30 ms·

Cruel optimism and lazy pessimism

216 points by victorstanciu 4y ago

sebastianconcpt 4y ago
Somehow life was given to you and now you have an unavoidable fall-back decision that is always in the fabric of your consciousneess (specially when everything feels terrible): Rebelling against personal responsibility has a deterministic fatal fate that no narrative will protect you from. What will you do?
dkarl 4y ago
I love this article. I felt my blood pressure rising as I read the first section. For anyone struggling with the problems he uses for examples, I think the example exhortations ("Just start running!" "Just be yourself!") illustrate that you should be skeptical about advice from someone who has never solved the problem in question, or solved it accidentally with resources you don't have. It's possible you can learn from their advice, but there's a good chance it won't apply to you in a simple way. Tellingly, in the first part of the article, it was easy for me to gloss over the parts that touch on problems I don't have. Where I got upset was when it talked about the problems I do have. I think a great deal of the disconnect comes from people with privilege being unable to imagine how people can survive without it. Their prescription is for everybody to live like they have privilege, which is the only thing they can imagine, and accept the suffering that results. Some people can eat whatever they naturally gravitate towards and be healthy... so you should eat anything you want, and if you end up with diabetes, that's the proper outcome for you. Some people can afford $22 avocado toast every day, so you should eat that toast, and if you run out of money for rent, that's fine, that's what happens to people like you. Some people can be blithe and careless about their mental health and be happy, so you should be careless too. No matter what empathetic language you dress it up in, I think it's a pretty brutal message, that the way the most privileged people are able to live is the only way worth living. You should study like you're a Harvard legacy, manage your money like a trust fund baby, and take care of your body like you're the twenty-year-old offspring of a model and a professional athlete with centenarians on both sides of the family, because that's the only way worth living. Seen from that perspective, telling people not to bother with individual solutions to their problems is an even more flamboyant display of privilege than someone saying "just be frugal!" or "fix your mental health issues with exercise!" Offering someone a solution, however inadequate, at least acknowledges that their lives require effort and compromise, and that a life of effort and compromise is worth living. It's shitty and inadequate, but it's better than being told that you simply must eat that $22 avocado toast because life without $22 avocado toast would be too ghastly. I get the 30,000 foot political perspective. Collective and individual solutions are different and therefore competing, and politics doesn't allow for complexity or nuance, so public desire for collective solutions can only come at the expense of belief in individual solutions. I see that logic. However, because people are currently facing these problems alone, they are resorting to individual solutions, and many people are benefiting from individual solutions in ways that matter to them, even if it looks meager and meaningless from a more privileged perspective. It comes off as awfully snobbish and disconnected when you deny the value of the benefits (however small) that people realize from their efforts to manage their health, their finances, etc. And you don't have to do that to promote collective solutions. At least let's hope not, because if so, that's a really tough messaging problem to solve.
i_dont_know_ 4y ago
It's a very interesting problem with psychology and the locus of control -- I think, ultimately, it depends on what works for you and solves your current psychological funk at the time. Some people think they control everything about their lives -- they do think that if they put in the time, effort, and energy, they can achieve anything. When they don't, they blame themselves endlessly. Sometimes, learning that it was something beyond your control (ie social forces were stacked against your particular endeavor) can be liberating and break the person out of personal blame an hopelessness and let them start again. On the other end of the spectrum is feeling like an endless victim. Sometimes, it's easy to blame everything and lament how everything is stacked against you. This provides psychological solace but can prevent you from moving forward because you're convinced you won't be able to. In these cases, some of the stories of 'self-made' optimism can help get you out of a spot of hopelessness into action. In this situation, though, what's medicine to one is poison to the other. I can think of times in my life where each view was helpful and warranted, even if they're hard to reconcile with each other. In this case, the 'truth' isn't really knowable because we can't objectively observe a system we're a part of. So, until we know, I guess it's whatever view gets you where you need to go.
- eevilspock 4y ago
  Sounds like you're saying we shouldn't bother trying. > In this situation, though, what's medicine to one is poison to the other. I can think of times in my life where each view was helpful and warranted, even if they're hard to reconcile with each other. Moral philosopher John Rawls's uses the concepts of original position and veil of ignorance for a thought experiment that is the only fair basis for making decisions about moral principles and how society should be structured. You can think of it as "What we'd all decide for the world if each of us did not know ahead of time which circumstance we'd be born into". https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/john-rawls-and-the-veil-of-ignorance/ https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/joh... > The Veil is meant to ensure that people’s concern for their personal benefit could translate into a set of arrangements that were fair for everyone, assuming that they had to stick to those choices once the Veil of Ignorance ‘lifts’, and they are given full information again. > One set of facts hidden from you behind the Veil are what we might call ‘demographic’ facts. You do not know your gender, race, wealth, or facts about your personal strengths and weaknesses, such as their intelligence or physical prowess. Rawls thought these facts are morally arbitrary: individuals do not earn or deserve these features, but simply have them by luck. As such, they do not deserve any benefits or harms that come from them. By removing knowledge of the natural inequalities that give people unfair advantages, it becomes irrational to choose principles that discriminate against any particular group. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position
scandox 4y ago
I've always talked about shitty optimism which is being optimistic about things where the risk to oneself is minimal. I'm often guilty of it without even noticing.
- frogulis 4y ago
  Not sure I get it. You got an example?
  - SuoDuanDao 4y ago
    Climate change isn't a big deal. I'm willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian
derelicta 4y ago
Glad the author took the time to mention the commodification of relationships.
- riialist 4y ago
  Yes the concept is from Lauren Berlant, who is quite distinguished in her field, affect theory. She has a feminist viewpoint and tends to be blame neoliberalism for of everything awful, but for that genre - which is not usually my cup of tea. Anyway, I think she has written some interesting pieces. I found interesting this paper which cites Berlant's concept of cruel optimism: "Disinformation as the weaponization of cruel optimism: A critical intervention in misinformation studies". It discusses the state of disinformation studies with example such why academic interventions have failed to "correct" e.g. people who believe in QAnon. Open access link below: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755458620301043?casa_token=EQJbL72ennsAAAAA:ReajUTsJhpQt0tdAf_ZmpSZwbnHLcJ5lHVTY6ry9lrmYFoh5POvWk8qEOiLUom1pgDdNg9PPodc https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175545862...
