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The more optimistic the more one is likely to act, i.e. succeed in one's endeavors. No? Should be skewed slightly toward optimism.

by aatd86 3y ago

charlie0 3y ago
I think everyone would react quite quickly placed next to a poisonous snake. My point being is there are two kinds of people: Those who run towards something and those running away from something. Pessimism can cause just as much action as optimism.
- haswell 3y ago
  Pessimism can be a tool but I think using it comes at a cost. Pessimism may lead to some kinds of action, but also leads to missing out on good opportunities. Over the years, I’ve started to look at it like a poison. In the past, it has drastically reduced the possibility space available to me. Blind optimism is not useful either, but in general, rational optimism leads to better outcomes.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    > rational optimism leads to better outcomes. Isn't "rational optimism" an oxymoron? What's the difference from "rational pessimism"? For me, behaving "rationally" means trying to see the reality as it is, being able to weigh all the options, probabilities of outcomes, assigning (subjective) value to them and choosing from those. Where does optimism/pessimism come into play in connection to rationality? I often get the sense, that people talk about optimism, but actually mean risk aversion. Being less risk-averse leads more often to good outcomes, but more often also to bad outcomes.
    - haswell 3y ago
      I see pessimism and optimism as default orientations. The deeply pessimistic person sees an opportunity and only sees the risks and chance of failure. They pass on a lot of opportunities, but at least they don’t fail often, by some definitions of failure. The blindly optimistic person ignores the risks and only sees upside. They see an impossible situation that isn’t supposed to be solvable and they solve it anyway. This also gets them in trouble at times when the risks turn out to be real. Pessimism is no more or less rational than optimism. Optimism can be rational or irrational depending on the situation. But pessimistic thinking tends to lead to miscalculations because it’s often rooted in false beliefs about what is possible, treats failure as something to avoid, and depending on the situation, keeps the person stuck where they are. > For me, behaving "rationally" means trying to see the reality as it is, being able to weigh all the options, probabilities of outcomes, assigning (subjective) value to them and choosing from those Pessimism or optimism tend to be layered on top of this kind of calculus. If you’re a pessimistic person, you’re more likely to believe the probabilities of some outcomes are low, and make decisions based on that. If you’re an optimistic person, you’re more likely to try more things, because you’ve eliminated less things. I think a truly rational examination of a situation strikes a balance between these orientations. It takes risks seriously, but also takes chances on things that might not work. For all of the rationality that we think we have when making these evaluations, it’s often built on a base of our personal beliefs, which are deeply colored by our tendency towards pessimism or optimism, which tends to get baked into us based on life experiences. The book “Learned Optimism” explores the kinds of outcomes that tend to be associated with pessimism vs. optimism and is a really useful read. I was personally extremely pessimistic, and didn’t even realize how much this was changing my daily decisions until I became more self aware while reading that book. I was born into pessimism, and I was I was using that pessimism as a tool in my professional career where it served me pretty well. Imagining how things can go wrong leads to much better code. But it was wreaking havoc on my personal life and relationships and my mental health. Making rational, risk based decisions is possible without this pessimistic default, and doesn’t have to come with the added downside of seeing the world darkly.
      - mewpmewp2 3y ago
        I think the best balance is somewhere like 90% / 10%. So you spend 90% of the time finding and capturing opportunities, while 10% you spend on risks for sanity checking. Is 90/10 an optimist? I was diagnosed with depression 15 years ago and at the time also subscribed to this pessimist = realist idea or in some ways intelligence. And there's a lot of validation on the internet for that idea "intelligent people are more depressed and pessimistic", so as a teenager I thought that this is the right way to be because I wanted to think that I am intelligent. I think I'm very glad that I managed to escape this sort of mindset. To provide most value I believe I should look for opportunities and the ways they play out positively, while spending a limited amount of time to make sure I'm not wasting my time.
        haswell 3y ago
        I also started digging into this as part of a depression journey. One of the things that persistent pessimism also leads to is the concept of “learned helplessness”, which could be described as a kind of pathological pessimism. A state where on top of thinking certain outcomes aren’t possible, the impulse to try moving out of our current situation never even occurs. The equivalent of drowning in 2 feet of water, because it never occurred to the person to stand up. I’m also really grateful to have started moving away from this mindset. I wouldn’t say I’ve fully escaped, but I’m on the path. That book also provides some helpful reframing exercises that when applied consistently, start to re-wire default responses to situations. This has been transformative in my life. I think that the 90/10 split is an interesting way to look at this, and I tend to agree. I think the degree of optimism applied probably needs to scale inversely to the calculable risk (e.g. building an airplane necessitates lower risk tolerance). But in most situations, it seems like a much better default. And ideally this is always contextual to the situation at hand.
      - The_Colonel 3y ago
        > If you’re a pessimistic person, you’re more likely to believe the probabilities of some outcomes are low, and make decisions based on that. > If you’re an optimistic person, you’re more likely to try more things, because you’ve eliminated less things. Isn't that a manifestation of risk aversion? If you're risk-averse, you tend to play it safe. If you're not, you're eager to try risky things for the possibility of big rewards. Both can lead to preferred outcomes, it just depends on what is the preferred outcome. For some, a middle class family life is an utter failure, for some a dream. Pessimism might be a more successful strategy for those wanting that middle class lifestyle.
    - mewpmewp2 3y ago
      > For me, behaving "rationally" means trying to see the reality as it is, being able to weigh all the options, probabilities of outcomes, assigning (subjective) value to them and choosing from those. You have limited ability to consume and process information. You can't consume all information. There's billions of bits of information at any given time. It's impossible to predict the future without having some sort of simulator larger than universe. So in the end you must have some form of strategy. On which particular pieces of information are you going to focus? Are you going to try and find opportunities, or are you going to try and find risks, because you can find more than a lifetime of thoughts for both cases. So you could also balance it out, that you spend 90% time on opportunities and 10% time on risks. It might be more successful strategy than let's say 50%/50%.
      - The_Colonel 3y ago
        > So in the end you must have some form of strategy. Strategy for what? One piece of the puzzle missing here is the goal, strategy only follows from that. I understand this is hacker news, but still it sometimes feels like people here assume everyone's life goal is a multi-billion exit. A more common goal might instead be to e.g. live a peaceful life, spend a lot of time with their family and friends, etc. Such goal will have a completely different rational strategy to achieve it. > So you could also balance it out, that you spend 90% time on opportunities and 10% time on risks. You're equating optimism with spending time/effort on looking for opportunities, but that for me doesn't ring true. Acting on the opportunities is what IMHO is the core feature of optimism. You can have a 90/10 of time dedicated to opportunities/risks, but if you don't make the jump, you're not an optimist.
- aatd86 3y ago
  So the difference between action(optimism) and reaction (pessimism) then?
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  It's too complex to label and categorise triggers like this. If there's a snake that's about to bite you, as an optimist you could view running away as being hopeful towards being able to run away succeeding and not getting bitten. While pessimist might think that the snake will catch them any way. You could of course view it as something where optimist will think that snake will not bother to bite them at all and pessimist will run away because they think it will.
WJW 3y ago
That assumes that action is cheap and likely to lead to success, which is not necessarily true. In many fields, acting when you shouldn't can even lead to worse outcomes than doing nothing. Even when the outcome is relatively neutral, if taking action is expensive (in either money spent or in years wasted) then taking action might still be the wrong call.

