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0 pointsxyzelement4y ago0 comments

> (and I would argue probable) that life will get worse for a long while before improving.

Sure. Like I said, you can do this at any point in time and if enough people do that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy so it's better not.

Out of curiosity, I took a look at your submission history (which is vast!) and it's 90% doom and gloom across a vast array of topics. I do think living with such a negativity bias is very disempowering - and not to mention not fun. I don't mean to be stupid and blindly optimistic (I manage risk for a living among other things) but like I said, living with certainty that everything will be terrible will ruin your life.

Like I said, since dawn of man, people had reason to believe what you believe. And those who really believed it would have no reason to build anything, learn anything, invest in anything, have children etc - why do any of that if the world is ending.

But the world is inherited by those who DO do those things - everything we have, everything we are, everything we're investing in - is there because someone in the past believed that the future is worth the work. So just be careful how much of this your let into your psyche because it will lead to you to a dead end

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Jeff_Brown4y ago

In general I think low expectations for the (near) future of humanity and depression are correlated, but intriguingly to me, it's not an extremely tight correlation. Some people think the ship's going down and manage to party and have a good time. Others aren't particularly extreme in either emotional direction even as they evince extreme pessimism. And I imagine the reverse is true too, although I don't recall seeing it.

minikites4y ago

>I do think living with such a negativity bias is very disempowering - and not to mention not fun. I don't mean to be stupid and blindly optimistic (I manage risk for a living among other things) but like I said, living with certainty that everything will be terrible will ruin your life.

I think it only seems overly negative -because- so many people are blindly optimistic and assume things just get better naturally with no action required on our part. That's why I have such a negative outlook, I can envision the immense work we need to do to address climate change (and many other issues) and I'm seeing such a small amount of work being done that it's basically a rounding error. Watching people reject even the small amount of work required to personally address COVID (a free shot) does not fill me with hope that we can make big changes.

>But the world is inherited by those who DO do those things - everything we have, everything we are, everything we're investing in - is there because someone in the past believed that the future is worth the work

I think this is the disconnect between us. The future is worth the work, but we refuse to work on the future. We instead work harder to prop up the unsustainable present.

xyzelementOP4y ago

You're talking about human nature. You're seeing the problems only. But humans were "like this" forever.

EG: you're dismal about covid because some people won't get the shot. But in the 80s/90s you'd be dismal because people weren't practicing safe sex despite AIDS, and you'd draw that line to a depressing conclusion. And yet in reality, somehow the world moved towards a much better place despite those things.

Same with COVID - you are obsessing on a small number of people not getting vax and getting depressed, but you are ignoring for example super-fast vax development, global awareness, willingness of governments to move in and out of different disease control regimes, etc. Those are wildly optimistic things, but you don't let those things encourage you, instead you seem to seek out the bad stuff no matter how small and and form your view on that.

Jeff_Brown4y ago

I'm generally an optimist but do think this time might be different. Never before have so many people had such access to information that they could become convinced they understand anything after a little research, and never before have producers of fake news had such reach. Yesterday's predominance of political apathy seems to have been much more stable than today's predominance of vehement polarization.

Conspiracy theorists used to be everywhere, but in small numbers and not very homogeneous; now they are plentiful and coordinated enough to lead to outcomes like the Jan 6 insurrection or the vaccine denialism gripping something like 30% of Americans.

minikites4y ago

>And yet in reality, somehow the world moved towards a much better place despite those things.

It's not "somehow", you're glossing over the very real losses and very avoidable tragedies (fed by bigotry and fear) that happened during the AIDS crisis, which is my whole point. Progress isn't free and by ignoring the real losses and avoidable tragedies we repeat the same mistakes. That's why we have to confront the uncomfortable parts of the past and present. If we only focus on the superficial elements of success and progress, we make problems more difficult to actually confront.

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0 pointsxyzelement4y ago0 comments

> (and I would argue probable) that life will get worse for a long while before improving.

Sure. Like I said, you can do this at any point in time and if enough people do that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy so it's better not.

0 comments

Jeff_Brown4y ago

minikites4y ago

I think this is the disconnect between us. The future is worth the work, but we refuse to work on the future. We instead work harder to prop up the unsustainable present.

xyzelementOP4y ago

You're talking about human nature. You're seeing the problems only. But humans were "like this" forever.

Jeff_Brown4y ago

minikites4y ago

>And yet in reality, somehow the world moved towards a much better place despite those things.

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