27 ms·

Opt Out of Cynicism

• smcameron 5y ago
  It's hard, when say, twitter tries to ban you when you suggest that obvious seditionists should be put in front of a firing squad, as they obviously should.
• NoGravitas 5y ago
  > "I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." > Antonio Gramsci in a Letter from Prison (December 1929) I think this is probably the correct position to take, and I try to hold on to it. I often fail to have optimism of the will, but I suppose pessimism of the intelligence is better than simple cynicism.
• deleted 5y ago
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• gfodor 5y ago
  the #1 advice I would give to a young engineer entering their career is to do everything they can to avoid becoming cynical. technology has cycles, but it also moves forward. it's a helix. most people who churn through a few cycles end up becoming cynical, failing to see the orthogonal dimension of progress. how to avoid cynicism? the primary way is to remove cynics from your life, and add optimists. second to that, keep working on new enough areas that you maintain a beginners mindset and can offset some of the pattern matching that leads one to thinking everything worthwhile has been done before.
  • nthngtshr 5y ago
    step 3 — quit reading twitter
    • gfodor 5y ago
      twitter can be good or bad depending on who you follow + engage with
      • Talanes 5y ago
        I just wish the controls were more granular. There's people I follow for their actual posting who also just drag in a bunch of drama that they hit like on.
      • nthngtshr 5y ago
        I like the people I follow but they get like 5 likes on interesting things they have to say, and 500 likes on depressing takes like "computers were a mistake", or "everything is bad because capitalism" or fake uplifting content like "my title is senior engineer and I googled a thing today, normalize failure". I think twitter algorithm promotes that kind of content and I guess they have to adopt if they want their follower count to go up.
  • hathawsh 5y ago
    In fact, I would call it a hyper-dimensional helix. :-) With each new iteration (or rewrite), we're often expanding in a conceptual dimension we couldn't realistically reach or even imagine before.
  • LAC-Tech 5y ago
    One thing I've noticed is that if I talk about the stuff in tech I'm passionate about - people tend not to give a shit. If I talk about the things I dislike, I am flooded with imaginary internet points.
    • Talanes 5y ago
      People who disagree automatically feel like they have new information to bring, while it's often hard to express agreement while still feeling like you're adding to the conversation.
    • jacobn 5y ago
      The cynics are reading & commenting, the optimists are busy building? ;)
      • someguydave 5y ago
        yes precisely this
    • bee_rider 5y ago
      Yes, that's the worst thing about social media. Now, here are some other things I hate about it...
    • ok123456 5y ago
      Then the solution is to be passionate about the things in tech you dislike.
    • mensetmanusman 5y ago
      Since this sounds like a complaint, I will upvote it :)
  • c048 5y ago
    Just make sure you fill your life with healthy optimists, and not dreamers.
  • lodovic 5y ago
    "Removing cynics from your life" sounds a lot like living in a bubble. Like exclusively watching Disney movies and thinking that is the general mindset. Instead try to accept reality for what it is.
• taurusnoises 5y ago
  This is timely! "Why are you so cynical?" looking at cynicism from the perspective of a defense mechanism. https://youtu.be/1dIcpXMv3QY https://youtu.be/1dIcpXMv3QY
• rektide 5y ago
  Steve Yeggie's Note from the Magic Bus[1] is a decade old, & rambles through the particulars of the day, but it's still the canonical read on how you predispose yourself, on whether you opt into belief or disbelief. It's lessons have stuck with me for a long time. There's a lot of concern & fear & doubt, skepticism about the corporate environment, about other engineers, and the skepticism is all so due; there's a responsible & safe desire to stick to the known & secure. And yet, and yet... Steve helped me unshackle myself; kick-started a thinking about what values were really important to me, not just professionally, but what kind of a person I wanted to be amid the environment in which I am thrown. The corporate capitalist world (& to a lesser degree the young-guns-ultra-productive engineering departments) deserves deep cynicism. I've heard so many good & great intents put off, and so many wild betterments ignored. But Steve helped me find an inner stoic that insisted on, that demanded- that believed in- progress, in other engineers, in trying for extra, in myself, in doing good, even when it probably wasn't going to be convenient or easy. Engineering is filled with cynicism & this made clear what a spectrum our opinions lay across, laid bare how cynical, how pessimistic most of the world about me was. I endeavor to help & support others, to try for good, in ways that I would never have thought about for reading Notes from the Magic Bus. I still await such a clear & obvious life-changing post appearing ever again. This one's alright. But it doesn't deal close enough with the conflict, with how horrid it can be, suffering the un-smart gumption of the erring-do-wellers. It helped convince me to try to help see things along a lot, even if the picks & choices aren't necessarily totally what I would do. To be optimistic, not just in my own sphere, but in working with others. Please, read. Let me, let us know what you think. [1] https://gist.github.com/cornchz/3313150 https://gist.github.com/cornchz/3313150
  • zwkrt 5y ago
    This is strange to me. I feel like I am very cynical about the business, but I have almost no ill will toward other programmers or their approaches at all. For me the issue is looking up the managemet chain, or outside at the effects of my changes. I can safely say that I have never as a programmer implemented a feature that I thought made anyone's life better. My software has consistently turned the screws in on people's lives, either in their work life by making monotonous internal tools or in their personal life by removing autonomy and choice. I take magicians and turn them into mechanical Turks. I take people and turn them into consumers/users/addicts. This isn't supposed to be a diatribe, just contributing my N=1 that Notes from the Magic Bus seems cute and superficial to me, defending the culture of office politics by elevating it to the importance of actual politics.
• TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  > By realizing that the world is always changing, and by stopping to complain, we opt out of seeing the world through cynical glasses ... When we realize that our life can change, we can change it. Well said.
