Pessimism

I wanted to post this in the 'depression and what its really like' thread, but I think it deserves it's own topic.

I'm a pretty pessimistic person, always have been. I guess I use it as a coping mechanism so that when people/life disappoints me, I'm not surprised or hurt anymore, I expect it. How do I rid of it? Do I need to?? Lately I've been trying to turn it into a good thing.

So, what does ILX say? Do I need to rid of this negative attitude on society? Or can I use to my advantage (to see things as they are, to rise above, make money, to advance emotionally, etc.)

???

if nothing matters then u might as well pick whatever attitudes make u feel best. if pessimism doesn't feel good then you should eliminate it imo, but if the narcotic effect it provides is essential to living in this pretty terrible world then keep it.

In my experience, pessimism is not a matter of "seeing things as they are", but of getting stuck in a futile cycle of secret hopes and self-inoculation against their eventual disappointment, whereas genuinely seeing things as they are leads more naturally to a sense of humility, tinged with gratitude. I wish I could master "seeing things as they are" better than I do.

pessimism is something i fight against every day. it's not that i'm an optimistic person by nature -- my depression is too ingrained for that -- but i have to *try* to have a positive attitude or my darkness will eat me alive.

it's not an artificial business-guru positivity either -- just a sense of "how can i make this work?"

Exactly. How can this be beneficial in any way whatsover?

Some people think "people are generally good". I think, through my experience, people are generally bad, and will do whatever it takes to get what they want out of other people no matter the consequences. Thats just what I know and have been exposed to. In a world that is so full of positive-bullshit spins on everything, what am I supposed to do with that?

own it. pointless to try to o convince yourself that you experience things any differently than you do ime.

i think the concept of learned helplessness - which is really pessimism imo - is interesting and worth exploring if you're concerned about the impact on yourself of your own habits of thinking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

locii of control type stuff idk always struck me as bordering on just another entrepreneurial ladder step justification nb I've not clicked on yr link but will later

wikipedia probly not the best source but otoh caution choosing a web page because yes a lot of this stuff is rebottled as snake oil but Martin Seligman seems legit, scientific and useful to me

nb i've just been in A&E with what appears to be a huge panic attack so what do i know

shit

there's nothing wrong with being optimistic about the portion of life you can effect some control over.

Knowing that is a fairly small portion in the grand scheme is not pessimism but realism.

I get called pessimistic because I always have to think through the worst likely scenarios for something. But when it comes down to it I don't automatically believe that's going to happen, it's just a process I have to go through. I feel like if the worst happens and I haven't even considered it I'll feel stupid on top of everything else and have the rug pulled out from under me so why not at least give it a bit of mental attention first so I can stake out my mental map and move forward.

I guess dwelling on that and not being able to move past is 'real' pessimism.

It's interesting you should post this. I almost posted something similar but decided not to because I'm not very good at starting a discussion on things in general.

People have told me I worry a lot. A lot of it comes from my pessimistic attitude but I think I'm slightly misanthropic, which does not put me at ease. It actually ends up depressing me even more, because I'm not capable of giving people the benefit of the doubt. I doubt people really easily and don't trust them at all. I try to find reasons why they do things, and when it is illogical, I feel like they're hiding something. Like, it's difficult for me to understand that people are just people and sometimes act irrationally or don't think or act coherently because that is just part of life.

I end up reading Schopenhauer and it just all goes downhill from there.

"Human life must be some kind of mistake."

hey good news guys
https://www.space.com/milky-way-alien-life-map

In other words, we're likely a frontier civilization in terms of galactic geography and relative latecomers to the self-aware Milky Way inhabitant scene. But, assuming life does arise reasonably often and eventually becomes intelligent, there are probably other civilizations out there — mostly clustered around that 13,000-light-year band, mostly due to the prevalence of sunlike stars there.

Most of these other civilizations that still exist in the galaxy today are likely young, due to the probability that intelligent life is fairly likely to eradicate itself over long timescales. Even if the galaxy reached its civilizational peak more than 5 billion years ago, most of the civilizations that were around then have likely self-annihilated, the researchers found .

This last bit is the most uncertain variable in the paper; how often do civilizations kill themselves? But it's also the most important in determining how widespread civilization is, the researchers found. Even an extraordinarily low chance of a given civilization wiping itself out in any given century — say, via nuclear holocaust or runaway climate change — would mean that the overwhelming majority of peak Milky Way civilizations are already gone.

The paper has been submitted to a journal for publication and is awaiting peer review.

Peer review still only covers human researchers alive in 2020 from one planet, fairly pointless in the context

intelligent life is fairly likely to eradicate itself over long timescales

I have some questions about this particular metric of what constitutes 'intelligent life'

Most of these other civilizations that still exist in the galaxy today are likely young,

first interpreted this as alien civilizations that are all babies

xxp heh, that was kind of my thinking
sorta like asking a group of chimps if they think anyone is in the bathtub in a randomly selected home in Albuquerque.