The more optimistic the more one is likely to act, i.e. succeed in one's endeavors. No? Should be skewed slightly toward optimism.

by aatd86 3y ago

The more optimistic the more one is likely to act, i.e. succeed in one's endeavors. No? Should be skewed slightly toward optimism.

charlie0 3y ago

I think everyone would react quite quickly placed next to a poisonous snake. My point being is there are two kinds of people: Those who run towards something and those running away from something. Pessimism can cause just as much action as optimism.

haswell 3y ago
Pessimism can be a tool but I think using it comes at a cost. Pessimism may lead to some kinds of action, but also leads to missing out on good opportunities. Over the years, I’ve started to look at it like a poison. In the past, it has drastically reduced the possibility space available to me. Blind optimism is not useful either, but in general, rational optimism leads to better outcomes.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  > rational optimism leads to better outcomes. Isn't "rational optimism" an oxymoron? What's the difference from "rational pessimism"? For me, behaving "rationally" means trying to see the reality as it is, being able to weigh all the options, probabilities of outcomes, assigning (subjective) value to them and choosing from those. Where does optimism/pessimism come into play in connection to rationality? I often get the sense, that people talk about optimism, but actually mean risk aversion. Being less risk-averse leads more often to good outcomes, but more often also to bad outcomes.
  - haswell 3y ago
    I see pessimism and optimism as default orientations. The deeply pessimistic person sees an opportunity and only sees the risks and chance of failure. They pass on a lot of opportunities, but at least they don’t fail often, by some definitions of failure. The blindly optimistic person ignores the risks and only sees upside. They see an impossible situation that isn’t supposed to be solvable and they solve it anyway. This also gets them in trouble at times when the risks turn out to be real. Pessimism is no more or less rational than optimism. Optimism can be rational or irrational depending on the situation. But pessimistic thinking tends to lead to miscalculations because it’s often rooted in false beliefs about what is possible, treats failure as something to avoid, and depending on the situation, keeps the person stuck where they are. > For me, behaving "rationally" means trying to see the reality as it is, being able to weigh all the options, probabilities of outcomes, assigning (subjective) value to them and choosing from those Pessimism or optimism tend to be layered on top of this kind of calculus. If you’re a pessimistic person, you’re more likely to believe the probabilities of some outcomes are low, and make decisions based on that. If you’re an optimistic person, you’re more likely to try more things, because you’ve eliminated less things. I think a truly rational examination of a situation strikes a balance between these orientations. It takes risks seriously, but also takes chances on things that might not work. For all of the rationality that we think we have when making these evaluations, it’s often built on a base of our personal beliefs, which are deeply colored by our tendency towards pessimism or optimism, which tends to get baked into us based on life experiences. The book “Learned Optimism” explores the kinds of outcomes that tend to be associated with pessimism vs. optimism and is a really useful read. I was personally extremely pessimistic, and didn’t even realize how much this was changing my daily decisions until I became more self aware while reading that book. I was born into pessimism, and I was I was using that pessimism as a tool in my professional career where it served me pretty well. Imagining how things can go wrong leads to much better code. But it was wreaking havoc on my personal life and relationships and my mental health. Making rational, risk based decisions is possible without this pessimistic default, and doesn’t have to come with the added downside of seeing the world darkly.
    - mewpmewp2 3y ago
      I think the best balance is somewhere like 90% / 10%. So you spend 90% of the time finding and capturing opportunities, while 10% you spend on risks for sanity checking. Is 90/10 an optimist? I was diagnosed with depression 15 years ago and at the time also subscribed to this pessimist = realist idea or in some ways intelligence. And there's a lot of validation on the internet for that idea "intelligent people are more depressed and pessimistic", so as a teenager I thought that this is the right way to be because I wanted to think that I am intelligent. I think I'm very glad that I managed to escape this sort of mindset. To provide most value I believe I should look for opportunities and the ways they play out positively, while spending a limited amount of time to make sure I'm not wasting my time.