  • deleted 5y ago
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• jacknews 5y ago
  I don't think cynicism is just about stasis, but about spotting when optimistic messages are hiding a power-grabbing scheme of some kind. Or just being willing to 'follow the money', and look behind the curtain, etc. Plenty of new things are important developments, even when there are selfish actors behind them. But also plenty of new things are just scams.
  • rektide 5y ago
    Ultra-agree, that a lot of cynicism- against from those in power & who need others to enlist in the message- is due. But I think there's a general level of mistrust, of wanting to pick easy/simple/dependable paths, of resisting good/bold/better, that's just a personal "pragmatism" which is really cynicism in disguise. I don't think most engineering departments & product-development-organizations give anywhere near a fair shake to doing good, to trying for better. There's so many meetings called to discuss options, to try to suss out where to go, that revolve around mistrust, that are simply a hunt for security. And there's a good chance these hunts for security are right, that mediocrity would better serve us all. But theres ongoing & persistent resistance, un-understanding of better, that pervades, and I'd like to see a little more optimism, a little more shared idea of possibility about. I think there's a lot of possibility that we consign away, a lot of true organizational excellence (& personal glory along with it) that the easier/safer paths ignore. I also think HN is a classic, key demonstration of cynicism. I feel like a lot of new ideas presented get slammed, that the critics have a field day. I'd love a broad asssessment of positive/negative valence of posts. My gut feeling is that the novel gets extremely hostile reception here. Someone combined mutable torrents with webtorrent[1], & there felt like such vast continuing cynicism, such "what are the use cases?", such tearing it down, such disbelief & resistance. This just feels like one of endless countless examples of cyncism & disbelief, such desire to disregard, to put the new, potential, positives into a box that can be safely disregarded. This to me is the poison we swallow. For sure. 100%. Be wary of what people are selling. Be wary of the power-grabbing. But I think we ought try to wire ourselves to be positive if we can. We should look for the tell-tale signs, & try to promote & support the potentially good, the things that may have merit, to have optimism. While calling out the specific delusions & exploitionations that may be afoot. It's a balancing. But we should try, try try try, to find optimism. Just not without disregarding reason. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/publiusfederalist https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/publiusfed... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29513547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29513547
• ksec 5y ago
  My unpopular opinion, have healthy dose of cynicism, optimism and pessimism. You will need to use them in different set of situations. And then there is the question of default, cultural differences. Show in the picture below :) https://imgur.com/gallery/GUcVw https://imgur.com/gallery/GUcVw
  • okanat 5y ago
    Thinking everything (even the most) is distributed in a normal distribution is extremely optimistic.
• Havoc 5y ago
  Thanks for posting. Made me realise I’m more cynical (aggressively so) than I realised Edit: Think there is an element of fatalism to it (nothing changes) that the article doesn’t touch in though
  • mitko 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing. I briefly mentioned that "never changing" world in the article but didn't expand on it there. But it was a super strong emotion which motivated this essay and shift in outlook.
• brighton36 5y ago
  One of the great frustrations in these debates, is the tendency to criticize a messenger who sees a cynical system. Instead of blaming the system for being cynical. Sometimes the most Optimistic people are shut out of debates, because they won't assume the system is optimized for a noncynical purpose. My suspicion is that this ostracization is what grows the cynicism out of control.
  • matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Yeah. When people notice that something is suspicious, they become complainers. And the complainer is always wrong.
    • hansonkd13 5y ago
      I think it stems from complaining is lazy. Its much more difficult to see why things are they way they are or see the virtue in things even if they have flaws. Its not that complaining has no place, its just that most complaining is is the lowest common denominator and doesn’t contribute much.
• evrydayhustling 5y ago
  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 his captor, who taught him chess and literacy. Then he was "rescued" by monks who bought his freedom but placed him on indentured servitude through debt, which he finally escaped by writing one of the early great novels. The point of this story is not that cynics were wrong but that one never would have survived his ordeal. In a world fit for cynics, you have to be ready for things to go right if you want to escape.
  • peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    a cynic would have probably avoided the duel and lived a less turbulent life. p.s. I don't think Don Quixote is a great example of optimism...
  • jean_valje4n 5y ago
    And then there was Caesar who promised the pirates who captured him that he would be back. And he did come back for them. I suppose his ending wasn't the greatest, but Dante placed his betrayers into a special place in literary hell.
    • jihadjihad 5y ago
      I didn't know this story so I looked it up [0]. According to Plutarch, it's true: Caesar was captured by pirates in his twenties, and was insulted by their lowball ransom of 20 talents--he thought he was worth at least 50. He told the pirates they should up the ransom and that once it was delivered and he was freed, he'd have them all crucified. They thought it was a pretty good joke. He wasn't joking. Once free, he raised an army and a fleet and went back to the pirate's camp, capturing them and having them thrown in prison. Apparently he showed them mercy by having their throats cut before they were crucified, however. 0: https://www.britannica.com/story/the-time-julius-caesar-was-captured-by-pirates https://www.britannica.com/story/the-time-julius-caesar-was-...
• koilke 5y ago
  Another part of the word cynic: For the Cynics, the purpose of life is to live in virtue, in agreement with nature. As reasoning creatures, people can gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which is natural for themselves, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, and fame, and even flouting conventions openly and derisively in public. Instead, they were to lead a simple life free from all possessions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy)
  • deleted 5y ago
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• xwdv 5y ago
  When you’ve been scammed, disappointed, heartbroken, cheated out, beaten up too many times in life, you will approach new things with cynicism. So many times things in life do not live up to expectations. Often you think you’re interacting with someone but really you’re just interacting with their ego, there is no genuine connection. They build up a rapport with you so they could later cash in on their influence and make you hand over what they really want. The general incompetence of society, the proud ignorance of people who have dug themselves into holes, it makes you look like an asshole for not fitting in, just for minding your own business and doing what’s best for you. How can one not be a cynic in this kind of world? Everything new you come across is likely to disappoint.