bloomingeek 4y ago
I've known people in my trade and others trying to get into the trade with similar difficulties. We're all dealt a certain amount of, to put it this way, brain power. Some I've tried to train just couldn't understand the concept of what I was trying to convey, even with pictures and drawings. Others got it well enough, but just either didn't care or became bored. When I was learning electricity and struggling a little, the instructor told me part of the problem was I didn't yet know the right questions to ask. This blew and opened my mind at the same time! I've used that statement on myself and others ever since. But I also except some won't ever be able to understand these questions.
goodpoint 4y ago
"suggesting personal solutions to systemic problems" is not just cruel optimism, it's a way to shift blame. Many social problems are not caused by you or by "society" at large. You live in a "car-centric hellscape"? Shops only sell unhealthy food? The board of directors of some companies took these decisions.
- quxpar 4y ago
  To be fair, those directors were told it was their fiduciary duty to maximize profits, and the systems surrounding them clamor with nonstop praise. We allow these empires of selfishness to be amassed, we have chosen which wolf to feed ever since we stopped trust-busting.
hoseja 4y ago
Is there anything at all effective you can really do against the dragons? We might see them as particularly destructive lately but we've been breeding them to do just that for the past ten millennia or so.
- victorstanciu 4y ago
  On an individual level? Probably not. As a group? Of course, just like it's been done many times before: through activism, building a movement, gaining momentum and critical mass, eventually culminating in regulatory intervention. We've beaten plenty of dragons before in our past, from leaded gasoline to women's suffrage.
- m0llusk 4y ago
  Regulations can work. Sometimes even something as basic as disclosure can drive significant change. In contrast the oh there is just nothing that little old me can do approach is never going to work.
- boomerango 4y ago
  I try not to attack big problems head on. Instead I ask myself, what can I change in my daily habits that will eventually, erode the dragon away? If the dragon is in a cave and I can dump a bucket of water in there every day, eventually the thing will fly away or drown.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  You can take practical fire precautions like clearing brush around your hut. You can make sure you have an escape plan and stay in shape. Long term, consider making fewer personal offerings to the dragons and plan to relocate to an area with lower dragon density.
xyzelement 4y ago
// Fat? Just start running! Never mind that you can’t afford a gym subscription and live in a car-centric hellscape that’s not even bikeable, let alone walkable So here's something that's true: you can only move forward from where you are and with what you have. So while it's surely easier to lose weight if you can hire a coach and a nutritionist - if you can't do those things you nevertheless have to find a way! So if you are "poor and fat" as in this scenario, the idea that you need a gym membership and perfect running streets is a trap. You don't have those things and therefore you are going to be fat forever. The reality is that plenty of poor people lost weight when they decided to. They found a way - whether by walking around the block or taking the bus to a highschool running track or whatever. It's not easy but it was the only way to do it. So how to avoid this mental trap? Rather than obsessing on the fact that it's easier for someone else, obsess about the fact that someone in your situation and even worse can do it and has done it. And then start.
- boomerango 4y ago
  I think the mistake is viewing the task as a dragon that must be slayed rather than 10,000 hamsters which need be stomped on in 10,000 days. If we can reframe our large problems into a sequence of small (and potentially even gratifying!) tasks, life becomes easier.
  - vgatherps 4y ago
    Of all possible things to stomp you chose hamsters?
    - yetihehe 4y ago
      Hey, it could be anti-personnel mines...
    - boomerango 4y ago
      You made me laugh pretty hard. Re-reading this I’m more disturbed that I framed it as a potentially gratifying task.
- 4y ago
m0llusk 4y ago
Strange how "carbon footprint" is being thought of as some kind of corporate conspiracy. It is just a number that can be calculated. If you actually do that then you can see clearly that corporate operations are primarily responsible for carbon output. But it also enables people to lower their own carbon output if they so desire. There is no rational way to make this a conspiracy, yet that is where we are now.
- vgatherps 4y ago
  How much better can you get by pushing production to use greener methods instead of reducing demand or changing it to something else (which would fall on personal consumer activity change or raising cost of production via say carbon tax)? Obviously there's not a clear distinction between the two, i.e. food deserts / car-only locations forcing people to make certain choices, but it seems like for most things outside of energy production meaningful improvement requires a meaningful change in downstream consumer experience/behavior.
- subjectsigma 4y ago
  Read the linked article. Nobody is arguing that there is literally no such thing as a “carbon footprint”. They are saying there was (is?) a coordinated advertisement campaign designed to help distract people away from supporting legislation of corporations themselves. Whose fault is it that all those bottles are in the ocean - people who bought them and threw them out, or the people who made them in the first place? PepsiCo definitely wants you to think a certain way.
  - pksebben 4y ago
    it's not the first time, either. Recall the "weeping native" ad campaign [1]. 1 https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec...
  - tome 4y ago
    I don't understand how it makes sense for PepsiCo to want consumers to think that way, because rectifying the fault would involve consumers purchasing less from PepsiCo.
nothingeasy 4y ago
> Ugly and alone? Just be yourself! Never mind that we’ve designed for you a society where personal connections are harder and harder to make and maintain, and we’ve commodified human relationships into the equivalent of online supermarket catalogs. Having done online dating for years, this rings so true. Some people online talk about the success stories but rarely do they acknowledge the absolute slog that can happen for a huge portion of people and that there is no guarantee even with persistence and a good attitude that you'll ever find someone who neither ghosts or treats you like garbage, and has a true connection with you. I recall a Louis CK joke: > 'There’s someone for everyone.' Nope. Not at all true, and stop saying it cause it’s mean to people who never find anybody. There are millions of people out there who we’ve all unanimously decided that they are lightspeed ugly and nobody kisses them on the lips even. Nobody touches their genitals their entire life. They just wash 'em, and then they die. That’s all that happens. 'Aww,' and if you’re feeling bad for them, you can go find one and fuck one tomorrow, you can just solve the problem right there with all that kindness in your heart. 'Aww.' Well, go fuck one. 'Nah.' I didn’t think so." Out of all my friends, only one tried setting me up with someone on a blind date. Goodness, I can't even describe to you the kind of disgust I felt from her face when I walked through the restaurant door for our first and only date. Even though I knew from the first minute that the date was doomed, I did my best to make non-awkward. Such is life, we can't choose what we inherit.
- xyzelement 4y ago
  // there is no guarantee even with persistence and a good attitude // Such is life, we can't choose what we inherit I agree that there's no guarantees but something conspicuously missing from this story is anything you've done to better the odds. Do you go to the gym or work out at home? Have you found a barber who cuts your hair well? Have you had a fashionable friend help you with your wardrobe? Have you spent any time practicing small talk or put any emphasis on becoming more charming? None of these things guarantee success either but it's weird to not hear about any work you had put in to make this happen (not saying you haven't done it just you didn't mention it)
