The Ignorance of Optimism

[Shiranu]

I'm optimistic you will one day change your position.

[CrucifyCindy]

I'm optimistic you will one day change your position.

I doubt I will ever change my position because I have too much fun being a pessimist. Beleive or not but pessisism can be fun.

[aitm]

Beleive or not but pessisism can be fun.

thats a rabbit hole best left to the professionals.

[TomFoolery]

thats a rabbit hole best left to the professionals.

Indeed.

[CrucifyCindy]

thats a rabbit hole best left to the professionals.

Thank you Iggy

[aitm]

Thank you Iggy

You're welcome Jambalaya

[Unbeliever]

When I see a glass like that I just think it's twice as big as it needs to be.


“I'd rather be a pessimist because then I can only be pleasantly surprised.”
Ben Franklin

[Mike Cl]

I doubt I will ever change my position because I have too much fun being a pessimist. Beleive or not but pessisism can be fun.

Seems to me we are talking semantics.  I think most of us here know that shit happens--and most of us are prepared for that.  When shit happens it always presents us with a set of choices.  As a person who likes to see the good side of things, I'll chose to make choices that get me to that place.  When I see a glass of water that is half filled, I don't worry about it, for I can fill it when I want to.  I know I can for I've always done it, and in most of the cases I can envision I always will.  But if Z Nation really does occur, then I'll deal with it then.  Whatever it is I do, I try to include stuff that I'd need in case something happens I was not counting on.  But I don't stress about it.  What it's really about for me is choices. 

[Draconic Aiur]

Everyday optimist is seen by me as lunacy. How can you not be pessimistic with all the crap that's going on today!

[Mike Cl]

Everyday optimist is seen by me as lunacy. How can you not be pessimistic with all the crap that's going on today!

It's my choice.

[CrucifyCindy]

It's my choice.

Like theism. It has no rational basis but people still choose to believe in it.

[drunkenshoe]

When I look at that pic in the OP, I don't see a glass half empty or half full. I see a glass put at the edge of the table (it really is in the pic, if you didn't notice) that could very easily fall down and break into pieces, doesn't matter how much it holds, especially when the only thing people are interested is how much it could hold for them.

Optimism is a type of defense mechanism. A shortcut. It works in countless ways from daily life, issues in the society people live to big issues of humanity they like to ponder time to time. It changes according to cultures and their collective conventions as well as individual ones.

In western cultures, it rises from the condition of definition by 'contrast'. Comparison. For example, looking at The Middle East or other cultures who are readily defined as 'inferior' or 'bad' and define one's own as a different one without the similar issues. Completely seperating and alienating oneself, the society and the country one lives in the world as a part of that world and as a result, uncapable of seeing the whole as it is.

In an individual level, people usually compare themselves with others, others with others. It's also a building block of a type of identity among world population directly proprotional to your condition/situation/station in life, where you were born; how much you can relate to the over all .

At most times, it's just a delusion and yes it is a result of ignorance, sometimes just striaght 'blindness'.



   

[Mike Cl]

Like theism. It has no rational basis but people still choose to believe in it.

I don't see the equation with theism.  A choice is a choice.  It is religion free; it is neutral.  You can chose for any number of reasons.  Yes, people chose to believe anything and everything.  My choices are made for a number of reasons.  I chose to eat ice cream even though it is poison to my health.  Not a good choice.  But, when presented with the shit life can throw at me, I 'chose' a plan of action that will help me through it.  In that situation I reason out what has worked and not worked in the past and go from there.  But my attitude is one of searching for and thinking the outcome will be as good as I can hope for.  Why?  Because that has worked for me in the past.  Will something happen in which nothing good will come of it?  Yeah, I suppose it could.  If so, I will reason my way through it, choosing the best attitude (and most optimistic) that I can. 

[CrucifyCindy]

I don't see the equation with theism.  A choice is a choice.  It is religion free; it is neutral.  You can chose for any number of reasons.  Yes, people chose to believe anything and everything.  My choices are made for a number of reasons.  I chose to eat ice cream even though it is poison to my health.  Not a good choice.  But, when presented with the shit life can throw at me, I 'chose' a plan of action that will help me through it.  In that situation I reason out what has worked and not worked in the past and go from there.  But my attitude is one of searching for and thinking the outcome will be as good as I can hope for.  Why?  Because that has worked for me in the past.  Will something happen in which nothing good will come of it?  Yeah, I suppose it could.  If so, I will reason my way through it, choosing the best attitude (and most optimistic) that I can.

The author of the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament gives us a definition of faith:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Now look at Oxford's Dictionary definition of optimism:

Hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something

See the similarities? Optimism is having faith that the outcome will be good. It is faith in that which has not yet happened nor can be proven to be actualized. So yes there are similarities between optimism and religious belief.

[TomFoolery]

See the similarities? Optimism is having faith that the outcome will be good. It is faith in that which has not yet happened nor can be proven to be actualized. So yes there are similarities between optimism and religious belief.

But pessimism is just negative faith, so...