  • bsuvc 5y ago
    > do not live up to expectations I think this might be the key. Have you heard this expression before: Disappointment = expectations - reality Unfortunately I'm not sure offhand where that saying originated, but I think it is true, at least for me. I'll spare you a lecture on it because, believe me, I'm no expert. But it is an expression I try to remind myself of from time to time to cope with people and things that might anger me.
    • matheusmoreira 5y ago
      Nothing wrong with having expectations. Things are supposed to be good. Marriages are supposed to be forever. Justice is supposed to be done. Politicians are supposed to be honest. Governments are supposed to look out for us. Companies are supposed to provide good products and services. Obviously reality falls short of expectations no matter what we do. Enough disappointment will demoralize anyone. It will shatter their understanding of the world, their sense of right and wrong, of cause and effect. Cynicism is born when the disturbing realities become the new expectations. Cynicists expect the world to keep disappointing them.
      • bsuvc 5y ago
        I didn't mean to say it was wrong to have expectations. I should have elaborated I guess, but tried to keep it short. I have high expectations for people and things that are important and close to me, and low expectations for things not as important to me or out of my control. It doesn't mean I don't care about some of those other things at all. It's just that I only have a limited amount of mental and emotional energy to spend, and I try to spend it wisely. Edit: hmm, maybe I'm sort of a cynic if I have low expectations. But I don't really think of myself that way. I try to be optimistic and focus on things I can do and not dwell on what I can't.
• antisthenes 5y ago
  Ah, yes. Another "guru" confusing skepticism with cynicism. People are usually resistant to change, because 95% of ideas to change something are laughably bad, or not well thought out. If you find yourself talking to too many "cynics", then the problem is you! Propose better ideas, that don't sound ridiculous or too far-fetched. Present them with a detailed plan to achieve win-win goals.
• davidw 5y ago
  This is an important point. One of the things I really disliked about life in Italy was the cynical, defeatist attitude prevalent among certain people. "All the politicians are corrupt", "nothing will ever change", "why bother trying, they won't let anything happen", and so on and so forth. I realized it's a great way to ensure that nothing happens or changes.
  • jessaustin 5y ago
    I'm not Italian, but 20th-century history might motivate some of them to distrust "populist" political efforts.
• paulpauper 5y ago
  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, 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 right. What is wrong with that. I would rather be a cynic and have the correct framing of the world than be too optimistic and deluded. Success at investing for example requires looking at things objectively.
  • Benjammer 5y ago
    It's also so much more complicated than this. I've known more than one person who didn't act as a cynic, they outwardly preached and proselytized this sort of "change the world" viewpoint, in order to attract attention and twitter followers. In a professional context they wanted to play the part of a "visionary" or whatever, and always acted positive about change. Yet, if you really get to know them and manage to ask the right question in a vulnerable moment, you would suddenly realize that their internal worldview is just about as cynical as it's possible to be.
    • darkerside 5y ago
      I wonder if folks say the same about me. It's possible to see the imperfections in the world, and yet be positive about how we operate in a world that's full of them. And no, they will never go away. Until sentience disappears, dissatisfaction will remain. But it doesn't have to mean anger, negativity, or cynicism.
      • sdwr 5y ago
        Preach it!
    • 5y ago
• chainbear 5y ago
  "Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money." is being used a lot by the Web3 crowd whenever questioned. Yes, optimism has its benefits but beware of those weaponizing it.
• keyle 5y ago
  I love the bracelet idea, I might use that for other purposes.
• recursivedoubts 5y ago
  my dear fellow cynics: hide it
  • chainbear 5y ago
    Most of the ultra successful people I've known were optimists in speech, cynics in action. Best to participate in the theatre. Once you play a role long enough but also seem "pragmatic" in action, others of the same ilk will find you and invite you behind the curtain.
    • JetAlone 5y ago
      Right. Gotta do what you can to have the elites notice you and invite you for an initiation ritual into their kooky cult of deeply cynical hypocrisy. Great way to live, right?
• esjeon 5y ago
  I think the OP (and some other people saying the same thing) are tired of all the criticism coming through the internet. Being unable to specifically name the aggressive audience, those people are just called cynics or pessimists, clearly based on their behaviors. However, to my eyes, it's just a whole bunch trolls, thus it's just an internet noise. I don't think there's anything we can do with it...
• Barrin92 5y ago
  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 right." but I too be honest don't really see the problem with that kind of worldview. I'm not chronically depressed or antagonistic because of it, but I think I'd rather have what I'd consider a realistic and true view of the world as it is rather than anything else. "One of the strongest medicines against cynical mindset which I’ve tried is to do a “no-complain challenge”. I find its effects to be enormous and durable for years. In this challenge, you move a bracelet from one wrist to the other when you catch yourself complaining. The goal is to make it 21 days without having move the wrist. " Before you start prescribing medicine we need to agree that cynicism is an illness first, which is not so easily done. I think the author conflates people who are sort of angry or pessimistic because of their lot in life with his definition of a cynic. I take the cynical view because of what I perceive are fundamental aspects of human nature collectively, not my mood personally. I can beat that challenge without a problem because I rarely complain, or win the lottery tomorrow and it wouldn't really have an impact of my views on the way the world operates overall.
  • KarlKemp 5y ago
    If you continuously call all politicians equally corrupt, they have no incentive not to be. You and the people you influence will have no justification based in reality for the decisions you get to make, like voting. That’s the end of democracy.