  - moralestapia 4y ago
petalmind 4y ago
Name of the man is mentioned in the first paragraph (and three times more). Name of the woman who actually invented the concept you discuss is relegated to "someone" and a footnote.
- victorstanciu 4y ago
  Sigh. Did you read the footnotes though? Because in them I explain that I haven't read Berlant's book, but I did look up--in multiple sources--a rundown of what they meant by "cruel optimism", and as I mentioned in the second footnote, I'm not quite sure Hari's own interpretation matches. They both use the same two words, but with distinct meanings, as it seems to me. And since the meaning and the book I'm discussing are Hari's, obviously his name pops up a lot more. Did you also read my previous post (https://tegowerk.eu/posts/the-deep/ https://tegowerk.eu/posts/the-deep/), where I heap praise upon praise on Alma Katsu, a woman? What about this earlier one, where I express just how much a particular woman means to me and to my life (https://tegowerk.eu/posts/serendipity/ https://tegowerk.eu/posts/serendipity/)? Or did you just make up your mind about me based on a footnote?
  - beecafe 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - victorstanciu 4y ago
      Is that where the bar for stamping a label on a fellow human being is? On the text formatting of one paragraph? That's a pretty low bar, I'm not sure Hermes Conrad himself could limbo under it.
  - petalmind 4y ago
    I did not say anything about you. I've read the text as it was presented to me and reported some statistics about it that have caught my eye.
    - twh270 4y ago
civilized 4y ago
> Cruel optimism, the way Hari interprets it, boils down to the folly of suggesting personal solutions to systemic problems. This is an interesting start but feels too narrow as a definition of the term. Cruel optimism, in general, seems like it should mean "cruelty by means of optimism". As in, you don't trouble yourself with how something (which you are morally responsible for) isn't going well and some person(s) will be negatively affected, and you justify that with the assumption that everything will turn out fine in the end, or the problem is much milder or easier to solve than it really is. Neglecting responsibility for a problem justified by downplaying the problem, imagining the problem away.
SuoDuanDao 4y ago
This is an interesting juxtaposition. I am deliberately intensely optimistic - I also happen to have a sadism paraphilia. I've had the intuition these mindsets are related, but this is the first time I've seen a mechanism. A sufficiently intense optimism might say "I don't care that giving up social media gives you withdrawel pains, you're doing it!". A sadistic attitude towards myself (or whoever's masochistic enough to ask my advice) might help cut through the kind of pity that would prevent pushing a painful but healthy change.
lordfrito 4y ago
I'm all for fixing systemic problems, taming the dragons, etc. Collectively, that's great. I'd argue that western civilization has never been kindler, gentler, inclusive and diverse than it is at this moment in history. So we've made great strides. However all of this does very little for the average individual unhappy in their unique situational challenges. If you're unhappy with the hand you're dealt, and keep shifting the blame to society, you will probably remain unhappy for a long time. If, on the other hand, you decide to change things in or about yourself, you will find that you have significantly more agency over the situation. A wise person once told me that whenever you have stress in your life it's because your expectations don't match reality. I learned that sometimes what had to change was I had to "learn to accept reality", as reality was something that couldn't be changed. As Bruce Lee said, the reed that bends in a storm survives it and grows, while bamboo, being rigid, will snap and break. There's no panacea to the problem of being happy and content in our short lives. But there are things you can do to improve your odds of enjoying it more while you're here. In the meantime, we should continue to fix systemic problems, injustices, etc.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  >I learned that sometimes what had to change was I had to "learn to accept reality" This was a breakthrough for me as well. Accepting reality as it does not mean you have to like it, but it gives a foundation for moving forward. I would quibble that it is important to separate reality as it is today, The future it Can Be, and the future it Can't Be. If you cant accept reality as it is and that some futures are impossible, you will miss the best future that CAN have. You need to accept the cards you are dealt and then play them to the very best of your ability.
  - tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa 4y ago
    [dead]
  - lordfrito 4y ago
    Something else worth mentioning is that "cruel" and "lazy" parts of the advice the article talks about has more to do with people who've had it pretty easy lecturing people that haven't. It's not that the message is wrong, it's that there's no empathy so it just comes across as incredibly tone-deaf (which it of course is).
greatiscones 4y ago
Every so often essays posted to HN really hit home and this is one of those times. I feel like this topic has been central to a lot of frustrations I've had in recent years. A lot of the discussion here seems to be focused on individual agency and how much people are responsible for their circumstances or not, but for me many of the underlying issues are really about lack of understanding on the advice-givers. Sometimes someone is capable of changing their circumstances, but just doesn't know how to go about it. They just never were taught how, or whatever, and when they turn to others for help, they get bad advice. The people they turn to might really care about the person and want to help, but just aren't good mentors. The avocado toast example is important as a flawed position not necessarily because of broader issues about individual versus societal responsibility, but because it illustrates how completely ignorant people can be about their fellow humans' circumstances. This has a whole host of consequences that are extremely powerful, including not providing advice that would actually help, to not recognizing that good people sometimes just make mistakes, that good or bad mentoring actually does matter, and so forth and so on. So maybe someone is entirely capable of improving their financial situation. But is telling them it's because they're eating avocado toast too much really going to help them? No, because the worldview that avocado toast is causing financial ruin is just as flawed as the worldview that everyone is a completely helpless victim. Cruel optimism isn't just cruel optimism, it's ignorant optimism, and proves the point by its very nature that the system is broken in some way: a person who believes avocado toast is the source of financial distress themselves probably is not sound in their financial reasoning, and if they are not in financial distress, it's probably not because of their sound financial reasoning, but rather, other factors. If you cannot correctly identify the systemic impediments to someone improving their situation, and offer realistic advice to them in those circumstances, you're part of the problem, or at least, you're not recognizing the problem. Avocado toast is kind of a perfect example of opportunity costs applied to moral reasoning or something: it's not that it blames the victim, it's that the advice is actively harmful if for no other reason that decent advice is not being given, and then becomes an example of the very thing it's trying to argue against.
- victorstanciu 4y ago
  Thank you very much for your kind words. It makes me incredibly happy when I hear that something I write resonates with others, if only because it validates my own feelings.
iicc 4y ago
Ideas should be judged on their merits, but based on previous behavior I wouldn't necessarily trust Johann Hari's writing out of hand - ie other things in the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
