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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 a

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-...
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > "describing an event or person negatively without indicating next steps to fix the problem" That's an absurd restriction. 1) Complaining does not require people to have the expertise to provide a solution. You can complain about a painful tooth and the dentist will handle that. 2) Complaining has social value, especially in democracies. It created social movements that pushed for political change.

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-...

goodpoint 5y ago
> "describing an event or person negatively without indicating next steps to fix the problem" That's an absurd restriction. 1) Complaining does not require people to have the expertise to provide a solution. You can complain about a painful tooth and the dentist will handle that. 2) Complaining has social value, especially in democracies. It created social movements that pushed for political change.