  • sdwr 5y ago
    Thanks for the personal take, a lot of people would couch that perspective in abstract terms or attack the piece. I see cynicism as coming from alienation, lack of alignment, "alone in a crowd" type of thing. I start thinking cynically when I have a problem that I don't trust other people with, and feel like I can't solve on my own.
  • iratewizard 5y ago
• lostmsu 5y ago
  The author sounds like an apologete of "Four temperaments" theory. He believes cynic == someone who believes in "no change" and complains a lot. Then he labels people as either "cynics" or not. It is as simple as that. (BTW, that is not the definition of a cynic at all) Human personalities are extremely complicated, and the best you can do is correlate traits given a huge amount of data which he probably does not have. So we have him boasting a theory, that is likely based on the fundamental attribution errors in his experiences, and people, who vote his post up, who happen to have a similar sentiment with a few anecdata (who would also probably disregard any anti-anecdata in this thread). So is the nature of most Internet posts about psychology.
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• erikerikson 5y ago
  All the best outcomes exist in the additive economic space. We have reflected this in the mathematical evidence for cooperation. Cynicism and nihilism are emotionally easy excuses not to try that lead to a variety of impoverishments. [Edit: they are conveniently self reinforcing too.]
• scaramanga 5y ago
  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 worse things get, the more you double down on your faith by putting increasing amounts of energy in to maintaining a delusional belief system designed to deal with problems or conflicts by explaining them away as an internal problem with yourself or your own emotional tate. Does this sound like a recipe for improving your situation? Or anyone's situation? To me, it sounds much more like a reliable method for the cultivation of increasingly bizarre thoughts and erratic behaviour. What if you, instead, did the bracelet trick for every time you avoided a confrontation with the world that you know is necessary? What if you just console yourself with the fact the the world has problems and the vast majority of them cannot be solved by you (since you are not the omnipotent force)? You do realise that you don't have to stop caring about the problems, right? You know that it's just not worth investing energy in to worrying about things that are completely out of your control, right? That isn't cynicism, it's the picture postcard of mental health. The reason is, you have pre-decided an emotional polarity and you're consciously expending effort to compulsively fit the reality to the emotional polarity that you desire. That is the opposite way round to what you need if you desire both accurate perception AND healthy emotional regulation. Anyway, good luck with it.
  • _def 5y ago
    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).
  • adamrezich 5y ago
• pram 5y ago
  I would prefer not to.
• d--b 5y ago
  The article mistakes nihilism for cynicism. It’s kind of obvious that a nihilist doesn’t want to effect change in society. It’s not true at all of cynics. In fact, most people who influence large scale change display some degree of cynicism. Now the article also equals cynicism with “people who complain”, which is also incorrect. Really what the OP means is “if you want to change society you shouldn’t be a nihilistic asshole.” That is difficult to disagree with…
  • 6510 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy)
    • derekdahmer 5y ago
      That’s about the philosophical term. If you read the wiki it links to the modern meaning which is what we’re all taking about here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary)
  • LesZedCB 5y ago
    i suspect many nihilists learned from Nietzsche, who's concept of "will to power" is quite contrary to "doesn't want to effect change in society"
• MichaelMoser123 5y ago
  > By realizing that the world is always changing, and by stopping to complain, we opt out of seeing the world through cynical glasses, and become part of the change. When we realize that our life can change, we can change it. i think cynicism is a survival tactic that people adopt, when facing a reality that they can't possibly change. Change is not always an option, unfortunately. Also cynicism isn't synonymous with complaining - it's more a way of looking at things, that also comes with its own kind of humour.
• a-dub 5y ago
  i think that "cynicism" is a loaded term, and that creating a dogma against it can be a form of toxic positivity. pretending that something is good, when it obviously is not, is gaslighting plain and simple. gaslighting is a form of abuse that breeds actual, lasting cynicism, and it must be avoided at all costs. that said, non-constructive complaining can also create and spread caustic and degenerate mindsets. like everything, it's a balance. applying habit tracking to one's own complaining is a great idea though!
• young_hopper 5y ago
  I will be the first to admit that I often think cynically about things. I also think complaining about something is completely counter-intuitive to a cynical disposition. Wikipedia might not be the best place to look for a definition, but doing so reveals that a cynic lives a life "in virtue, in agreement with nature."[1] What the OP posted is much closer to a contemporary misunderstanding of the history of cynicism[2]. Cynically, I do not agree with this classification of cynicism, and although I may not change your mind I think we should stop conflating the process of attempting to see the harmonies[3] of our current ecosystem with the pessimism of a disillusioned generation[4] (of which I am one). If what you do is counter to optimism, pessimism, and realism, while having a "fixed mindset" (as the article reads), imo you are not a cynic, you are just the stereotype of a millennial. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy) 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary) 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic 4. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-democracy-millennials-disillusioned-memoryglobal.html https://phys.org/news/2020-10-democracy-millennials-disillus...
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• programmer_dude 5y ago
  No.
