[piloto_ciego]

The cynicism is an op, or something - because I don’t have the evidence to say it’s definitively an “op” - as the kids say.

But legitimately, there is a strong cynical bubble in the zeitgeist now, and it’s dangerous.

There are a few things this cynicism says.

1. “People suck and are terrible.” 2. “People are stupid.” 3. “We can’t change anything.” 4. “Great calamity is going to happen and we are powerless to stop it.”

This is a lie. The world doesn’t suck, it’s much better than it used to be, people aren’t terrible - if people were more bad than good on average we’d still be hitting each other with clubs and going Conan on people. We aren’t stupid - it’s just that the stupid people are louder. And while the possibilities for great calamity exist, they are not guaranteed.

This may be more emergent than anything else, but trust your neighbors, treat people nicely, and you - yes individually each of you - need to start trying to make the world better.

Nobody is going to do it for us. I know what it’s like to feel bleak, trust me I do - but that’s just a call to action. It’s not “techno optimism” we need - it’s optimism, there are radical solutions that don’t use a single transistor.

[nescioquid]

In reading about the Weimar Republic, I encountered an observation (I think it was by Hannah Arendt) that cynicism emerges from a society that no longer believes in itself. In trying to confirm the quote, I found perhaps a better quote to explain (found on Arend't wiki article):

>> ...leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness

This all sounds rather familiar and feels like more a cultural question than one of personal virtue.

[piloto_ciego]

I also think that cynicism is the path of least resistance.

It’s dangerous to be optimistic. When you’re excited about stuff and it doesn’t work out culturally you look like a moron, when you’re a cynic if you’re wrong nobody cares because we’re all lucky that things didn’t turn out shittily. When things do turn out poorly you look like a genius because “you predicted the calamity.”

The “easy money” comes from being a pessimist because you don’t have to commit to anything.

[switchbak]

Thank you. I think we really do need a return to some form of optimism. Growing up I was told endlessly that by now we'd be out of fossil fuels and things would be terrible for a variety of other reasons. Some of that has come to pass, some not, some has reversed (ozone).

Sometimes the positive effects of sustained efforts have had a real impact over time. Having a cynical and defeatist attitude works against that. I don't know the roots of those attitudes exactly, but from the people I know they're not related to climate change, the country's leader, cultural issues, etc. It's more like those are a good reason for them to be more vocal about their underlying cynicism which has different roots (family life, general temperament, etc).

We have real problems. Very big ones. A defeatist attitude will ensure we end up in the worst of all outcomes. I wonder if we just have too much change too fast for our society to keep up and figure out ways to function better with the new constraints.

Edit: clarification

[hutzlibu]

"The world doesn’t suck, it’s much better than it used to be"

Better then when and by what meassure?

It is quite subjective I think.

One satirical person offered this quote:

We optimized for the minimum of individual luck, to get the maximum of people.

I am not fully behind this quote, it is satirical, but I think there is too much truth behind it. Ecologically things look bad. Geopolitical the same.

But yes, the sun is still shining and spring is nice and we do are progressing to new technological heights every day. It is just how this awesome tech is used overwhelmingly, that is a bummer.

[SeasonalEnnui]

"Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World" is a book that makes an excellent attempt to answer this.

[hutzlibu]

Hm. From the description I am not really convinced. It starts with people think "rich gets richer, poor gets poorer" ... and then states this is all wrong.

Except, it is not, by all the data that I know.

E.g. "https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/global-income-inequal..."

[adampk]

Taleb makes the point that this is not as simple as it seems. It is not the same people staying rich.

https://medium.com/incerto/inequality-and-skin-in-the-game-d...

[moron4hire]

Isn't this book about the low-hanging fruit stuff like universal access to healthy drinking water? And isn't it about basically the course of history through the 20th century compared to the previous millennium? That's much more macro, world-wide kind of stuff than whether or not startups in developed countries nowadays feel almost exclusively exploitative versus how they felt innovative 15, 20 years ago.

[piloto_ciego]

They were just as exploitative 15 years ago (or 20, or 50).

We can still fix things. We can still change the world - and for the better. Largely we have to slough off the outdated and pernicious idea that “more money == better” first.