- victorstanciu 4y ago
  Hey, thanks for commenting. Your comment actually got me thinking of something I've been meaning to get deeper into for a long time, so I wrote another post about it: https://tegowerk.eu/posts/death-of-the-author/ https://tegowerk.eu/posts/death-of-the-author/
talentedcoin 4y ago
Sure, but I mean, often you can’t solve the “systemic problem” so the next best thing is to at least try to work on yourself. Necessary but not sufficient I guess. But cruel?
- fullshark 4y ago
  Yeah the premise seems to be the people offering optimism have the ability to change the systemic problem but don't, offering cheap talk via optimism instead. To think that "the elites" could all collectively agree to solve every systemic problem the proles complain about is ridiculously naive.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  I think cruel is when you fail to acknowledge the deck is stacked against the person. A millionaire telling someone they are poor because they are spending some of their money on comforts is, at the very least, tone deaf. I can see calling it cruel. TFA just points out that the opposite tack (It's all society's fault so I'm screwed no matter what I do), is also not helpful. Also (IMO; not sure if author of TFA would agree with me) the "lazy pessimism" is at least partly a push-back against "cruel optimism." If the optimism were paired with more empathy, then lazy pessimism wouldn't be the obvious alternative.
  - victorstanciu 4y ago
    I do agree with you, and that's exactly what I meant when I said that we have overcorrected. Thank you.
TiredOfThisCrap 4y ago
Unpopular opinion (therefore throwaway account): avocado toast guy is right. Sure, the math doesn't add up. An avocado toast and a coffee every morning won't add up to a real estate deposit. But that's not the point; the point is that people who are barely making ends meet having avocado toast at a coffee shop have the wrong mindset. I'd argue they are barely making ends meet because they're having avocado toast at a coffee shop, and multiple other expenses they can't responsibly afford. I've worked with young people barely making any money out of school, who still religiously went to the pub with their mates for the proverbial pint, and never skipped on Costa del Sol holidays. I grew up in a lower-to-middle middle class household. Eating out was something we did on special occasions (some birthdays, high school graduation, etc). Travel and holidays were limited to the one holiday a year, to a beach 45 min away from where we lived. It does seem like young people these days have an incredibly distorted sense of what they "deserve" or what they can afford or what's "normal". Now after decades in tech, a couple of stints at FAANG, I'm pretty comfortable financially. There's a lot of things I can afford in the strictest sense of the word (a 300k Lambo, a boat, whatever), but I know better than to spend money on things I don't really need just because I have enough money to buy them. Love avocado toast but are on minimum wage? Go to the store, buy bread and avocado, make your own goddamn toast, and organise a picnic with your friends in the nearest park.
- fluoridation 4y ago
  >the point is that people who are barely making ends meet having avocado toast at a coffee shop have the wrong mindset. Are there a lot of people (or even any) doing that? Are there a lot of people who don't have bread to eat refraining from having their cake?
- thomasahle 4y ago
  > I've worked with young people barely making any money out of school, who still religiously went to the pub with their mates for the proverbial pint, and never skipped on Costa del Sol holidays. This is different from coffee and toast. Going to the pub with the mates can be a social obligation, whereas coffee on your own is not. If you are asking your collegues to skip hanging out and vacation with their friends, you may be asking them to stop having those friends. Sure, maybe they are the wrong friends. Just noting this is a much bigger ask than not having coffee and toast by yourself.
njharman 4y ago
> think positive, be happy! This is correct. It is hard to do all the time. But it's a better way to live. Happiness / unhappiness is a choice (depression other mental illnessesses and additions are conditions to be treated, out of scope, it is not "unhappiness"). Think of it this way. You can be poor, have kids to feed, homeless, whatever. And unhappy. Or, can be poor, have kids to feed, homeless, whatever. And happy. You can wallow in self-pity, blame yourself (or others, society) for your situation, be cynical and pessimistic. Or, be happy, see the positives, be optimistic, try and improve your situation.
- int_19h 4y ago
  What is your basis for the assertion that it's always a choice? If it's personal experience, have you considered that yours is not necessarily representative of other people's? Even if you were happy while being in a bad spot before, that doesn't automatically generalize even for yourself, much less for everyone else.
overgard 4y ago
I love these terms, definitely describes the situation well. I'm not sure how you'd describe the best mindset here. Pessimistic stoicism? Understanding the system is bad, but also realizing you have to work with the hand you were dealt. My generation (millennial) tends to frustrate me, in that while a lot of people are correct in that the system is setup to lead them to failure, there are so many escape hatches to actually succeed. I mean think about it, yeah, things are a lot more expensive now than my parents generation, but we also have these advantages: - We all walk around with super computers in our pockets - We have instant access to pretty much all of humanity's collective knowledge, practically for free - Most people have pretty easy access to credit (which is admittedly a double edged sword) My unscientific observation is that the people that complain the most about "the system" are actually some of the most privileged people, which makes them sound sort of spoiled and ridiculous. I don't know, on one hand if you came from poverty in a crime stricken neighborhood you have my sympathy and understanding. On the other hand, if you came from a middle class background, you went to college and majored in something utterly useless (I won't mention the degrees... but you know them), racked up a huge debt, and now you're upset that nobody has a great job for you... I have slightly less sympathy. I realize that's a bit of a strawman, but it also just seems to be something I see a lot. If there's a big mistake my generation has made, it's having everyone go to college for degrees they'll never really use. And for some reason the trades have this huge stigma, even though you can make a perfectly good living as an electrician or a plumber.
- victorstanciu 4y ago
  > I'm not sure how you'd describe the best mindset here. Pessimistic stoicism? This is the question I asked myself as well. In my own life I've settled on Stoicism as a philosophy of life (though I am far from the ideal sage). I don't think it needs prefixed with "pessimistic" though. I think that, by itself, it's already the middle ground between the two positions. It says that you should only focus on the things that are under your control, but to do so while working for the greater good as well. Fight the dragons, but also fight your own inner battles.
  - overgard 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
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huy77 4y ago
I would rather call it optimistic_nihilism(https://tinyclouds.org/optimistic_nihilism https://tinyclouds.org/optimistic_nihilism)
Julesman 4y ago
The notion of lazy pessimism is not a pure concept, in the sense that it did not emerge in someone's mind independent from any argument or bias. Who's interest does this notion serve? In which argument would someone use this term and why? And who are we really talking about. Honestly, it made me squirm. Sounds like a conservative on the freshman debate team trying to sound "compassionate." Like, those Mexicans aren't lazy. They just need to realize that their attitude needs adjusting (said the guy who knows not one person from Mexico.) This is more clever than deep and certainly less thoughtful than it might seem. Read some James Baldwin. Please.