• motohagiography 5y ago
  I use a style of cynicism to maintain access to early growth. Things that grow typically do so explosively and in a non-linear way from very small initial states. "From shit, flowers grow," is an adage I use a lot, and you need exposure to the shit to get exposure to the growth. However, after a while, it does make my views smell a bit after spending that much time in it. However, let's say Santa Claus is a vast conspiracy by parents to decieve children, and while nobody could seriously believe any group that large could keep that secret, generation after generation does it. Christmas happens every year one way or another. We go along with it because we are emasculated liars, with our ugly sweaters and insufferable canned music, bending to the objectively absurd narrative that defies basic rationality and physics, one as implausible as the origin story of some deranged peninsular dictator, all so as not to be isolated and exiled. We justify our participation in the lie, one that teaches children to normalize disappointment, that their parents construct elaborate webs of nested deceptions to get their attention, and that the gifts aren't for you, they are to make themselves happy. Your parents are joy-vampires. That was meant to sound unhinged, but it's to illustrate the point that cynicism can be convincingly simulated without a lot of effort, which means it is a pattern of thought that is necessarily one of many you can actively choose from. It's funny, but it also can become a vice, where it can become a substitute for humor (ask how I know). The other adage I use a lot is that if you smell shit everywhere you go, check your shoes. The test I would use is, if you can figure out how to make money or even find joy from a hypothesis predicated on the contrarian - but still fact - that Santa isn't real, you may have healthy cynicism, and I'd be very interested in hearing it. Chances are you can't, and the best we can do is become a Santa truther, where we tell people Christmas was an inside job, and we only invented the Easter bunny to convince us that the rest is real. Cynicism can be very valuable, but I don't think we can understand the value of it as a tool without being able to also laugh about it, because (imo) the humor is the only way to be really sure the cynicism isn't the only tool we have.
• guerrilla 5y ago
  I don't think I share the author's definition of cynicism. For me, it's more like the opposite of naïveté. Meanwhile, I also consider myself an optimist about the big picture and the long-term. I just think everyone is self-interested while I subscribe to political realism (i.e. everything is power dynamics) and pragmatism (i.e. evaluation depends on purpose.) It's just that I think that can all be true and things can also turn out fine and people can have meaningful relationships too. I just default to skepticism and distrust. Why? Because I find it to be a much more predictive theory of the world and it produces better results as far as I can tell. Since I can use that and have faith at the same time, I don't really see the downside. You just have to learn to separate the two aspects.
  • GhettoComputers 5y ago
    >political realism (i.e. everything is power dynamics) Can you explain how that doesn't apply to everything else? I see every interaction as power dynamics. I agree with your points and your ideas, are you saying that not being naive, you are cynical because its an accurate model of reality, like the slippery slope "fallacy" The article seems to say that we should change our models when its useful to, instead of rationalizing it, the challenge seems like something worth trying though. We need to be delusional sometimes, its useful too.
    • guerrilla 5y ago
      I think it does apply to "everything" else. I'd also add I think those interactions are more than power dynamics too. I think you'd agree, I just wanted to be clear. Yes, I see it as a spectrum with naïveté and cynicism as the extremes as far as a descriptive framework of how the world works and I think I'm near the latter extreme in my definition of it. Yes, that's why I said defaulting to distrust and skepticism. One should always allow the possibility to be convinced otherwise. There's no way to build relationships or really get anything done otherwise.
      • GhettoComputers 5y ago
        I think the sad thing is that like the article said, we fall into those patterns because we see it all too commonly, and because negative information travels faster, its easy to etch that into our brains. Its useful to be delusional, a lot of new business owners are and some even make it despite the odds! One example is marijuana legalization, amazing how fast its gone, if someone told me that I would be able to put an 8th of weed into a cartridge, buy it for $20 and it not to have a smell in a few years I would call them insane. Good things are happening, and like you said things can get better (depending on your measurement of better), but not being naive is often the more useful action, although there are times I dived into something hoping for the best, it not working out most of the time, but the times it did, I don't regret it. In the US I saw Oregon decriminalize drugs, and as a trend I would hope to see more of that and I am going to be more optimistic about that occuring. I think its best summed up as I regret not doing things rather than trying and not succeeding, as long as (like you said) it was a pragmatic risk.
• manmal 5y ago
  Complaining != cynicism. I would not recommend laying off one of the tools for communicating one‘s needs. Instead, I‘d recommend learning to communicate more constructively, like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication
• louhike 5y ago
  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 in the right context.
  • moksly 5y ago
    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 conclusion, that even though the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the fact that there are good intentions mean that the people actually wanted to succeed. So while I’m very pessimistic, I’m also experienced enough to know that everyone is working for a better world. In all my decades of working close to the political leadership and the top level decision makers, I can’t remember once meeting someone who wasn’t working for what they believed to be a better tomorrow. Maybe that’s a uniquely Danish trait, but I doubt it. What that good is, isn’t always what you or I would consider good, but my point is that even very evil decision makers are working for what they think is right. 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. Of course it’s hard to be optimistic as well. 98% or something like it of public IT system implementations fail to some extend, and if you expect them to succeed then I imagine it’ll be quite soul crushing. The key, to me at least, is to not let your pessimism turn into cynicism, because you don’t want to be the constant no-sayer either, you want to make your points and reservations clear, but then roll with the decision that gets made.
    • louhike 5y ago
      I might be wrong but it seems to me you're mixing cynicism and pessimism. With cynicism you distrust other intentions, but you can still fight to improve your situation or the situation of others.
• DeathArrow 5y ago
  The article kind of leaves the impression that being cynical is bad. The author didn't say why is the case nor did he try to provide a proof. It doesn't seem to me that cynicism and optimism are opposites. You can be both cynical and optimistic. If you are going to trust all people and their claimed motivations without thinking, you are going to set yourself as a victim. For example, thinking that politicians and big corporations desire nothing but your own good won't do yourself much good.
  • jessaustin 5y ago
    If you are going to trust all people and their claimed motivations without thinking, you are going to set yourself as a victim. Would it be cynical to wonder who benefits from such credulity? b^) Actually the most vocal seldom benefit from their "optimism". Sometimes they are hired by those who do benefit, so they get a sort of indirect benefit.
• ffoobbaarr 5y ago
  hah, author deleted my comment on page. Couldn't even handle the ironic cynicism I threw out. What a hack.
