Is there any reason for humanity to be optimistic at all?

[Pine Tar]

Why the hell shouldn't we be optimistic? All these problems? We're on the verge of solving them or at least beginning to understand them. The ozone hole is closing, but you don't hear anyone talk about that. You don't hear a lot about all the species that humanity has brought back from extinction either.
All those deer that get hit by cars? 100 years ago, deer almost went the way of the Carolina parakeet, but hunters and conservationists brought them back. And as the world overall gets more prosperous, the desire for war goes down. I mean, you don't exactly see a huge anti-war movement in Congo, right? And the biggest threat to immediate world security is CWCville with nukes.

I believe in humanity because I'm a human. We ought to give ourselves more credit.

 

[AppleChrisp]

Yes. Optimism --> wellbeing --> increased quality of life --> human flourishing.

 

[Konstantinos]

I'm generally torn between being a bitter cynicist and a determined optimist. On one hand, the world has always been batshit and war-torn and there have always been horrible people. On the other hand, there's art and philosophy and great architectural works and other meaningful things that humanity has produced that almost validate its existence. There have also been lots of people that are pretty cool too.

I don't know really. I can't say. We ought to get an outside opinion on whether humanity has any worth or not.

 

[Jomadre]

With the exception of pollution, the human condition is literally better than it's ever been worldwide. Poverty and hunger rates worldwide have been dropping like a paralyzed falcon worldwide. We are more peaceful and less warlike than we ever have been. (The pockets of radical islam? Irrelevant. Go read up about the Seljuk Turks and you'll see how far the muslims have fallen exactly, both in military might and warlike tendencies). People are smarter and healthier than ever worldwide. We are literally having a golden age.

Don't believe me? Turn off the news and live your life for a while. The news is paid for by people that want you to be scared. Some is liberally biased, some is conservatively biased, but all of them want you scared of the world.

 

[WhoWantsStancakes]

I might be biased since I tend to be paranoid, but the only real things that worry me are pollution and the threat of Nuclear attacks, but the latter seems very unlikely.

 

[YI 457]

We're closer to world peace. We have better and better technology and shit every day. People are more educated. And I can learn/read/watch/listen to whatever shit exist just because of the internets. There are major problems, moral dilemmas and challenges. But we come from the 20th century. We fucked up badly, but we are here to stay. The end.

 

[geewizz]

My girlfriend likes to note sometimes how optimistic I am, even when shit is tumbling down. I think it's all a matter of perspective. I like to think of it like this.

- We have the greatest feat humanity is likely to ever achieve in the next few hundred years or so whirring away in front of us. Ignorance in the first world is truly a choice now thanks to the beautiful marriage of the internet and the PC, both of which are improving every single day. Faster, bigger and more capable. Nothing I can think of in the last 100 years has been more important to humanities progress. We can use it to open up the world to ourselves, or use it to laugh about the antics of an Autistic man living 3400 miles away!
- Food has never been more widely available, safe, cheap or interesting in the western world.
- Medical technology is advancing faster than ever before. My baby niece is alive and well today thanks to recent medical advances allowing surgeons to repair a valve in her heart at just 3 weeks old.
- Energy production technology now means that even the most basic of bitches can generate power anywhere in the world, in the UK scientists have developed solar sheeting that actually works better in cloudy weather that can be produced faster than cheaper than conventional solar arrays.

Technology has the power to save us from ourselves before it's too late. If ignorance, greed and fear are the true enemies of humanity then technology is our redemption. The future's bright motherfucker. We're always going to have problems, overpopulation and resource scarcity are just around the corner, but seeing as only 100 years ago they were still treating patients with leeches and 200 years ago burning people for witchcraft I think we're going to be ok.

and hey if none of that floats your boat, just remember we'll soon have the spray on condom. We can fuck like George and Jane Jetson! How cool is that?

 

[Holdek]

Interesting story I heard today about insecticides and wild bees: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/20...alth-new-pesticide-studies-rev-up-controversy

I dunno. Maybe we won't cause our own extinction right away. But there may always be prejudice, inequality, ignorance and all around nastiness towards others. That's why I've been thinking about asking within my atheist group about how realistically possible would it be to kickstart the construction of our own little interstellar ark. I think it would be awesome to think of the possibilities of building a new civilization from scratch and away from the negative influences of the old one. Project Ascension, anyone?

You would just take with you those negative influences and they would flourish anew in that civilization. To use the ark metaphor, after the flood waters receded humans turned just as shitty as they were before.

Your efforts would be better spent contributing to a Secular Humanist project that can help change things on Earth, IMO.

Why the hell shouldn't we be optimistic? All these problems? We're on the verge of solving them or at least beginning to understand them. The ozone hole is closing, but you don't hear anyone talk about that. You don't hear a lot about all the species that humanity has brought back from extinction either.
All those deer that get hit by cars? 100 years ago, deer almost went the way of the Carolina parakeet, but hunters and conservationists brought them back. And as the world overall gets more prosperous, the desire for war goes down. I mean, you don't exactly see a huge anti-war movement in Congo, right? And the biggest threat to immediate world security is CWCville with nukes.

I believe in humanity because I'm a human. We ought to give ourselves more credit.

Humans are by nature negative creatures. We probably evolved that mentality as a survival mechanism.

 

[ASoulMan]

While we are and will be facing issues such as climate change, overpopulation, terrorism, and political corruption, if you look back in the past, we've been through much worse. Today is a much brighter world compared to the old days. People are living longer, there are better living conditions, we are thriving in a global economy, and technology has done wonders in the past decades. We have also become more conscious about animal species that are endangered or are in danger of becoming extinct within the next 20 years or so. We are looking for better ways to gather fuel in a way that we don't hurt the environment so much.