216 points by victorstanciu 4y ago

Somehow life was given to you and now you have an unavoidable fall-back decision that is always in the fabric of your consciousneess (specially when everything feels terrible): Rebelling against personal responsibility has a deterministic fatal fate that no narrative will protect you from. What will you do?

dkarl 4y ago

I love this article. I felt my blood pressure rising as I read the first section. For anyone struggling with the problems he uses for examples, I think the example exhortations ("Just start running!" "Just be yourself!") illustrate that you should be skeptical about advice from someone who has never solved the problem in question, or solved it accidentally with resources you don't have. It's possible you can learn from their advice, but there's a good chance it won't apply to you in a simple way. Tellingly, in the first part of the article, it was easy for me to gloss over the parts that touch on problems I don't have. Where I got upset was when it talked about the problems I do have. I think a great deal of the disconnect comes from people with privilege being unable to imagine how people can survive without it. Their prescription is for everybody to live like they have privilege, which is the only thing they can imagine, and accept the suffering that results. Some people can eat whatever they naturally gravitate towards and be healthy... so you should eat anything you want, and if you end up with diabetes, that's the proper outcome for you. Some people can afford $22 avocado toast every day, so you should eat that toast, and if you run out of money for rent, that's fine, that's what happens to people like you. Some people can be blithe and careless about their mental health and be happy, so you should be careless too. No matter what empathetic language you dress it up in, I think it's a pretty brutal message, that the way the most privileged people are able to live is the only way worth living. You should study like you're a Harvard legacy, manage your money like a trust fund baby, and take care of your body like you're the twenty-year-old offspring of a model and a professional athlete with centenarians on both sides of the family, because that's the only way worth living. Seen from that perspective, telling people not to bother with individual solutions to their problems is an even more flamboyant display of privilege than someone saying "just be frugal!" or "fix your mental health issues with exercise!" Offering someone a solution, however inadequate, at least acknowledges that their lives require effort and compromise, and that a life of effort and compromise is worth living. It's shitty and inadequate, but it's better than being told that you simply must eat that $22 avocado toast because life without $22 avocado toast would be too ghastly. I get the 30,000 foot political perspective. Collective and individual solutions are different and therefore competing, and politics doesn't allow for complexity or nuance, so public desire for collective solutions can only come at the expense of belief in individual solutions. I see that logic. However, because people are currently facing these problems alone, they are resorting to individual solutions, and many people are benefiting from individual solutions in ways that matter to them, even if it looks meager and meaningless from a more privileged perspective. It comes off as awfully snobbish and disconnected when you deny the value of the benefits (however small) that people realize from their efforts to manage their health, their finances, etc. And you don't have to do that to promote collective solutions. At least let's hope not, because if so, that's a really tough messaging problem to solve.

i_dont_know_ 4y ago

It's a very interesting problem with psychology and the locus of control -- I think, ultimately, it depends on what works for you and solves your current psychological funk at the time. Some people think they control everything about their lives -- they do think that if they put in the time, effort, and energy, they can achieve anything. When they don't, they blame themselves endlessly. Sometimes, learning that it was something beyond your control (ie social forces were stacked against your particular endeavor) can be liberating and break the person out of personal blame an hopelessness and let them start again. On the other end of the spectrum is feeling like an endless victim. Sometimes, it's easy to blame everything and lament how everything is stacked against you. This provides psychological solace but can prevent you from moving forward because you're convinced you won't be able to. In these cases, some of the stories of 'self-made' optimism can help get you out of a spot of hopelessness into action. In this situation, though, what's medicine to one is poison to the other. I can think of times in my life where each view was helpful and warranted, even if they're hard to reconcile with each other. In this case, the 'truth' isn't really knowable because we can't objectively observe a system we're a part of. So, until we know, I guess it's whatever view gets you where you need to go.

eevilspock 4y ago
Sounds like you're saying we shouldn't bother trying. > In this situation, though, what's medicine to one is poison to the other. I can think of times in my life where each view was helpful and warranted, even if they're hard to reconcile with each other. Moral philosopher John Rawls's uses the concepts of original position and veil of ignorance for a thought experiment that is the only fair basis for making decisions about moral principles and how society should be structured. You can think of it as "What we'd all decide for the world if each of us did not know ahead of time which circumstance we'd be born into". https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/john-rawls-and-the-veil-of-ignorance/ https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/joh... > The Veil is meant to ensure that people’s concern for their personal benefit could translate into a set of arrangements that were fair for everyone, assuming that they had to stick to those choices once the Veil of Ignorance ‘lifts’, and they are given full information again. > One set of facts hidden from you behind the Veil are what we might call ‘demographic’ facts. You do not know your gender, race, wealth, or facts about your personal strengths and weaknesses, such as their intelligence or physical prowess. Rawls thought these facts are morally arbitrary: individuals do not earn or deserve these features, but simply have them by luck. As such, they do not deserve any benefits or harms that come from them. By removing knowledge of the natural inequalities that give people unfair advantages, it becomes irrational to choose principles that discriminate against any particular group. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position

scandox 4y ago

I've always talked about shitty optimism which is being optimistic about things where the risk to oneself is minimal. I'm often guilty of it without even noticing.

frogulis 4y ago
Not sure I get it. You got an example?
- SuoDuanDao 4y ago
  Climate change isn't a big deal. I'm willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian

derelicta 4y ago

Glad the author took the time to mention the commodification of relationships.

riialist 4y ago
Yes the concept is from Lauren Berlant, who is quite distinguished in her field, affect theory. She has a feminist viewpoint and tends to be blame neoliberalism for of everything awful, but for that genre - which is not usually my cup of tea. Anyway, I think she has written some interesting pieces. I found interesting this paper which cites Berlant's concept of cruel optimism: "Disinformation as the weaponization of cruel optimism: A critical intervention in misinformation studies". It discusses the state of disinformation studies with example such why academic interventions have failed to "correct" e.g. people who believe in QAnon. Open access link below: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755458620301043?casa_token=EQJbL72ennsAAAAA:ReajUTsJhpQt0tdAf_ZmpSZwbnHLcJ5lHVTY6ry9lrmYFoh5POvWk8qEOiLUom1pgDdNg9PPodc https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175545862...

