[dasil003]

Agreed, optimism/pessimism is just about our disposition to the world as we perceive it (ie. glass half full or half empty). It is orthogonal to understanding and prediction. A perfect Buddhist is neither an optimist or pessimist but can still be better or worse at predicting the future.

I do think pessimists, especially of the depressive variety generally do not get rich. The reason is that getting rich is hard, everyone nominally wants it, so it’s highly competitive and there are no easy paths. To find a path generally you have to take an action that almost by definition is low probability of success. You don’t have to be a beaming cheerleader to make this happen, but being an eyore is most likely disqualifying.