Our society values blind optimism.

[stonedape]

4. Hell yeah. You can be creative an as immoral as you want within the boundaries of an artistic medium like music, television, literature, etc.

Oh yeah, common misunderstanding of what I'm calling "rapidly expanding creativity". I'm not just talking about music, movies etc. That's just our spare creativity. I'm talking about nuclear energy, gas guzzling jets and mass agriculture. The fact we have been using war to produce world changing innovations or the fact the animals we rode from one end of the planet to the other were thrown in the garbage bin once we invented the car.

[Losty]

Hmm...I think generally people react negatively to this type of attitude because they don't know how to deal with it. It makes people uncomfortable. It's like when you say "hey how are you?" and the person says "terrible!" an then you're all like...uhh...because you just expect everyone to say fine.
Also, it's probably somewhat because we all have these feelings to some extent or another and we are taught that it is valued to be the type of person who hides these feelings. We are taught that always being able to maintain composure is a valuable trait. To an extent that is a good thing. For many reasons. If you let hatred and discontent be all you think about, it will completely take over your life and you won't be able to find any peace or happiness in anything. Also, because if it's all you ever talk about you eventually become a burden to other people in your life and they want to spend less time with you. Take this forum for example. If you were to have just one thread where you constantly posted about all the things and people you hate so much, and then post only non-hateful neutral and/or positive posts everywhere else I think it would be easier to deal with.
I see your posts everywhere and they are so hostile and filled with so much hatred and anger that even reading them stresses me out. I have enough stress in my own life, so sometimes when you go on a posting spree of anger and hatred I get frustrated because of it.
Hatred, anger, intolerance etc. are not inherently bad things, but too much of them can be unhealthy.
I have to be overly optimistic most of the time. The reason being that if I'm not it's really easy for me to end up right where you are. Always negative about everything. I let my negativity out differently than you so instead of being hateful and angry, I tend to be very sad when I let the negative take over my life. I can send me into an emotional break down. Sometimes when I read your posts I wonder how you can even function with all that hatred and anger.
I suggest you should try to spend time everyday, even just an hour, thinking about all the things you love and all the things that make you happy. Then challenge yourself to see those things in your daily life more often. It's okay to feel the way you feel, but it's not good for you.
Do you like running? It's a good way to ease your mind and let out stress.
Also, hugs and laughter. Especially hugs. I haz some for you now, *Losty hugs MLA*
Goodluck in whatever it is that you're hoping to achieve and I truly hope you find some happiness in your life

[MusicLovingAtheist]

4. Hell yeah. You can be creative an as immoral as you want within the boundaries of an artistic medium like music, television, literature, etc.

Oh yeah, common misunderstanding of what I'm calling "rapidly expanding creativity". I'm not just talking about music, movies etc. That's just our spare creativity. I'm talking about nuclear energy, gas guzzling jets and mass agriculture. The fact we have been using war to produce world changing innovations or the fact the animals we rode from one end of the planet to the other were thrown in the garbage bin once we invented the car.

Oh. Fuck all that shit. You shouldn't be immoral to expand creativity in a way that actually harms others.

[Mudhammam]

Optimism is just fancying that everything will be okay "in the end."
Pessimism is the horrible sense that no matter what, it won't be.
Meliorism is the conviction that your efforts can mediate the outcome.

Meaning is another plane altogether.

[TreeSapNest]

My life has meaning, meaning that I supply to it.

You impact the world around you, want to or not.

---

This kind of optimism isn't logical.

Hope isn't supposed to be logical and is only illogical in the face of loss.

[bennyboy]

I think optimisim is the best stance to take, if you act on it.

Say you are stuck in mortal danger. Maybe, for example, you are freezing to death and feeling very sleepy, and the effort of continuing to move around, rub your hands together, etc. seems pointless. You say, "Obviously I'm going to die, because there's nobody within a hundred miles of me. I might as well just find a nice place, relax, and go out with a smile on my face." If you are an optimist, you may think differently: "I COULD be saved. There's no real advantage to giving up, and what's a few more minutes of struggle in the big picture?" Maybe you WILL die. But statistically, optimism is sometimes rewarded with survival, while pessimism, as far as I can see, can never aid your survival.

How about in normal relationships? There's a hot girl in school, and geekyboy wants to talk to her. But he tells himself, "Who am I kidding? That hot girl is way out of my league." If he were more optimistic, he might (against all odds and common sense) tell himself, "Hmmmm. . . maybe if I just talk to her, I'll find we have something in common. Maybe she likes skinny, ugly smart guys for some unknown reason. I won't know unless I try."

Geekyboy may fail, horribly and often, but overall if he has a positive attitude, he's likely to find a higher quality mate than he would if he said, "Let's get real. I'll just marry the first girl who's willing to take me."