bloomingeek 4y ago

I've known people in my trade and others trying to get into the trade with similar difficulties. We're all dealt a certain amount of, to put it this way, brain power. Some I've tried to train just couldn't understand the concept of what I was trying to convey, even with pictures and drawings. Others got it well enough, but just either didn't care or became bored. When I was learning electricity and struggling a little, the instructor told me part of the problem was I didn't yet know the right questions to ask. This blew and opened my mind at the same time! I've used that statement on myself and others ever since. But I also except some won't ever be able to understand these questions.

goodpoint 4y ago

"suggesting personal solutions to systemic problems" is not just cruel optimism, it's a way to shift blame. Many social problems are not caused by you or by "society" at large. You live in a "car-centric hellscape"? Shops only sell unhealthy food? The board of directors of some companies took these decisions.

quxpar 4y ago
To be fair, those directors were told it was their fiduciary duty to maximize profits, and the systems surrounding them clamor with nonstop praise. We allow these empires of selfishness to be amassed, we have chosen which wolf to feed ever since we stopped trust-busting.

hoseja 4y ago

Is there anything at all effective you can really do against the dragons? We might see them as particularly destructive lately but we've been breeding them to do just that for the past ten millennia or so.

victorstanciu 4y ago
On an individual level? Probably not. As a group? Of course, just like it's been done many times before: through activism, building a movement, gaining momentum and critical mass, eventually culminating in regulatory intervention. We've beaten plenty of dragons before in our past, from leaded gasoline to women's suffrage.
m0llusk 4y ago
Regulations can work. Sometimes even something as basic as disclosure can drive significant change. In contrast the oh there is just nothing that little old me can do approach is never going to work.
boomerango 4y ago
I try not to attack big problems head on. Instead I ask myself, what can I change in my daily habits that will eventually, erode the dragon away? If the dragon is in a cave and I can dump a bucket of water in there every day, eventually the thing will fly away or drown.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
You can take practical fire precautions like clearing brush around your hut. You can make sure you have an escape plan and stay in shape. Long term, consider making fewer personal offerings to the dragons and plan to relocate to an area with lower dragon density.

xyzelement 4y ago

// Fat? Just start running! Never mind that you can’t afford a gym subscription and live in a car-centric hellscape that’s not even bikeable, let alone walkable So here's something that's true: you can only move forward from where you are and with what you have. So while it's surely easier to lose weight if you can hire a coach and a nutritionist - if you can't do those things you nevertheless have to find a way! So if you are "poor and fat" as in this scenario, the idea that you need a gym membership and perfect running streets is a trap. You don't have those things and therefore you are going to be fat forever. The reality is that plenty of poor people lost weight when they decided to. They found a way - whether by walking around the block or taking the bus to a highschool running track or whatever. It's not easy but it was the only way to do it. So how to avoid this mental trap? Rather than obsessing on the fact that it's easier for someone else, obsess about the fact that someone in your situation and even worse can do it and has done it. And then start.

boomerango 4y ago
I think the mistake is viewing the task as a dragon that must be slayed rather than 10,000 hamsters which need be stomped on in 10,000 days. If we can reframe our large problems into a sequence of small (and potentially even gratifying!) tasks, life becomes easier.
- vgatherps 4y ago
  Of all possible things to stomp you chose hamsters?
  - yetihehe 4y ago
    Hey, it could be anti-personnel mines...
  - boomerango 4y ago
    You made me laugh pretty hard. Re-reading this I’m more disturbed that I framed it as a potentially gratifying task.
4y ago

m0llusk 4y ago

Strange how "carbon footprint" is being thought of as some kind of corporate conspiracy. It is just a number that can be calculated. If you actually do that then you can see clearly that corporate operations are primarily responsible for carbon output. But it also enables people to lower their own carbon output if they so desire. There is no rational way to make this a conspiracy, yet that is where we are now.

vgatherps 4y ago
How much better can you get by pushing production to use greener methods instead of reducing demand or changing it to something else (which would fall on personal consumer activity change or raising cost of production via say carbon tax)? Obviously there's not a clear distinction between the two, i.e. food deserts / car-only locations forcing people to make certain choices, but it seems like for most things outside of energy production meaningful improvement requires a meaningful change in downstream consumer experience/behavior.
subjectsigma 4y ago
Read the linked article. Nobody is arguing that there is literally no such thing as a “carbon footprint”. They are saying there was (is?) a coordinated advertisement campaign designed to help distract people away from supporting legislation of corporations themselves. Whose fault is it that all those bottles are in the ocean - people who bought them and threw them out, or the people who made them in the first place? PepsiCo definitely wants you to think a certain way.
- pksebben 4y ago
  it's not the first time, either. Recall the "weeping native" ad campaign [1]. 1 https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec...
- tome 4y ago
  I don't understand how it makes sense for PepsiCo to want consumers to think that way, because rectifying the fault would involve consumers purchasing less from PepsiCo.

nothingeasy 4y ago

> Ugly and alone? Just be yourself! Never mind that we’ve designed for you a society where personal connections are harder and harder to make and maintain, and we’ve commodified human relationships into the equivalent of online supermarket catalogs. Having done online dating for years, this rings so true. Some people online talk about the success stories but rarely do they acknowledge the absolute slog that can happen for a huge portion of people and that there is no guarantee even with persistence and a good attitude that you'll ever find someone who neither ghosts or treats you like garbage, and has a true connection with you. I recall a Louis CK joke: > 'There’s someone for everyone.' Nope. Not at all true, and stop saying it cause it’s mean to people who never find anybody. There are millions of people out there who we’ve all unanimously decided that they are lightspeed ugly and nobody kisses them on the lips even. Nobody touches their genitals their entire life. They just wash 'em, and then they die. That’s all that happens. 'Aww,' and if you’re feeling bad for them, you can go find one and fuck one tomorrow, you can just solve the problem right there with all that kindness in your heart. 'Aww.' Well, go fuck one. 'Nah.' I didn’t think so." Out of all my friends, only one tried setting me up with someone on a blind date. Goodness, I can't even describe to you the kind of disgust I felt from her face when I walked through the restaurant door for our first and only date. Even though I knew from the first minute that the date was doomed, I did my best to make non-awkward. Such is life, we can't choose what we inherit.

xyzelement 4y ago
// there is no guarantee even with persistence and a good attitude // Such is life, we can't choose what we inherit I agree that there's no guarantees but something conspicuously missing from this story is anything you've done to better the odds. Do you go to the gym or work out at home? Have you found a barber who cuts your hair well? Have you had a fashionable friend help you with your wardrobe? Have you spent any time practicing small talk or put any emphasis on becoming more charming? None of these things guarantee success either but it's weird to not hear about any work you had put in to make this happen (not saying you haven't done it just you didn't mention it)
- moralestapia 4y ago

petalmind 4y ago

Name of the man is mentioned in the first paragraph (and three times more). Name of the woman who actually invented the concept you discuss is relegated to "someone" and a footnote.