      - haswell 3y ago
        I also started digging into this as part of a depression journey. One of the things that persistent pessimism also leads to is the concept of “learned helplessness”, which could be described as a kind of pathological pessimism. A state where on top of thinking certain outcomes aren’t possible, the impulse to try moving out of our current situation never even occurs. The equivalent of drowning in 2 feet of water, because it never occurred to the person to stand up. I’m also really grateful to have started moving away from this mindset. I wouldn’t say I’ve fully escaped, but I’m on the path. That book also provides some helpful reframing exercises that when applied consistently, start to re-wire default responses to situations. This has been transformative in my life. I think that the 90/10 split is an interesting way to look at this, and I tend to agree. I think the degree of optimism applied probably needs to scale inversely to the calculable risk (e.g. building an airplane necessitates lower risk tolerance). But in most situations, it seems like a much better default. And ideally this is always contextual to the situation at hand.
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      > If you’re a pessimistic person, you’re more likely to believe the probabilities of some outcomes are low, and make decisions based on that. > If you’re an optimistic person, you’re more likely to try more things, because you’ve eliminated less things. Isn't that a manifestation of risk aversion? If you're risk-averse, you tend to play it safe. If you're not, you're eager to try risky things for the possibility of big rewards. Both can lead to preferred outcomes, it just depends on what is the preferred outcome. For some, a middle class family life is an utter failure, for some a dream. Pessimism might be a more successful strategy for those wanting that middle class lifestyle.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    > For me, behaving "rationally" means trying to see the reality as it is, being able to weigh all the options, probabilities of outcomes, assigning (subjective) value to them and choosing from those. You have limited ability to consume and process information. You can't consume all information. There's billions of bits of information at any given time. It's impossible to predict the future without having some sort of simulator larger than universe. So in the end you must have some form of strategy. On which particular pieces of information are you going to focus? Are you going to try and find opportunities, or are you going to try and find risks, because you can find more than a lifetime of thoughts for both cases. So you could also balance it out, that you spend 90% time on opportunities and 10% time on risks. It might be more successful strategy than let's say 50%/50%.
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      > So in the end you must have some form of strategy. Strategy for what? One piece of the puzzle missing here is the goal, strategy only follows from that. I understand this is hacker news, but still it sometimes feels like people here assume everyone's life goal is a multi-billion exit. A more common goal might instead be to e.g. live a peaceful life, spend a lot of time with their family and friends, etc. Such goal will have a completely different rational strategy to achieve it. > So you could also balance it out, that you spend 90% time on opportunities and 10% time on risks. You're equating optimism with spending time/effort on looking for opportunities, but that for me doesn't ring true. Acting on the opportunities is what IMHO is the core feature of optimism. You can have a 90/10 of time dedicated to opportunities/risks, but if you don't make the jump, you're not an optimist.
aatd86 3y ago
So the difference between action(optimism) and reaction (pessimism) then?
mewpmewp2 3y ago
It's too complex to label and categorise triggers like this. If there's a snake that's about to bite you, as an optimist you could view running away as being hopeful towards being able to run away succeeding and not getting bitten. While pessimist might think that the snake will catch them any way. You could of course view it as something where optimist will think that snake will not bother to bite them at all and pessimist will run away because they think it will.

WJW 3y ago

That assumes that action is cheap and likely to lead to success, which is not necessarily true. In many fields, acting when you shouldn't can even lead to worse outcomes than doing nothing. Even when the outcome is relatively neutral, if taking action is expensive (in either money spent or in years wasted) then taking action might still be the wrong call.