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Opt Out of Cynicism

dimitarsimeonov.com

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Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#321

Post by not1ofU »

nefitty wrote: post #320
not1ofU wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am probably going back to lukering to be honest. I post in good faith, although sometimes I make stupid jokes and probably deserve the responses. But, it sucks when you put time into a comment and it gets trashed to hell with no responses telling you why.

HN is the hardest forum. People smell bullshit a mile away, everyone is super smart and informed, humor is suspect. I've never taken breaks from Reddit due to dejection. I've taken dozens of breaks from HN due to dejection... It does really hurt to get downvoted in a community of people you admire lol If you think the convos are worth it, fuck it! Let the downvotes flow. Make it a game. But if it is causing you any s…

Thanks man. I dont do social media at all. I signed up here not too long ago. I have lurked here for a long time and learnt so much, decided it was time to take part.

I have thought about not giving a shit and "letting the downvotes flow", but then I would become the kind of poster I would not want to read either. and that Dang chap has lot more to deal with, than me getting butthurt.

Cheers though, I do appreciate it.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#322

Post by darkerside »

temp8964 wrote: post #312
darkerside wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> During the Enlightenment, all this science stuff looked extremely stupid Lol. Where did you read your history of science? Totally bizarre.

Hmm. It seems quite obvious that, to the common person in that time period, science would have seemed like an irrelevant waste of time. Some cursory googling doesn't reveal much either way.

I'm not super confident in my speculation, it just seems the most likely to me. What makes you so confident?

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#323

Post by Daishiman »

unmole wrote: post #290
Daishiman wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental point of people giving up vs resisting is the core thesis of Frankl and has rung true to every facet of life. Even if we are to assume his story is embellished, I have seen it played out time and time again.

Frankl suggests that the people who perished in Nazi concentration camps could have survived if they had a better attitude. This is intellectually dishonest and morally repugnant. It is akin to suggesting that people who suffer from depression should just try not being sad, only much much worse. I will hazard a guess and say that nothing you have seen played out time and time again compares to the horrors of the Holo…

Why are you absolutely misintepreting his argument? It is completely obvious that he's saying that keeping hopes up helps, and helps a lot a lot. He's not trying to defy the laws of physics by which malnourished people can survive what is impossible.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#324

Post by temp8964 »

darkerside wrote: post #322
temp8964 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> During the Enlightenment, all this science stuff looked extremely stupid Lol. Where did you read your history of science? Totally bizarre.

Hmm. It seems quite obvious that, to the common person in that time period, science would have seemed like an irrelevant waste of time. Some cursory googling doesn't reveal much either way. I'm not super confident in my speculation, it just seems the most likely to me. What makes you so confident?

What makes me so confident?

I studied history of science and philosophy of science seriously. Like reading books and papers across several classes. Old school.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#325

Post by DarylZero »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #282
DarylZero wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Marilyn Manson care what normies think? This "care what you think" phrasing I think is really deceptive. Because the active issue is whether you conform to group norms or refuse to do so. If someone refuses to conform to a group, then demonstrably they don't care enough about the benefits of group inclusion to comply with the group demands. If someone quits their job, they may in _some_ sense "care what the…

How is being a media personality failing to comply with group norms? It's exactly the kind of professional career non-conformity that musicians are (literally) famous for. Someone who was genuinely disinterested in group norms would disappear and do whatever they wanted to do in anonymous seclusion.

What sense does it make to call someone "interested in" group norms that they don't comply with?

Is a murderer "interested in" the law against murder?

If they were "genuinely disinterested in the law against murder," they wouldn't kill?

It makes no sense. If there's a body, then the law didn't stop them.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#326

Post by DarylZero »

unmole wrote: post #302
nescioquid wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 resp…

I don't think that was the gist of any argument he made though.

I distinctly remember that book saying that "THE BEST OF US DID NOT SURVIVE." Because to survive meant to make compromises.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#327

Post by DarylZero »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #295
janto wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when we get the opposite, our own behaviour has ultimately driven us into the ground and we end up in hell or dead.

Right, but some might consider the other end of the spectrum as also bad. Extremely stable societies are often marked by low social mobility and oppressive social mores, yet they fulfill every check mark according to your definition of good. It would also deem the emancipation of slaves an evil deed, since it disrupts a stable pattern of social order that's extended for a long stretch of time. I don't know if I would…

Apply Rawls veil of ignorance.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#328

Post by DarylZero »

janto wrote: post #316
marginalia_nu wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but some might consider the other end of the spectrum as also bad. Extremely stable societies are often marked by low social mobility and oppressive social mores, yet they fulfill every check mark according to your definition of good. It would also deem the emancipation of slaves an evil deed, since it disrupts a stable pattern of social order that's extended for a long stretch of time. I don't know if I would…

Either too much chaos or too much order are indeed failure conditions that appear in our history/stories/myths. So I'd not go to either extreme of that spectrum. Merely persisting is not sufficient for something to be moral, but it is a necessary requirement. We need principles on how to behave in repeated interactions and situations over long periods, or bad things will eventually happen. That's part of the purpose…

The pure game theory idea doesn't work because it won't be internally consistent -- we understand morality isn't supposed to vary from person to person depending on how powerful their social position is.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#329

Post by helloworld11 »

necovek wrote: post #231
oblio wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Having had a premature baby, please don't: progress is rarely "linear". I agree that does not make the example inapplicable, it just makes it insensitive. There are so many better examples to choose from that don't strike a personal nerve (at least, personal to this extent) with any of the audience. Or if your audience hasn't had this experience, it's a moot example that they can't really relate to.

Being personally triggered by some random example doesn't entitle you to expect the world to avoid any references to it in other contexts. Simple as that. People use all sorts of examples for all sorts of discussions, any one of them could offend any random person for any number of personal reasons. The onus is on the offended party to understand that strangers don't owe them a damn thing when they're not even talking to them personally.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#330

Post by moksly »

DeathArrow wrote: post #133
moksly wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Being realist or cynical would help you recognize the situation as it truly stands without looking at it through tainted glasses.

I couldn’t disagree more. To me that is the lie that cynics fool themselves into believing is true.

I have no issue with the Socratic methodology, but the point of it is not to break the systems apart for the sake of finding flaws. It is to break them apart so that they can be reassembled better.

It’s that last part the modern cult of cynics forget too often in my experience. You’re not useful if all you can do is predict the doom and then say “I told you so” when you are proven right. Predicting where things will go wrong is easy, optimists do it as well, what sets them appear is that they try to move past their mistakes and learn for them.

To me no one is either an optimist or a cynic, labelling yourself as being only one is just too limiting, but in my anecdotal experience the people most likely to “make themselves” into just one category are the self-proclaimed realists.

Maybe my experience and opinions are wrong, but I have never come across such an individual who benefitted from their world view. At least no in the privileged world of Scandinavian software.

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