victorstanciu 4y ago
Sigh. Did you read the footnotes though? Because in them I explain that I haven't read Berlant's book, but I did look up--in multiple sources--a rundown of what they meant by "cruel optimism", and as I mentioned in the second footnote, I'm not quite sure Hari's own interpretation matches. They both use the same two words, but with distinct meanings, as it seems to me. And since the meaning and the book I'm discussing are Hari's, obviously his name pops up a lot more. Did you also read my previous post (https://tegowerk.eu/posts/the-deep/ https://tegowerk.eu/posts/the-deep/), where I heap praise upon praise on Alma Katsu, a woman? What about this earlier one, where I express just how much a particular woman means to me and to my life (https://tegowerk.eu/posts/serendipity/ https://tegowerk.eu/posts/serendipity/)? Or did you just make up your mind about me based on a footnote?
- beecafe 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - victorstanciu 4y ago
    Is that where the bar for stamping a label on a fellow human being is? On the text formatting of one paragraph? That's a pretty low bar, I'm not sure Hermes Conrad himself could limbo under it.
- petalmind 4y ago
  I did not say anything about you. I've read the text as it was presented to me and reported some statistics about it that have caught my eye.
  - twh270 4y ago

civilized 4y ago

> Cruel optimism, the way Hari interprets it, boils down to the folly of suggesting personal solutions to systemic problems. This is an interesting start but feels too narrow as a definition of the term. Cruel optimism, in general, seems like it should mean "cruelty by means of optimism". As in, you don't trouble yourself with how something (which you are morally responsible for) isn't going well and some person(s) will be negatively affected, and you justify that with the assumption that everything will turn out fine in the end, or the problem is much milder or easier to solve than it really is. Neglecting responsibility for a problem justified by downplaying the problem, imagining the problem away.

SuoDuanDao 4y ago

This is an interesting juxtaposition. I am deliberately intensely optimistic - I also happen to have a sadism paraphilia. I've had the intuition these mindsets are related, but this is the first time I've seen a mechanism. A sufficiently intense optimism might say "I don't care that giving up social media gives you withdrawel pains, you're doing it!". A sadistic attitude towards myself (or whoever's masochistic enough to ask my advice) might help cut through the kind of pity that would prevent pushing a painful but healthy change.

lordfrito 4y ago

I'm all for fixing systemic problems, taming the dragons, etc. Collectively, that's great. I'd argue that western civilization has never been kindler, gentler, inclusive and diverse than it is at this moment in history. So we've made great strides. However all of this does very little for the average individual unhappy in their unique situational challenges. If you're unhappy with the hand you're dealt, and keep shifting the blame to society, you will probably remain unhappy for a long time. If, on the other hand, you decide to change things in or about yourself, you will find that you have significantly more agency over the situation. A wise person once told me that whenever you have stress in your life it's because your expectations don't match reality. I learned that sometimes what had to change was I had to "learn to accept reality", as reality was something that couldn't be changed. As Bruce Lee said, the reed that bends in a storm survives it and grows, while bamboo, being rigid, will snap and break. There's no panacea to the problem of being happy and content in our short lives. But there are things you can do to improve your odds of enjoying it more while you're here. In the meantime, we should continue to fix systemic problems, injustices, etc.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
>I learned that sometimes what had to change was I had to "learn to accept reality" This was a breakthrough for me as well. Accepting reality as it does not mean you have to like it, but it gives a foundation for moving forward. I would quibble that it is important to separate reality as it is today, The future it Can Be, and the future it Can't Be. If you cant accept reality as it is and that some futures are impossible, you will miss the best future that CAN have. You need to accept the cards you are dealt and then play them to the very best of your ability.
- tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa 4y ago
  [dead]
- lordfrito 4y ago
  Something else worth mentioning is that "cruel" and "lazy" parts of the advice the article talks about has more to do with people who've had it pretty easy lecturing people that haven't. It's not that the message is wrong, it's that there's no empathy so it just comes across as incredibly tone-deaf (which it of course is).

greatiscones 4y ago

Every so often essays posted to HN really hit home and this is one of those times. I feel like this topic has been central to a lot of frustrations I've had in recent years. A lot of the discussion here seems to be focused on individual agency and how much people are responsible for their circumstances or not, but for me many of the underlying issues are really about lack of understanding on the advice-givers. Sometimes someone is capable of changing their circumstances, but just doesn't know how to go about it. They just never were taught how, or whatever, and when they turn to others for help, they get bad advice. The people they turn to might really care about the person and want to help, but just aren't good mentors. The avocado toast example is important as a flawed position not necessarily because of broader issues about individual versus societal responsibility, but because it illustrates how completely ignorant people can be about their fellow humans' circumstances. This has a whole host of consequences that are extremely powerful, including not providing advice that would actually help, to not recognizing that good people sometimes just make mistakes, that good or bad mentoring actually does matter, and so forth and so on. So maybe someone is entirely capable of improving their financial situation. But is telling them it's because they're eating avocado toast too much really going to help them? No, because the worldview that avocado toast is causing financial ruin is just as flawed as the worldview that everyone is a completely helpless victim. Cruel optimism isn't just cruel optimism, it's ignorant optimism, and proves the point by its very nature that the system is broken in some way: a person who believes avocado toast is the source of financial distress themselves probably is not sound in their financial reasoning, and if they are not in financial distress, it's probably not because of their sound financial reasoning, but rather, other factors. If you cannot correctly identify the systemic impediments to someone improving their situation, and offer realistic advice to them in those circumstances, you're part of the problem, or at least, you're not recognizing the problem. Avocado toast is kind of a perfect example of opportunity costs applied to moral reasoning or something: it's not that it blames the victim, it's that the advice is actively harmful if for no other reason that decent advice is not being given, and then becomes an example of the very thing it's trying to argue against.

victorstanciu 4y ago
Thank you very much for your kind words. It makes me incredibly happy when I hear that something I write resonates with others, if only because it validates my own feelings.

iicc 4y ago

Ideas should be judged on their merits, but based on previous behavior I wouldn't necessarily trust Johann Hari's writing out of hand - ie other things in the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari

victorstanciu 4y ago
Hey, thanks for commenting. Your comment actually got me thinking of something I've been meaning to get deeper into for a long time, so I wrote another post about it: https://tegowerk.eu/posts/death-of-the-author/ https://tegowerk.eu/posts/death-of-the-author/

talentedcoin 4y ago

Sure, but I mean, often you can’t solve the “systemic problem” so the next best thing is to at least try to work on yourself. Necessary but not sufficient I guess. But cruel?

