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

Ass Manager 3000 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Human nature.

Deal with it.
 
  • Feels
Reactions: RepQuest
Humanity is just another form of life on a planet that's seen millions of them come and go. It's difficult when you're part of a species to see outside of this and recognise just how small and temporary we are. The history of this little rock we live on is enormous compared to our species. Whether we have hope for our future or not means sod all, really.

But then again, we still have to get by as we're here, so I'm with what @Mecha-Lenin said on this one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mecha-Lenin
Not for the next 360 years, but as soon as the Vernal point enters into Aquarius things should start to get better
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Jaimas
Pardon me if this sounds a little atsimu but I always got a little upset when people discount the countless works from charities, doctors, firemen, nurses, and every little hero who saved a kitten or put a bandaid on a wounded child, all because there's a few creepy people on the internet. It's very disheartening. I really don't care if there's one guy who jerks it to dead kids if there's 100 people who spend 23 hours a day in a hospital keeping old people company.
 
  • Agree
  • Winner
Reactions: Ntwadumela, BOLDYSPICY!, Jaimas and 7 others
The Fool said:
Pardon me if this sounds a little atsimu but I always got a little upset when people discount the countless works from charities, doctors, firemen, nurses, and every little hero who saved a kitten or put a bandaid on a wounded child, all because there's a few creepy people on the internet. It's very disheartening. I really don't care if there's one guy who jerks it to dead kids if there's 100 people who spend 23 hours a day in a hospital keeping old people company.
Click to expand...
I agree. It's easy to see the negatives amongst the countless positives. There are fucked up people in this world, but for every 8chan denizen there are at least a handful of decent police officers, nurses, and so on that legitimately want to do good and help others. I believe Mr. Rogers said to look for those who are helping, not hurting. You'd be surprised.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bluebird
I think that the world might be 100% fucked, but that's no reason not to be optimistic.
No part of what's affecting the country is in any way under your control. You couldn't influence or change any part of it if you tried. In the face of that, what use is pessimism? If it really all is completely fucked, why concern yourself with it?
I think that one of the best parts of the world is that it's enormous and you're incredibly insignificant in the face of it all, so you don't really have to worry about it. The world isn't going to get any better or worse if I just kick back, relax, have a barbecue and enjoy life.
So yeah, things have kinda gone to hell, but I'm anticipating a nice lunch, and the latter is more interesting to me at the moment.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Picklepower
Well, I've a couple of reasons why optimism will trump pessimism:
They aren't perfect reasons for optimism (and maybe somewhat inaccurate), but they do show that there is security in the future.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: RepQuest
I cannot say that there is a reason for humanity to be optimistic but I can say that I see reason to continue onwards myself simply because I know that I have nothing to lose at this point in my life by taking such risks
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Ntwadumela
Kind of OT, but I was 16 when 9/11 happened so I was aware of the world enough to remember what it was like.
Most people weren't really sure what Islam was at that time, you couldn't just look up the wikipedia page to find out. I remember minor mentions of fears over people attacking muslims in retaliation. In general people just wanted to see Osama Bin Laden blown to pieces and the Taliban wiped out. If twitter had existed then the people trying to pretend it wasn't connected to religion would have been squashed and ridiculed off the internet.
 
  • Feels
  • Agree
Reactions: Ntwadumela, Super Collie, DirkBloodStormKing and 5 others
Ariel said:
Kind of OT, but I was 16 when 9/11 happened so I was aware of the world enough to remember what it was like.
Most people weren't really sure what Islam was at that time, you couldn't just look up the wikipedia page to find out. I remember minor mentions of fears over people attacking muslims in retaliation.
Click to expand...

The kind of people who would do that shit were generally so fucking dumb they attacked Sikhs instead.
 
  • Agree
  • Feels
Reactions: The Great Chandler, Ntwadumela, Army Burger and 12 others
AnOminous said:
The kind of people who would do that shit were generally so fucking dumb they attacked Sikhs instead.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah thats true.
We weren't used to this kind of thing happening then. The 90s were really peaceful after 1991 when you think about it. We had one big massacre in Australia, USA had Waco and OKC, Japan had the sarin attacks. A war in the Balkans and an attack on an embassy in Africa from memory.
 