I think for the most part, pessimism is cowardice: "I won't try, because trying is stupid (and I don't have strong enough character to handle embarrassment if I fail)."

[Tonus]

Does anyone feel that keeping an optimistic attitude is every a good idea? I think optimism is just a way of trying to ignore the reality of a situation and hoping it will go away.

I just finished reading Dave McRaney's latest book, and he tells how researchers found that people who looked at themselves honestly and realistically were more likely to be depressed than people who had a much more positive view of themselves than is warranted. In other words, the way to be happy and to have a fulfilling life is to lie to yourself about how great you are and how awesome your life is. Conversely, the way to be depressed and feel hopeless is to have either a poor view of yourself and the world... or a perfectly accurate one.

The world we "see" is mostly the world we tell ourselves is in front of us. If you're convinced that things will always work out, you focus on the things that do and you rationalize the things that don't. If you're convinced of the opposite --that life sucks and everything is shit-- then you'll focus on the things that go wrong and dwell on them, and you'll dismiss the good things as anomalies. It's the classic "glass half full/half empty" approach.

The good news: happiness and fulfillment are mostly states of mind that almost anyone can achieve. The bad news: most people won't achieve them because they don't accept that it's possible.

[Angrboda]

I wonder if optimism is really a superior strategy to realism or pessimism. As a species, we seem biased towards optimism. However to assume that it has adaptive value just because we're biased toward it is I think an improper leap. Wayne Gretzsky said that you miss 100% of the shots that you do not take. However, you also miss shots for taking them too early, or turning over the puck because you thought you had a shot when you didn't and so on. Surely conservatism must open as many opportunities as optimism. Is there any real reason to suspect one is naturally a better strategy than the other? I don't know. As atheists, seemingly most here have opted for the realistic avenue rather than the optimistic belief in gods in spite of the lack of evidence for them. Is this then a less productive strategy to take to the question of theism?

[paulpablo]

People often have this attitude where they encourage you not to be an optimist and make empty statements that life is meaningful. You might as well put a sock on your hand and call it mr.happy and just keep telling me that shit over and over. No matter how much you believe that life is meaningful, that doesn't make it true. "No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randy

This kind of optimism isn't logical. It's because our society values putting on a happy face. Anyone who isn't blind can see the way that when someone expresses hatred, discontent, hopelessness, people get intolerant and impatient. People say you're immature or a loser. I know why. It's because that's how they're raised to think. Most people just copy what everyone else around them is doing. People value norms and values of society, usually no matter what they are. Everyone believes in god because other people tell them to and everyone else is doing it. It's seriously just a way of controlling people. So everyone acts in the image of those around them. What do we have? A blindly optimistic society that ignores those with problems and is only concerned with continuing the charade.

I wish i still had this video that they showed us in sociology class where they had a clown and a some unhappy people in the work place. It told about how people think that if you pretend to be happy that you will just become happy. I really wish I could get more ideas from that video because I think it goes along the lines of what I am talking about here. Does anyone feel that keeping an optimistic attitude is every a good idea? I think optimism is just a way of trying to ignore the reality of a situation and hoping it will go away.

I think it depends how it effects you, you might end up a drug addict with a failed career in acting while you were thinking your career is going great and who cares if you have a bit more cocaine. On the other hand it might not have that effect and might result in a lifetime of frivolity.

[bennyboy]

I wonder if optimism is really a superior strategy to realism or pessimism. As a species, we seem biased towards optimism. However to assume that it has adaptive value just because we're biased toward it is I think an improper leap. Wayne Gretzsky said that you miss 100% of the shots that you do not take. However, you also miss shots for taking them too early, or turning over the puck because you thought you had a shot when you didn't and so on. Surely conservatism must open as many opportunities as optimism. Is there any real reason to suspect one is naturally a better strategy than the other? I don't know. As atheists, seemingly most here have opted for the realistic avenue rather than the optimistic belief in gods in spite of the lack of evidence for them. Is this then a less productive strategy to take to the question of theism?

I suppose if one general stance was always (or even usually) better, we'd be well evolved to take that stance. Instead, we see a variety of stances not only in people, but apparently in animals too. I'd say (now that I've thought about it a little more) in general optimism will tend to magnify chances of both risk and reward, while pessimism will tend to minimize them. Only a Caesar will ever reap the near-absolute rewards of a Caesar. However, many of his men (and lesser men in the Senate) obviously outlived him, so hrrrmmm.

As for religious faith, I think that is very much a decision to be optimistic even in the face of evidence that you probably shouldn't be. In other words, you are going to leave everything, possibly even your survival, in "God's" hands, and let it all hang out. As a statement about reality, religion is almost for sure false. As a psychological trick geared toward creating a confident, successful, society, I think it has worked pretty well historically.