fullshark 4y ago
Yeah the premise seems to be the people offering optimism have the ability to change the systemic problem but don't, offering cheap talk via optimism instead. To think that "the elites" could all collectively agree to solve every systemic problem the proles complain about is ridiculously naive.
aidenn0 4y ago
I think cruel is when you fail to acknowledge the deck is stacked against the person. A millionaire telling someone they are poor because they are spending some of their money on comforts is, at the very least, tone deaf. I can see calling it cruel. TFA just points out that the opposite tack (It's all society's fault so I'm screwed no matter what I do), is also not helpful. Also (IMO; not sure if author of TFA would agree with me) the "lazy pessimism" is at least partly a push-back against "cruel optimism." If the optimism were paired with more empathy, then lazy pessimism wouldn't be the obvious alternative.
- victorstanciu 4y ago
  I do agree with you, and that's exactly what I meant when I said that we have overcorrected. Thank you.

TiredOfThisCrap 4y ago

Unpopular opinion (therefore throwaway account): avocado toast guy is right. Sure, the math doesn't add up. An avocado toast and a coffee every morning won't add up to a real estate deposit. But that's not the point; the point is that people who are barely making ends meet having avocado toast at a coffee shop have the wrong mindset. I'd argue they are barely making ends meet because they're having avocado toast at a coffee shop, and multiple other expenses they can't responsibly afford. I've worked with young people barely making any money out of school, who still religiously went to the pub with their mates for the proverbial pint, and never skipped on Costa del Sol holidays. I grew up in a lower-to-middle middle class household. Eating out was something we did on special occasions (some birthdays, high school graduation, etc). Travel and holidays were limited to the one holiday a year, to a beach 45 min away from where we lived. It does seem like young people these days have an incredibly distorted sense of what they "deserve" or what they can afford or what's "normal". Now after decades in tech, a couple of stints at FAANG, I'm pretty comfortable financially. There's a lot of things I can afford in the strictest sense of the word (a 300k Lambo, a boat, whatever), but I know better than to spend money on things I don't really need just because I have enough money to buy them. Love avocado toast but are on minimum wage? Go to the store, buy bread and avocado, make your own goddamn toast, and organise a picnic with your friends in the nearest park.

fluoridation 4y ago
>the point is that people who are barely making ends meet having avocado toast at a coffee shop have the wrong mindset. Are there a lot of people (or even any) doing that? Are there a lot of people who don't have bread to eat refraining from having their cake?
thomasahle 4y ago
> I've worked with young people barely making any money out of school, who still religiously went to the pub with their mates for the proverbial pint, and never skipped on Costa del Sol holidays. This is different from coffee and toast. Going to the pub with the mates can be a social obligation, whereas coffee on your own is not. If you are asking your collegues to skip hanging out and vacation with their friends, you may be asking them to stop having those friends. Sure, maybe they are the wrong friends. Just noting this is a much bigger ask than not having coffee and toast by yourself.

njharman 4y ago

> think positive, be happy! This is correct. It is hard to do all the time. But it's a better way to live. Happiness / unhappiness is a choice (depression other mental illnessesses and additions are conditions to be treated, out of scope, it is not "unhappiness"). Think of it this way. You can be poor, have kids to feed, homeless, whatever. And unhappy. Or, can be poor, have kids to feed, homeless, whatever. And happy. You can wallow in self-pity, blame yourself (or others, society) for your situation, be cynical and pessimistic. Or, be happy, see the positives, be optimistic, try and improve your situation.

int_19h 4y ago
What is your basis for the assertion that it's always a choice? If it's personal experience, have you considered that yours is not necessarily representative of other people's? Even if you were happy while being in a bad spot before, that doesn't automatically generalize even for yourself, much less for everyone else.

overgard 4y ago

I love these terms, definitely describes the situation well. I'm not sure how you'd describe the best mindset here. Pessimistic stoicism? Understanding the system is bad, but also realizing you have to work with the hand you were dealt. My generation (millennial) tends to frustrate me, in that while a lot of people are correct in that the system is setup to lead them to failure, there are so many escape hatches to actually succeed. I mean think about it, yeah, things are a lot more expensive now than my parents generation, but we also have these advantages: - We all walk around with super computers in our pockets - We have instant access to pretty much all of humanity's collective knowledge, practically for free - Most people have pretty easy access to credit (which is admittedly a double edged sword) My unscientific observation is that the people that complain the most about "the system" are actually some of the most privileged people, which makes them sound sort of spoiled and ridiculous. I don't know, on one hand if you came from poverty in a crime stricken neighborhood you have my sympathy and understanding. On the other hand, if you came from a middle class background, you went to college and majored in something utterly useless (I won't mention the degrees... but you know them), racked up a huge debt, and now you're upset that nobody has a great job for you... I have slightly less sympathy. I realize that's a bit of a strawman, but it also just seems to be something I see a lot. If there's a big mistake my generation has made, it's having everyone go to college for degrees they'll never really use. And for some reason the trades have this huge stigma, even though you can make a perfectly good living as an electrician or a plumber.

victorstanciu 4y ago
> I'm not sure how you'd describe the best mindset here. Pessimistic stoicism? This is the question I asked myself as well. In my own life I've settled on Stoicism as a philosophy of life (though I am far from the ideal sage). I don't think it needs prefixed with "pessimistic" though. I think that, by itself, it's already the middle ground between the two positions. It says that you should only focus on the things that are under your control, but to do so while working for the greater good as well. Fight the dragons, but also fight your own inner battles.
- overgard 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

huy77 4y ago

I would rather call it optimistic_nihilism(https://tinyclouds.org/optimistic_nihilism https://tinyclouds.org/optimistic_nihilism)

Julesman 4y ago

The notion of lazy pessimism is not a pure concept, in the sense that it did not emerge in someone's mind independent from any argument or bias. Who's interest does this notion serve? In which argument would someone use this term and why? And who are we really talking about. Honestly, it made me squirm. Sounds like a conservative on the freshman debate team trying to sound "compassionate." Like, those Mexicans aren't lazy. They just need to realize that their attitude needs adjusting (said the guy who knows not one person from Mexico.) This is more clever than deep and certainly less thoughtful than it might seem. Read some James Baldwin. Please.