Curse

Old Dood · Jun 27, 2005, 01:04 PM // 13:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManadartheHealer

What's wrong with being a pessimist? I can be constructive *sometimes*

Not a Damn Thing wrong with it. I like your posts, they are a refreshing point of view. If I was going to Lable you I would call you a Realist.

Personaly for me I like to Believe for the Best, but Prepare for the Worst....

kungfumonkey2 · Jun 27, 2005, 01:25 PM // 13:25

"An optimist is never pleasantly surprised."

Ellestar · Jun 27, 2005, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The PvP community saw the announcement last Wednesday and is waiting impatiently for our love. Not much to complain about until we see their proposed solution. =)

Peace,
-CxE

True, i can bet that alphas do want to whine, but they can't because of NDA (omg torture). Others are waiting, they're preparing to whine when this patch will be on live servers.

Sam Katha · Jun 27, 2005, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by kungfumonkey2

"An optimist is never pleasantly surprised."

I live my life by a similar motto.

"Always expect the worst. Anything else is a nice surprise."

I call it Pessimistic optimism.

Shin Lail · Jun 27, 2005, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ancalagon06

yes! you are the captain of the poopy-pants brigade! underservant to phil, lord of insufficient light!

anyway, I came here because another board I frequented was so full of negativity that it was sickening to read almost any thread. Glad to see Guru refuses to let that happen.

I moved to this board for the same reasons. There wasn't a tip in sight just floods of the flames. As you could guess Weezer_Blue is a staple there.

Ellestar · Jun 27, 2005, 04:40 PM // 16:40

"Pessimist is a well-informed optimist."

Saerden · Jun 27, 2005, 04:52 PM // 16:52

If the pvp unlock is anything but perfect, your forums will go to hell

After 2 weeks, most pvp players will leave and the rest can have constructive, polite discussions how Wa/Mos are overpowered, and how the FOW armor really should get an Armor boost...

Cap'n Hoek · Jun 27, 2005, 05:38 PM // 17:38

I KNOW EVERYTHING. ANET KNOWS NOTHING.

THIS GAME SUCKS. I WILL CONTINUE TO PLAY IT.

This has been a test of the Negativity Broadcast System.

Seems to be working...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dictionary.com

3.The doctrine or belief that the evil in the world outweighs the good.

You know, the world is just our little corner of the universe. A shame people have to muck it up so.

Dreamsmith · Jun 27, 2005, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ellestar

"Pessimist is a well-informed optimist."

Actually, from what I've seen, a pessimist is someone who's bad at math. They're obsessed with all the bad news on TV and in the paper, failing to note that the reason why something is news is because it's an unusual event. They tend to generalize from small samples, which is even more dangerous when talking about the news, because then they're generalizing the usual from what is by its very nature the unusual. They see more stories on the news (because they're so "well-informed") and conclude violence is up when in fact violence is down. They see a story on school shootings and pull their kids out of school for home education, despite the fact that kids are far safer at school than at home (a place where children are killed or injured so often it's rarely newsworthy).

The pessimist is the kind of person who will note an automaker's factory produced one lemon a month five years ago but produces three lemons a month now, and conclude the quality of the factory has gone down by a factor of three, without bothering to note that the factory is now producing a thousand cars a month instead of a hundred and that in fact the quality has thus gone up by more than a factor of three. They are "informed" about the negative, but seem to be very bad at math...

They insist that people are getting stupider, despite the fact that objective tests on the subject seem to indicate people are getting more intelligent on average (so dramatically so that many scientists are baffled by it, look up the "Flynn effect" sometime). They complain about rising violence while violence is dropping. They complain about increasing crime while crime is going down. Etc etc etc.

Most of these people would be "better informed" if they stopped watching the news. It's not that watching the news is necessarily a bad thing, it's just that they seem incapable of drawing valid conclusions from what they see. Again, they're bad a math. They see one or two incidents on the news or in their personal lives and weirdly assume that one or two incidents is a statistically significant sample -- they draw conclusions in circumstances where they ought to know better, where it's plainly obvious to anyone who isn't bad at math that they don't have anything close to enough data to start drawing conclusions from.

Anyway, sorry about the rant, but that quote set me off. The biggest problem with pessimists is not how "well informed" they are, but how well informed they think they are based on how much news they watch, and how far short that is from how well informed they'd actually need to be to say the things they usually do. Usually the "better informed" they pride themselves on being, the more obvious they make their ignorance.

Only complete ignorance is bliss. Typical levels of ignorance make people pessimistic. Truly well informed and intelligent people tend to be much more hopeful. It's hard not to be when you notice you really are living in a "Golden Age", and that by any objective criteria, things continue to get better all the time. More people live, people die less, people are smater and less violent, we commit less crime, we fight fewer wars (and even kill less people when we do). All of these things are facts, but ask a pessimist and they'll explain it all away, if not deny these facts outright, and if you don't adopt a suitably bad opinion of the world, it's state, or it's future, they'll say it's because you're less well informed.

Sorry, I'm too well informed to be a pessimist. I see all the same bad things they do, but I understand math well enough to know what is or isn't statistically significant, I know how to run the numbers overall, and I'm well informed enough to know the actual statistics behind crime, violence, intelligence, war, famine, etc. It's not that I don't watch the new, it's that I do more than just watch the news. I do my homework before drawing any real conclusions. Thus, I'm too well informed not to be hopeful. If anything, I'm overly pessimistic, simply because trends in the world point towards a future that's just too good to believe...

The world is not without its problems, hell, it's got plenty. But decade after decade, it keeps getting better and better.

kungfumonkey2 · Jun 27, 2005, 07:12 PM // 19:12

^Good post, very well written.

Things are no more worse off today than they were 1000 years ago, it is simply our media saturated lives. That have made things that have gone on throughout time more in your face, so that you now realize what is happening around our world. Brought the dark things that occur into the spotlight.

No, I am not pessimistic in thinking things will always turn out bad, I just believe they are bad and have always been bad. Most likely they will continue to do so.

I feel that a pessimist expects the worse, but hopes for the best, while and optimist expects the best and hopes for better. People that do not hope or run out of hope check out of this world. Either physically or mentally.

What is an optimist prepared for if they always believe things will turn out better? And how can a pessimist live life if they are always guarding themselves from the worst?