  • Disagree
  • Agree
Reactions: Ntwadumela and DuskEngine
Ariel said:
Kind of OT, but I was 16 when 9/11 happened so I was aware of the world enough to remember what it was like.
Most people weren't really sure what Islam was at that time, you couldn't just look up the wikipedia page to find out.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but as an oldfag, I gotta say that everyone knew what Islam was at the time. Like, every other movie had Islamic terrorists trying to nuke America, only to be stopped by Steven Segal. Like, the Islams tried to bomb WTC back in 1993 with a Ryder truck.
 
  • Agree
  • Disagree
Reactions: Ntwadumela, Army Burger, Super Collie and 3 others
Ariel said:
Oh yeah thats true.
We weren't used to this kind of thing happening then. The 90s were really peaceful after 1991 when you think about it. We had one big massacre in Australia, USA had Waco and OKC, Japan had the sarin attacks. A war in the Balkans and an attack on an embassy in Africa from memory.
Click to expand...
This isn't true at all.

The 90s were a hideously violent decade. It was inevitable due to the power vacuum and weapons proliferation that resulted from the fall of the USSR, as well as several other brutal governments whose terror both held back and instigated future violence. But it ought not to be forgotten that behind the glitz of the web boom lay an awful lot of corpses.

Russia was engulfed by the Bratva, and crime topped even the horrors of the US in the 70s. The US itself was still under the thrall of the crack crisis, which we resolved with the same brutal policing and chilling prison sentences which now leave us with entirely new problems we're nowhere close to resolving. Worst of all, North Korea deliberately went through a famine that topped even the Great Leap Forward and Ethiopia in devestation all so the cockroaches who run the Hermit Kingdom could retain their absolute power.

Wars in Africa caused the sort of suffering the planet hadn't seen since the 40s: including the Algerian Civil War Osama and his buddies played a part in; the Liberian Civil War which had Syria-level casualties; the Rwandan War and Genocide, and the Congo Wars it helped exacerbate. The Second Congo War was so expansive in scope, it attracted involvement from countries all over the continent and left between two and five million dead. More than any war since the Fall of the Axis.

Islamofascism wasn't as poisonous as it is in modern times, I'll grant. But the 90s had a lot more ghild and a lot less gold than people like to remember.
 
  • Agree
  • Informative
  • Like
Reactions: Ghostapplesause, Picnic_Boy, Philosophy Zombie and 16 others
*Asterisk* said:
This isn't true at all.

The 90s were a hideously violent decade. It was inevitable due to the power vacuum and weapons proliferation that resulted from the fall of the USSR, as well as several other brutal governments whose terror both held back and instigated future violence. But it ought not to be forgotten that behind the glitz of the web boom lay an awful lot of corpses.

Russia was engulfed by the Bratva, and crime topped even the horrors of the US in the 70s. The US itself was still under the thrall of the crack crisis, which we resolved with the same brutal policing and chilling prison sentences which now leave us with entirely new problems we're nowhere close to resolving. Worst of all, North Korea deliberately went through a famine that topped even the Great Leap Forward and Ethiopia in devestation all so the cockroaches who run the Hermit Kingdom could retain their absolute power.

Wars in Africa caused the sort of suffering the planet hadn't seen since the 40s: including the Algerian Civil War Osama and his buddies played a part in; the Liberian Civil War which had Syria-level casualties; the Rwandan War and Genocide, and the Congo Wars it helped exacerbate. The Second Congo War was so expansive in scope, it attracted involvement from countries all over the continent and left between two and five million dead. More than any war since the Fall of the Axis.

Islamofascism wasn't as poisonous as it is in modern times, I'll grant. But the 90s had a lot more ghild and a lot less gold than people like to remember.
Click to expand...

There was also the Ayodhya bombing and the subsequent communal violence, the Rodney King riots, the intensification of the FARC/ELN conflict, the Sierra Leone civil war. I have no idea what @Ariel is talking about tbh
 
  • Agree
  • Informative
Reactions: Ntwadumela, Army Burger, Dynamite Ninja and 4 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back