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> I don't see how depressive realism refutes the various correlations and observations in OP...? The purpose of my message was not to refute any of the article

> I don't see how depressive realism refutes the various correlations and observations in OP...? The purpose of my message was not to refute any of the article's claims, but rather to challenge the unstated assumption that people who avoid cognitive biases are necessarily better off. For example the article asks where there is a "hyper-rational elite." This is implying that people who avoid cognitive bias are better than everyone else. As I said before, I think that rationality has lots of obvious benefits, but there are also benefits to irrational optimism.

gwern 12y ago
> but rather to challenge the unstated assumption that people who avoid cognitive biases are necessarily better off. But you haven't. Maybe depressive realism is better for getting things done - if, you know, you can get the 'realism' without the 'major mental disorder' part. (And why didn't you consider manic-depressive disorder? If being optimistic is so great, surely being manic is even greater...) Pointing to a literally diseased example doesn't raise much of a challenge at all.
- haberman 12y ago
  I find it somewhat ironic that the people who are most staunchly advocating the superiority of rationality in their replies to my post are displaying the greatest cognitive bias by advancing a position that no one has offered any empirical evidence for. And just to clarify, I wasn't even arguing that optimism is better than rationality. I am only calling into question the assumption that it is necessarily worse. In other words, the article (in my opinion) assumed that R > O always. I wanted to challenge this assumption that argue that R <?> O. I am not arguing, as some people seem to suppose, that O > R always. > Maybe depressive realism is better for getting things done - if, you know, you can get the 'realism' without the 'major mental disorder' part. Maybe, but that is pure speculation that has no support. Seligman's book offers a fair amount of evidence that optimists out-perform pessimists (the latter is not the same as being depressed, though they are correlated) in many areas of life. > And why didn't you consider manic-depressive disorder? If being optimistic is so great, surely being manic is even greater... Again, pure speculation. "More of a good thing is always better" is not a principle you can reasonably assume.
  - gwern 12y ago
    > In other words, the article (in my opinion) assumed that R > O always. I wanted to challenge this assumption that argue that R <?> O. I am not arguing, as some people seem to suppose, that O > R always. So, you don't have evidence for it, you don't believe it, yet you're going to argue aggressively for it and call me biased to boot. What distinguishes your comments from garden-variety trolling?
    - haberman 12y ago
      > So, you don't have evidence for it If by "it" you mean "O > R always", then no, I don't have evidence for it nor do I believe it. What I do believe and have a whole book of evidence for is "not (R > O always)". That is what I am arguing for, and have been from my very first message. My opinion of "not (R > O always)" would only be controversial if you believe that "R > O always". But "R > O always" has no evidence supporting it (at least none that anyone has presented or that I am aware of).

gwern 12y ago

> but rather to challenge the unstated assumption that people who avoid cognitive biases are necessarily better off. But you haven't. Maybe depressive realism is better for getting things done - if, you know, you can get the 'realism' without the 'major mental disorder' part. (And why didn't you consider manic-depressive disorder? If being optimistic is so great, surely being manic is even greater...) Pointing to a literally diseased example doesn't raise much of a challenge at all.

haberman 12y ago
I find it somewhat ironic that the people who are most staunchly advocating the superiority of rationality in their replies to my post are displaying the greatest cognitive bias by advancing a position that no one has offered any empirical evidence for. And just to clarify, I wasn't even arguing that optimism is better than rationality. I am only calling into question the assumption that it is necessarily worse. In other words, the article (in my opinion) assumed that R > O always. I wanted to challenge this assumption that argue that R <?> O. I am not arguing, as some people seem to suppose, that O > R always. > Maybe depressive realism is better for getting things done - if, you know, you can get the 'realism' without the 'major mental disorder' part. Maybe, but that is pure speculation that has no support. Seligman's book offers a fair amount of evidence that optimists out-perform pessimists (the latter is not the same as being depressed, though they are correlated) in many areas of life. > And why didn't you consider manic-depressive disorder? If being optimistic is so great, surely being manic is even greater... Again, pure speculation. "More of a good thing is always better" is not a principle you can reasonably assume.
- gwern 12y ago
  > In other words, the article (in my opinion) assumed that R > O always. I wanted to challenge this assumption that argue that R <?> O. I am not arguing, as some people seem to suppose, that O > R always. So, you don't have evidence for it, you don't believe it, yet you're going to argue aggressively for it and call me biased to boot. What distinguishes your comments from garden-variety trolling?
  - haberman 12y ago
    > So, you don't have evidence for it If by "it" you mean "O > R always", then no, I don't have evidence for it nor do I believe it. What I do believe and have a whole book of evidence for is "not (R > O always)". That is what I am arguing for, and have been from my very first message. My opinion of "not (R > O always)" would only be controversial if you believe that "R > O always". But "R > O always" has no evidence supporting it (at least none that anyone has presented or that I am aware of).