• Borrible 5y ago
  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.
  • young_hopper 5y ago
    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.
    • Borrible 5y ago
      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.
• aww_dang 5y ago
  >" A cynicism frame and mindset that turns a lot of my life into a zero-sum game." I don't accept the premise. Is this cynicism or outright pessimism? >"There was always this feeling that attempts at improvements are futile. If anyone tried to improve the system in any way, they will face a great opposition, and any value they bring forward will be immediately vultured away." >"...if someone created a coin operated parking meter, another one will quickly figure out how to steal the coins out of it. Thus, the attempt to bring order will fail..." Cynical take, "People will abuse this system" Pessimistic, uncreative take, "Don't even bother. Better to exploit what presently exists than attempt to create. That's what everyone else is doing, therefore I must follow the status quo." Cynical innovative take, "It could work but it needs to be secure. The best would be if we can gamify their greed..."
• shrimpx 5y ago
  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.
  • brazzy 5y ago
    Everyone has choices. Authoritarian regimes are overthrown, slavery outlawed, political and economic participation broadened. The world is, very objectively, tremendously better to live in for the vast majority of people, than it was 200 years ago. Sure, there are contexts where the individual's choices that could lead to substantial improvement are so risky and the chances of success so small that it's rational not to try. But that's still a choice. All that cynicism does is dress up that choice as having no alternatives so you can feel better about it. Which is a totally human and understandable thing to do, but can easily be taken too far and applied in contexts where individual incremental improvements are absolutely possible and have a good chance of success.
    • shrimpx 5y ago
      Sure. But notice that in the case of American black people’s plight, that’s the voice of the oppressor: “just be optimistic, work harder”. Meanwhile the oppressor cynically tightens the screws of oppression, e.g. by codifying racism into laws while making it illegal for black people to vote. So I would be careful insisting, again, that the victims of racism just choose positivity. Sure, there is a deep truth in that — ultimately you have to chose positivity to survive. But repeating that over and over is a cynical badge of racism.
  • robjan 5y ago
    There are still choices between finding ways to work within the system and making the best of the situation or completely giving up and resigning to the fact that nothing will ever get better.
• rTX5CMRXIfFG 5y ago
  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.
• beebeepka 5y ago
  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
  • iamacyborg 5y ago
    > 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.
• Claude_Shannon 5y ago
  Interesting article, but the main strength is the discussion of it on HN, isn't it? I wish it was a little longer, at least :D
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• atoav 5y ago
  In my experience cynics are just people who are afraid of the things they wish to be true, never becoming true, so they start to prophetically denounce the possibility of them ever being true to lift themselves of the curse of the hopes they hold deep inside. A bit like pessimists, but with one degree more of emotional disconnection — a disconnection of which they are sometimes proud of. Everybody knows the cynic telling their disappointed collegue how the signs have been there all along, how they should have known. Hope and actual positive attempts as a sign of being naive. It is a defense mechanism, that they often confuse with "realism". A defense mechanism that also can successfully protect them of ever becoming happier or being part of any improvement in their environment. The more you can actually do about it the less sense cynicism makes.
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• fartcannon 5y ago
  Pointing out that the emperor is, in fact, naked is the only honerable way to live. Anything less than cynicism is delusion.
• avgcorrection 5y ago
  > According to cynics, the world operates in a certain way, the elites are always the same, and will always be the same. This already betrays a cynical outlook: “the elites are always the same”.[1] Yes, the world has been run by elites since the agricultural revolution. So now it’s just a fact of life (to the author). Attempts at egalitarianism (i.e. from capitalism to socialism to communism) have failed. That’s what I am cynical about. [1] Although you might be perfectly OK with this and thus not a “cynic” about it if you own more wealth than a certain threshold.
• DeathArrow 5y ago
  To see less cynicism we would have to live in a meritocracy, everyone being rewarded according to the things they do. But since most people and all people in the positions of power seem to try to get a larger piece of the pie for themselves, regardless of actual merits, not being cynical seems to put you in a losing situation. Being cynical does not mean being pessimistic. It does not mean to always think bad about other people. It means seeing things close to what they are. Yes, there is goodwill and kindness and altruism. And you should recognize them when you come across them. Just don't assume that anyone is being kind and good. Try to find what is the goal people are following when they say or do something. Because there is always a goal. Which might fit your own goals or not.
• bartread 5y ago
  I'm assuming by this, in the last paragraph: "By realizing that the world is always changing, and by stopping to complain, we opt out of seeing the world through cynical glasses, and become part of the change. When we realize that our life can change, we can change it." The author actually meant this: "By realizing that the world is always changing, when we stop complaining, we opt out of seeing the world through cynical glasses, and become part of the change. When we realize that our life can change, we can change it." The meaning of the original text to a native English speaker is, I think, the exact opposite of what the author intended. Otherwise, great thought-provoking article, and I think I'll try that no complain challenge. Interesting discussion here too.
• lordnacho 5y ago
  The thing is this is only a cynical political world view. Political in the larger sense that also includes the machinations of corporations and NGOs, but still only limited to a certain area of life. You'll truly darken when you start seeing your everyday relations in the same way, and you don't have to. I also tend to see large orgs in a cynical light, mainly because everyone I know says bad things about them. But I find that plenty of people are still good people. You can still deal with them with your cards on the table, and they do the same with you. Plus there's plenty of things to appreciate that aren't rivalrous, eg nerd knowledge, that are interesting and create a bond when you can share them.
