differ.

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