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Because only people who are engaging in cynicism can predict the future.

secstate 1y ago
Cynicism wins the day because negative outcomes are easier to plan for than positive outcomes. Humans defaulting to optimistic outcomes of the future often end up littering the ground with externalities that they failed to consider. And we also only have a single model for infinite growth (cancer) that always leads to destruction, so relentless optimism as a biological organism means a need for infinite growth, which we only know to be a path to destruction. The answer, therefore, is not bitching on the internet about all the wet blankets who only see negative outcomes, but acknowledging that everything we know needs to end eventually including ourselves, and balancing optimism for the short term with cynicism for the long term. And thus discovering that a healthy cynicism for the future predictions is probably appropriate, unless you truly want to live forever and have infinite energy for everything. But that's a god.
- perching_aix 1y ago
  Easier to plan for is an interesting lens to look through, can't immediately discard it for sure. From my perspective, negative expectations do have a higher chance of turning out real, but because negative expectations most often are just code for human misalignment. We have some philosophical, instinctual, or aesthetic (etc.) preferences, but then reality is always going to be broader than that. So you're bound to hit things that are in misalignment. It takes active effort to cultivate the world to be whatever particular way. But this is also why I find simple pleas to cynicism particularly hollow. It comes off as resignation, exactly where the opposite is what would be most required.
  - secstate 1y ago
    That's a fair counter argument, and I do genuinely believe (not know) that everyone needs a balance of cynicism and optimism to function optimally as a human. I also believe the resignation you feel from cynicism is rampant exactly because as humans we've become very good at basic survival and beyond that it's not totally clear what our targets for living should be. Certainly we can all agree that trying to harness ever more energy and growing forever can't be the target. But that's all we've done for two millennia now. How to we avoid becoming a cancer to our planet (or any other environment we find ourselves in)?
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
Some of us learn from experience and make predictions based on past actions by the governments.
- perching_aix 1y ago
  Trauma sufferers also just learned from experience.
exe34 1y ago
The rich and powerful have always worked very hard to keep their position. They have vastly more resources than the rest of us to throw at the problem. It's not cynicism to predict that every tool will be used to make our lives worse unless it helps them get richer and more powerful.
const_cast 1y ago
Making things secure and private is hard. There's a lot of hoops to jump through. Naive implementations are easy and cheap. And, if these tools and their entire software tree is not open-source, we cannot verify it's security. We just have to trust that the developers are good at what they're doing. When every company under the sun has had multiple data breeches, I'm not too keen to do that. Open-source the entire stack, show me a few white papers proving it's cryptographically sound, then I'll consider it. Until then, we should do with these tools what they deserve: being shoved up the government's ass.

Cynicism wins the day because negative outcomes are easier to plan for than positive outcomes. Humans defaulting to optimistic outcomes of the future often end up littering the ground with externalities that they failed to consider. And we also only have a single model for infinite growth (cancer) that always leads to destruction, so relentless optimism as a biological organism means a need for infinite growth, which we only know to be a path to destruction. The answer, therefore, is not bitching on the internet about all the wet blankets who only see negative outcomes, but acknowledging that everything we know needs to end eventually including ourselves, and balancing optimism for the short term with cynicism for the long term. And thus discovering that a healthy cynicism for the future predictions is probably appropriate, unless you truly want to live forever and have infinite energy for everything. But that's a god.

perching_aix 1y ago
Easier to plan for is an interesting lens to look through, can't immediately discard it for sure. From my perspective, negative expectations do have a higher chance of turning out real, but because negative expectations most often are just code for human misalignment. We have some philosophical, instinctual, or aesthetic (etc.) preferences, but then reality is always going to be broader than that. So you're bound to hit things that are in misalignment. It takes active effort to cultivate the world to be whatever particular way. But this is also why I find simple pleas to cynicism particularly hollow. It comes off as resignation, exactly where the opposite is what would be most required.
- secstate 1y ago
  That's a fair counter argument, and I do genuinely believe (not know) that everyone needs a balance of cynicism and optimism to function optimally as a human. I also believe the resignation you feel from cynicism is rampant exactly because as humans we've become very good at basic survival and beyond that it's not totally clear what our targets for living should be. Certainly we can all agree that trying to harness ever more energy and growing forever can't be the target. But that's all we've done for two millennia now. How to we avoid becoming a cancer to our planet (or any other environment we find ourselves in)?

ajsnigrutin 1y ago

Some of us learn from experience and make predictions based on past actions by the governments.

perching_aix 1y ago
Trauma sufferers also just learned from experience.

exe34 1y ago

The rich and powerful have always worked very hard to keep their position. They have vastly more resources than the rest of us to throw at the problem. It's not cynicism to predict that every tool will be used to make our lives worse unless it helps them get richer and more powerful.

const_cast 1y ago

Making things secure and private is hard. There's a lot of hoops to jump through. Naive implementations are easy and cheap. And, if these tools and their entire software tree is not open-source, we cannot verify it's security. We just have to trust that the developers are good at what they're doing. When every company under the sun has had multiple data breeches, I'm not too keen to do that. Open-source the entire stack, show me a few white papers proving it's cryptographically sound, then I'll consider it. Until then, we should do with these tools what they deserve: being shoved up the government's ass.