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• jd115 5y ago
  LOLz well done, selling happy faces to the most cynical crowd on the internet :D Look at these comments! My oh-my. Seriously though, good piece - if a bit shallow. It's a good start. People need to hear this. Cynicism is the only evil in the world. The opposite, of course, is innocence - and, since this can't exist in pure form, the closest second is gullibility. Not ONE person here will agree that gullibility is a good thing, but I say it's our saviour. It is truly the best you can do in life. Look, it's not that cynics are wrong... No. They are right. That's the problem. The problem is that they are right. And that's the root of all evil. They are limited - enslaved - by their reality. There's no escaping it. So the only thing they feel they can do is fight back, with all their might... And you know where this leads? Straight to hell. I'll make it more painful. The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. The ones who fight injustice are the most cruel. The ones who fight intolerance are least tolerant. Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good? If it's more important to be right - you're already on the loosing team. If it's more important to be good - now you are ACTUALLY right.
  • The_Colonel 5y ago
    > The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt. I can understand the other points, but not this one. Can you expand on that?
    • iamacyborg 5y ago
      It's a nice catchy slogan that falls apart at the tiniest scrutiny.
      • toyg 5y ago
        Worse, it's a political agenda camouflaged as philosophical stance.
        • JohnWhigham 5y ago
          That's the OP's original point: people who spend their entire lives "fighting corruption" get blinded by their righteousness and zealotry and in effect become corrupt themselves.
• MrDresden 5y ago
  I started my early twenties with a positive and optimistic outlook on life, humanity and how my life would progress. However after a decade where I've lost a parent, failed a few relationships, going through multiple burnouts at work and last but most severe supporting my partner through two cancer treatments (which is thoroughly a hard stop for us trying to start a family) I have been fully transformed from that initial outlook and into a cynic. And it feels uncomfortable, as it is not the skin I feel used to wearing. So if nothing else, this article at least directed me towards this no-complain challenge, which I think I'll give a go. For that I'm grateful.
• bob667 5y ago
  Lol looking at the state of our world abs the fact that most people are evil or would happily (and do) go along with evil for a quiet life why on earth would I not be a cynic?
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• reedf1 5y ago
  I have a constant battle in my being between cynicism, stoicism and romanticism. I feel like a mixture of all three no matter how immiscible the underlying philosophies are. It's like a constant battle between diogenes, marcus aurelius, and keats. I think it's important to be realistic - but also to be earnest and let yourself be taken away by emotion on occasion.
• DeathArrow 5y ago
  The opposite of cynicism is naivety, not optimism. A cynic doesn't manifest unwarranted faith in people and doesn't automatically assume people have good faith. Cynics recognize that people can be motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals, anger. Cynics also have an attitude of distrust toward claimed ethical and social values. It's probable most of us exists today because their ancestors were cynics.
• iLoveOncall 5y ago
  I completely disagree that cynicism is about complaining. Cynicism is, as the author says, about never challenging the status quo because you believe it's an already lost battle. Cynicism can be about complaining, but only if you don't do anything about the situation you complain about. I've always been one to complain about a lot of things. When I was studying CS my friends and classmates were annoyed that I was always voicing my complaints to the staff / teacher / university, and I was known as a professional complainer. Well guess what? More often than not, complaining got me what I wanted. I complained to the university that a teacher was just showing us Youtube videos and not evaluating any of our assessments, he got investigated by the school in his next class and isn't teaching there anymore now. I complained that a project was graded based on time to completion, when the time was depending on how fast the teaching assistant was answering each group, they decided it was unfair and didn't grade this project. Complaining is almost the contrary of cynicism.
  • amelius 5y ago
    How about complaining on the wrong channels? E.g. venting frustration about the patent system on HN?
    • iLoveOncall 5y ago
      I think we can make the distinction between complaining and venting at that point, and the second one would at least serve the purpose of putting your mind at ease for some time. And to be fair I don't think your example is particularly well suited here, because changing the patent system would most likely need more support than just your own actions, which can be gathered via HN. It can also lead other people to reflect on the issue and take actions themselves. I would still classify that as complaining. If I had to choose an example of venting, I'd say that I could go on HN to complain about the neighbor's dog that barks all day long. Nothing would come out of that, and I don't need anyone supporting any action on this problem, so it'd be venting.
  • maltalex 5y ago
    The term complaining is overloaded. What you describe is actively doing something to make the problem go away. The "no complaint challenge" [0] linked from the article gives a pretty good definition of the type of complaining the author talks about: I defined “complaining” for myself as follows: describing an event or person negatively without indicating next steps to fix the problem. So "the teacher is just showing us YouTube videos, what a waste of time" is a complaint while "the teacher is just showing us YouTube videos, I'll go talk to whomever is in charge so he stops doing that" is not. [0]: https://tim.blog/2007/09/18/real-mind-control-the-21-day-no-complaint-experiment/ https://tim.blog/2007/09/18/real-mind-control-the-21-day-no-...
• kashyapc 5y ago
  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 overdramatic worldview. As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic. It is having a clear and reasonable idea about how things are. It is having a worldview that is constructive and useful. • • • In his book 'Factfulness' (definitely read it), he talks about "bad and better": Think of the world as a premature baby in an incubator. The baby’s health status is extremely bad and her breathing, heart rate, and other important signs are tracked constantly so that changes for better or worse can quickly be seen. After a week, she is getting a lot better. On all the main measures, she is improving, but she still has to stay in the incubator because her health is still critical. Does it make sense to say that the infant’s situation is improving? Yes. Absolutely. Does it make sense to say it is bad? Yes, absolutely. Does saying “things are improving” imply that everything is fine, and we should all relax and not worry? No, not at all. Is it helpful to have to choose between bad and improving? Definitely not. It’s both. It’s both bad and better. Better, and bad, at the same time. That is how we must think about the current state of the world. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling
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  • oblio 5y ago
    This is a great quote. I'm probably going to be using that example in a lot of debates :-) Thank you!
