[ToValueFunfetti]

I hate to get bogged down in semantics, but with the hope that one of the stronger top-level critiques makes it into the top slot here and this conversation gets buried:

Cynicism is defined as

>An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others.

I'm not saying that cynicism is automatically wrong, just that I once could trust that, when HN is wrong, it is due to cynicism applied in excess.

[oliculipolicula]

>..Nothing in life ... has any chance of succeeding without strenuous practice; and this is capable of overcoming anything..

---Diogenes (L) on Diogenes, arch-Cynic, VI.2.71

Afaik not formalised in Lean4, but sounds like optimism

Most of D's other stuff imho is optimism taken to its clear-eyed extreme. ya know. the way a very best version of us could always unironically RELY on HN [,after much practice]

>so those whose training has been of the opposite kind derive more pleasure from despising pleasure than from the pleasures themselves.

Might be why professional Nihilists admire Cynics (ie, for their ... unaffected comedy)

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diogenes_...

[ToValueFunfetti]

Ah, this clarifies things. I suppose I brought this on myself by putting it at the start of the sentence, but I do mean little-c cynicism, not the ancient philosophy. I was surprised to be called out on it, as GP is a shining example, and I was confused by the mention of nihilism, but I see now where wires were crossed. Thanks!