Comment by jhuckestein | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jhuckestein | Hacker News Reader

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I've seen this shared quite a bit around the internet and I'm surprised how many people are surprised by this. The standard of living has, for the most part, continuously risen throughout the course of human history. And with the aid of technology, the rate of improvement is increasing as well. We have problems and it's great to acknowledge them, but personally I have a deep faith in the ability of humans to make things better for themselves. Most of the people I hear complaining about how humans are messing everything up would consider the circumstances under which even rich people lived just 100 years ago to be entirely beneath them.

Regarding the food, water and energy comments, I don't see how that is a problem. Our planet is covered by 70% water and the sun (directly or indirectly) provides enough energy for our food to grow and machines to run.

I wonder if humans are predisposed towards pessimism. Is there some advantage to selectively seeing only the things that aren't going well? From what I hear every generation thought that things were going badly and everything was better in the past. If that was really the case, when would all the improvement have happened?

Pessimists are good at identifying threats, prepare for the worst and therefore are more likely to survive when the worst does eventualy happen.

Alternative vision : pessimists are good at sacrificing the future for perceived potential threats in the present.

Pessimists may be good at identifying threats, but actually preparing for them implies the belief that the outcome can be changed with effort. That's pretty much the definition of optimism.

Obviously there's at least one spectrum here.

I've ceased to be surprised. People love to believe the claims that standards of livings have been falling since the 30's. At which point I like to remind people that many Americans still had dirt floors around that time.

I wonder if humans are predisposed towards pessimism.

Certainly seems that way, and there doesn't seem to be a damn thing we can do about it.

;)

I doubt there is a mean biological predisposition towards pessimism (assuming that's what you meant). For the vast majority of human history, the vast majority of people lived horrendous lives relative to our own.

Imagine.. for hundreds of thousands of years, we had no idea how the universe operated, we feared death and the dark.. natural disasters were thought of as acts of god and most people died by 30 or 40. And unlike most other animals, we somewhat comprehend our predicament... that we and the people we care about aren't going to be here for long. Yet most humans still attempt to do something with their lives, and to leave a better world for their children.

We never gave up as individuals and societies and persevered until we improved our material conditions significantly. That's a pretty strong indication of a species wide predisposition towards optimism.

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