    • nefitty 5y ago
      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.
• yholio 5y ago
  Cynical people don't found unicorn startups, don't win marathons and seldom the Nobel prize. On the other hand, not being cynical increases your chance to achieve such goals by 0.00001%, while your chance to end up a broke hobo, a beat down athlete or a 50 y/o teaching assistant waiting for tenure shoot up exponentially. All in all, cynicism sounds (to a cynic) like a pretty good adaptation strategy to the real world.
  • mycowerk 5y ago
    I'd argue the optimum strategy requires you be at least a little optimistic. Humans are biased to outweigh the importance of losses vs gains when considering expected value. At a minimum a some optimism is required to offset this bias.
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• unixhero 5y ago
  I tried to read the article and I tried to read the comments here. What are the actual recommendations here? So far I couldn't catch that. I realize as I grow older that cynicism has crept in. To be fair at least in the business I operate in I have observed that the more cynical the analysis the more clarity is brought to the table when making decisions and laying strategy. Unfortunately I have observed the same in my private social life, and to be honest it sucks. This is mainly regarding people's real intentions and motivations. I would like for this to be not true, and would not mind for another path and another reality. I also feel like it wasn't like that before in the past, but it may have been because I found myself under the umbrella of educational institutions and people's motivations were probably biased (positively) as people's goals were mostly somewhat influenced by the institution.
  • Mulpze15 5y ago
    From the article: "a no-complain challenge [...] The goal is to make it 21 days without having move the wrist." As in 21 days without complaining.
  • qwertyuiop_ 5y ago
    Cynicism directly proportional to aging brain and wisdom. It’s an mechanism to weed out assholes and situations wrapped with assholes in the precious few years you gotta live. Sets in at mid 40s.
    • xxs 5y ago
      Late 40s... that's a late bloomer.
• streamofdigits 5y ago
  Scenario 1: Condition on a future world that is somehow livable and sane, in mental and environmental equilibrium. Work backwards and find that "being good" is not a choice but an inescapable requirement Scenario 2: Posit that the above conditioning is unattainable, we have reached "peak humanity" and its all now terminally downhill Call me naive but I think our main problem is that people have never really been forced to make up their minds "en masse", not just on "local" problems where cynicism, free-riders, aggression, exploitation, abuse (+ name your favorite pathology here) may be "rational", but in our "global" problem. Universal principles and rights (as those put together by the UN) start becoming the mental and emotional guides to come to grips with the important global constraints. Cynics dismiss those as ludicrous, bureaucratic, vacuities. Think again. In other words, we can be local cynics (and that might even be a breath of fresh air) but we cannot be global cynics.
• tekkk 5y ago
  I realized I may be that much of an optimist that I don't even really understand what's it like to be a cynic. To me it seems a cynic, from how the author describes them, is a total downer and asshole who I wouldn't want to be around with it. Having healthy grasp of reality to me is in no way harmful. On the contrary, it should be desired. Perhaps it's the hopeless atmosphere in countries with high corruption and badly working government which just saps your hope, and you stop believing things could actually work if people worked for common good. As I myself do have a snarky view of the current world politics and whatnot but still can enjoy things, don't really complain, put things in trash bins and help strangers and so forth.
• littlecosmic 5y ago
  I think that if you are truely an optimist, you believe you are a realist. If being an optimist is a mask you put on for strategic reasons, you are not an optimist.
• axegon_ 5y ago
  > By realizing that the world is always changing, and by stopping to complain, we opt out of seeing the world through cynical glasses, and become part of the change. When we realize that our life can change, we can change it. The world isn't always changing for the better. And to be dead honest, seeing how covid unfolded and how it was handled, I'm more skeptical than ever. We have control over a lot of things in our lives and to be honest at no point in time in my life would I have imagined I'd be where I am now. It certainly turned out a lot better than my expectations during the first years of my adulthood. But sure enough there are a number of things in my life which are far worse than I would have anticipated and quite frankly I don't see anything I can do about them, yet plenty of them keep me up awake at night. And in those instances being cynical isn't necessarily a bad thing. And here we have the semantics and namely Diogenes who is widely known for his cynicism: he was anything but fond of ancient Greeks and his attitude towards them was exactly that: cynical. However, he was equally eager to change their living conditions. And I admit - I'm extremely cynical very often and in some instances this pushes me to change the things I dislike about me or my surroundings to the best of my abilities. Of course there are the instances which I mentioned earlier which are outside my control in which case... You know... Whatever, might as well shoot a few blanks for the sake of it.
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• headsoup 5y ago
  Hmm, this article starts with building its own straw-man cynic to argue against for the rest of it. I think it is naive to define a cynic as a character whole (which sounds a lot like nihilism instead). People can be immensely cynical and yet positive, cynical but with a view to do something about it, cynical and miserable. It is not an absolute. A lot of the comments here seem to be attempting to find nice quotes that can then be used for labelling outlooks on life to be attributed to. Complaining is cathartic! I'm off to listen to some Bobby McFerrin while I yell at clouds :)
• TheGigaChad 5y ago
  Dumb tatar.
• bullen 5y ago
  Oscar Wilde was wrong about the definition of the word Cynic (Dog): Dog-like Diogenes knew the true value of things, because he had lost all money. He lived like an animal, which is what we all are destined to; since eternal growth is impossible. Cynical to me means to live without material wealth, and while most people would call that suicide; I think everyone that has things, specially as those require you to burn energy, are suicidal. Everything is relative. You cannot really own anything in life except what is in your head and by extension what you created out of that head from scratch. Stop consuming and start producing would be the only constuctive reaction to all comments on this article. It's very easy to be an optimist when you have never taken any responsibility.