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Opt Out of Cynicism

dimitarsimeonov.com

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Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#221

Post by oblio »

math_denial wrote: post #204
robjan wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very real difference between constructive criticism and simply complaining. In most cases, complaining and shutting people down without suggesting any possible alternative or improvement just makes the situation even less unpleasant for everyone.

Sometimes complaining means acknowledging that a problem exists even if you don't know the solution. Pointing out problems is valuable too. On the other and the people[1] who "opt out of cynicism" generally want to live in the "best of the possible world" where problems just disappear if don't look at them. [1] that I've met and interacted with, of course there's a sampling bias.

Pointing out a few core problems at a few key moments is valuable.

Pointing out every problem, all the time, isn't.

It's a very fine line and not everyone manages to stay on the right side.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#223

Post by oblio »

iamacyborg wrote: post #134
Ygg2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true in a sense. Everyone is working on a better world. For themselves.

Now that is a statement I can get behind.

If you get behind him you're probably making his world worse, though, by crowding him :-p

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#224

Post by iamacyborg »

beebeepka wrote: post #139

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

> You know, like how young attractive women tend to see things

I don't think you appreciate just how much bullshit young attractive women have to put up with.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#225

Post by oblio »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #52
paulpauper wrote: post #42

But what do I mean by being cynical? When you’re conversing with someone, it often easy to detect the frame through which they view the world and the interaction with you. Cynics think that the world is never changing on a fundamental level, but it only changes cosmetically, and superficially. Cynics may look at some new trend and call it “lipstick on a pig”. According to cynics, the world operates in a certain way,…

> a cynic may think that media’s only purpose is to sells your attention to advertisers Thinking this makes me a cynic? I don't think so. This is a fact that gets proven right every day on the internet. If anything I'm a hopelessly deluded optimist who thinks the web can actually go back to its pure beginnings when people said what they wanted without worrying that some advertiser will pull their funding.

I've worked in traditional media.

That was the model for traditional media, as well.

Newspaper prices only covered a fraction of their costs, their most valuable products were the pages. Each page would have a different cost for ads (first page - super high price, second page - quite high, last page - also high, etc.).

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#226

Post by _def »

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…

I think that's a common misconception I hear a lot. You are completely right about the way you are looking at it, but imho it's the other way around: noticing confrontation instead of avoiding it. It's not about thinking "this is fine' about everything. It's way more mental work do think about reasons why some things are the way they are, rather than just labeling at as bad or broken and therefore dismissing it. Finding the purpose of the current problematic situation is step 1, then you can go ahead and tackle it with another solution that achieves the goal differently (and hopefully in a better way for most people, but that's only my personal belief).

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#227

Post by nefitty »

oblio wrote: post #207
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…

This is a great quote. I'm probably going to be using that example in a lot of debates :-) Thank you!

To overextend the metaphor, I try to see all the little systems of the world as incubator babies. Some of them are worsening, we may lose some, some are near perfect health... We can celebrate the improvements while simultaneously mourning the losses.

Sometimes you'll hear that a person is "complicated". Our emotional world can be layers of many tones, textures, timbres. I think that when we invite the emotional correlate of abstract visual art, it gives us an intellectual advantage. In terms of being able to mentally simulate multiple contrasting perspectives in parallel, it almost guarantees we'll land closer toward truthiness. The basic emotions are like representational art. Easier to digest, easier to understand, easier to handle... Cotton candy for your guts.

Suffice to say, we're richly rewarded when we couple intellectual understanding with emotional resonance.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#228

Post by netcan »

bambax wrote: post #172
marginalia_nu wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leading upper-case Cynic philosophers exhibited a lot of behavior that might be called lower-case cynical today. A criticism that is as old as Diogenes (at least Laertius) is that they were essentially a cult of edgelords. They pretended not to care what people thought, but it was just an act, at the same time it was really important to them that people around them knew how little they cared through all the shockingl…

If Diogenes was doing an act he was really into it. He famously told Alexander the Great to fuck off and stop blocking the light (which leads me to think that the ultimate "fuck you money" is to have no money at all, and not want any). He would also walk around the market and masturbate in public, which the Athenians found disgraceful. When challenged about this he would reply: how happy would we be if we were able t…

So, assuming this isn't just a rumour spread by Diogenes himself....

Diogenes' barrel was in the middle of Corinth, where he could be seen & talked about. Where he could be vocally cynical of other people, etc. If Diogenes really wanted to be left alone, fill his belly and nap... he could have done this easily.

Many Greek well-to-dos in his place did just retired to a quiet country life where no one bothers you. He didn't, wanting to be seen not giving a fuck.

I wonder if like modern counter cultural figures, his fan base tended to be late teens?

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#229

Post by kashyapc »

oblio wrote: post #207
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…

This is a great quote. I'm probably going to be using that example in a lot of debates :-) Thank you!

The "bad and better" mental model works well in many scenarios. Particularly where people tend to become hyperbolic and think in only absolutes.

Rosling used to work in Mozambique, the poorest country in the world at that time. In his first year there he was the only doctor for a population of 300,000 (!) people. He writes further: in my second year, a second doctor joined me. We covered a population that in Sweden would have been served by 100 doctors, and every morning on my way to work I said to myself, "Today I must do the work of 50 doctors."

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#230

Post by nefitty »

solveit wrote: post #183
DeathArrow wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Nothing of the sort is implied. Everyone can have their own should (or not, as the case may be). But if you know you should do something, presumably you're past such useless philosophising. I know I should be nicer to the people I love, and > 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…

In case someone reading this thread has never encountered this stance, I sincerely hold the belief that there are objective moral truths that we can discover with our senses and intuition.
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