Compare the world as it is now to the world back during a time such as the 1800's, the Great Depression, and WWII, we've came so far as a species. The difference is literally night and day.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

The future isn't made by those who complain about the way things are but rather by those who see a way to make things better and act upon it
Optimism or pessimism is irrelevant, what's relevant is determination to follow through on one's aspirations

 

[Cave]

Yes. If we lose optimism and hope, then we're doomed.

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all." - Emily Dickinson.

 

[ChuckSlaughter]

Just that, America is full of unrest, shit is still going on within the Middle East etc. the government spies on us to "keep us safe", and everyday in my class someone brings up how bad everyone's financial shit is. Is there any reason, at all, for anyone to be optimistic, about the future of the world? or are we all just screwed?

People just want you to believe that shit in order to control you. In reality the world is peachy keen compared to where humanity has spent most of it's existence. The only thing to be afraid of is pussies and their puppetmasters.

 

[systemlord_baal]

Life expectancy and quality goes up, technology grows more and more advanced, so yeah, doesn't look that bad to me.

 

[The Fool]

Well I was literally going to say what AppleChrisp said. Humans function better when they're happy, optimism is self-optimizing behavior.

I've always practiced and believed in being optimistically realistic. People like hearing and talking about the negative, and some people dismiss that and choose to only see the positive. Being realistic, and viewing a subject from all points of view, is the best method for preparing for the future and making decisions. Pessimism throws off judgement a lot worse than optimism does, since it causes one to focus on a single issue more than optimism, so I prefer to be optimistically realistic. Plus, it's just better for my heart.

As sad as pessimism is, it forces people to do things. People don't invent or move because they think it would be nice, they do it because they believe it has to happen or they'll die (physically, socially, spiritually, metaphysically, whatever). It always has been and still is a critical element of our species. We're designed to look at a problem right in our face and fix it. Which is probably why there's so many whiny people today, the only problems left for the average joe are superficial ones. Well okay, I know people have always been like that, but I just like complaining.

And here's a quote from George Shaw because I was reading some of his quotes the other day:

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.” ― George Bernard Shaw

 

[AnOminous]

Well I was literally going to say what AppleChrisp said. Humans function better when they're happy, optimism is self-optimizing behavior.

My personal opinion is if the majority of people want to do something, it is probably stupid and self-destructive.

And I say let them do it anyway because lol.

 

[Linako 2.0]

The future isn't made by those who complain

/thread

 

[Cave]

Cynicism is a useless emotion.

Optimism can make change.

 

[Segue]

Cynicism is a useless emotion.

Optimism can make change.

There is such a thing as healthy skepticism, which can often be attributed to general cynicism. If we were optimistic about everything all the time then nobody would see any reason for anything to change.

 

[Mecha-Lenin]

I am not in the mood to get on with the details of this, admittedly, complex and important topic. But I will say this:

There is a difference between optimism and hope. The Italian writer, activist, and Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, is said to have coined to term "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will." This is a saying I hold very close to my heart. It means that you must always understand just how incredibly difficult the challenges ahead are.... without falling into a fatalism.

I think that attitude is pertinent here, regardless of your politics. In my personal opinion, I think our failure as a species is likely. That said, I strive and fight every day, in conversation with others, in my workplace, on the streets, in the polls... to work towards a vision for a better world. It is with an anger for the injustices of the current world, and a love and respect for humanity, that pushes me to fight against what I, personally, see as a slide into doom.

I humbly submit that such an attitude is the only rational and viable way to move forward. Judge that as you will.

 

[JU 199]

It's an interesting thought. A cynical mentality tends to leave people without the means to make positive change or enjoy life. BUT there's an opposite to cynicism and I believe it's just as corrosive: Blind, stupid optimism- the kind not really founded in reality and felt as a way of ignoring serious issues.

We can say we've faced wars that's were worse and terrible disasters (natural and man-made). Innovations providing a life a relative comfort and technology our ancestors would consider magic in their day are now common place. While this is all true, it doesn't do anything to minimize the problems that we'll face as a species soon, they are an order of magnitude larger than most people realize.

• Our flavor of capitalism is beginning to fall apart under it's own contradictions. Structures ranging from the financial system to global trade and wage allocation are deeply broken and the political establishment doesn't seem to notice or care. Resesions will become more commonplace and growth deeply unbalanced, uneven and short lived.
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• Middle East Islam will not drop Wahhabism any time soon, nor we get better at containing it. The slow drip of Islamic terrorism will not cease for the foreseeable future.
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• The environment will not be favorable to us soon. Something that I've always found curious is how protecting the climate is framed. It doesn't matter if a poor, sweet polar bear dies. It's about our ability to grow food easily and predictably. All it takes to damage those efforts is small changes to the overall climate. Suddenly places that received predictable rainfall don't get any, or suddenly dry area's become flooded. This is quite dangerous and has the potential to cause catastrophic food shortages.
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• Overpopulation exacerbating all of the above
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• Government corruption (Far worse in america than on my side of the water)
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• Worst of all, our complacency towards these problems. There are no quick fixes or easy answers. They require thought and effort.

It's the general population's ignorance on these issues that worries me. Optimism is ok, even necessary to be a healthy person. In my eyes it's becoming a way to ignore large structural problems that are very hard to fix and carry massive negative consequences. With more public scrutiny of these issues they would be addressed much quicker.