Let's take the example of climate change.

One of the lasts reports on climate change explained that we can't stop climate change while still using our capitalist approach, that revenue needs to drop and change our paradigm completely.

This is a realistic approach, one that reviews the data and explains what needs to be done in order to fix things. But, the persons that needs to do something are the ones taking advantage of the current system, and sell the optimistic position that we can fix things while keeping the same system, again, something that was proven completely incompatible.

So, the two realistic positions are:

a) people in power will not change in time, and humanity as we know is doomed.

b) we need to make radical changes and quick, making a lot of sacrifices in the process, in order to have a possibility of surviving.

None of this positions are optimistic, and both can be defined as pessimistic in different ways. Optimism never helped to change things, it only helps to keep the status quo, if the status quo is good, great, that is a good thing, but most of the times is not, so optimism in general is negative.

Of course, going to the extreme in pessimism is also not good, because extremes are bad, but the spectrum of options in pessimism are much more positive than the ones in optimism.

My points? My points were mostly only that his points were false. He made definitive statements that can be proven false by providing a single counter example to them, although there are many.

Do you too believe there isn't 'a single drop of hope' and that 'no one is doing anything' and that it is 'impossible to motivate people if they will even be slightly inconvenienced'? Are you sure these are valid statements that I can't easily prove false?

Final question - are you yourself the kind of person who wouldn't bother to act in the world's best interest if it slightly inconvenienced you?

Edgelords are very welcome and accepted on the internet...

Wouldn't one expect fixed-state determinist machines to all come up with identical answers in a determinate universe?

Only if you use the narrowest definition of peace imaginable.

It isn't the activists saying that. It's the decades of evidence that no rational discourse can be had. Optimists severely lack evidence to support their arguments, and you all simply refuse to acknowledge that.

Once again, he has provided real world evidence and examples to support his argument. You have not. You seem to be assuming that people are just going to go along with your blind optimism because the default in your mind is to just accept toxic positivity. Nope.

You misspelled delusional.

His points have vastly more evidence behind them than yours. Positive, negative, or otherwise, the argument with the most evidence is usually the best one.

Suppress the populus! Drs gme book and hodl

Any billionaire and millionaire stopping these things would be offset by the efforts of the rest of us. They can inflict more damage. It's pretty simple, pretty obvious, and blaming the general public when a change in their behavior wouldn't matter compared to a change in behavior from a gigantic entity is absurd.

Your example is like ...... missing the point by a million miles.

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>1. What is being done faster than the rate of destruction?

This is just shifting the goal posts - as I knew you would. Before you claimed 'nothing is being done' but now you want me to prove that the rate at which things are being done is 'fast enough'. No. I already showed you were wrong. But in order to not change your fatalism in any way, and to never learn, all you need to do in these moments is to keep trying to pretend you were claiming something else and shift the goal post, shift the burden of proof, and never acknowledge that your hyper exaggerations are false. Never.

>2. Lol that some cultures can do things and others refuse.

But that is exactly enough to prove your initial claim was wrong - that it is 'impossible to motivate people to do the right thing if it slightly inconveniences them'. You are proven wrong. You laugh, because of course when this moment happens, you just attempt to shift the goal post again, or invent other new falsehoods and exaggerations. Anything to distract from acknowledging you were wrong.

I asked you to prove why progress is impossible, as the burden of proof is upon you. Your reply was 'look up forever chemicals'. Your answer is insufficient, but I won't expect a better response.

No, by all means come up with a solution... But recognize the solution isn't worth dick when we refuse to cease the behavior causing the problem. I'm not presenting solutions because I don't have any. Just stop making shit worse and eat the billionaires. That's about as good as we can do at this point. Stuff labeled forever chemicals are because they're here forever in this snow globe we inhabit. It's just a really big globe, so humanity has a hard time grasping how bad things really are, none the less effectively process more than one crisis at a time. The best I can do is not have kids and win the lottery to have enough money to even have my voice heard. Our optimistic 'make a difference' campaigns haven't made a dent yet. These do: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7856827/

This completely depends on the person, their collective situations, and their outlook.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to come in hot like this was a debate or anything. This can be very hard. But yes, ultimately you can't let cynicism take over, because it's the death knell. Cynicism is to solidify your expectations as nothing. You won't be able to authentically interact with any humans after that.

You seem to be operating under the guise of being more realistic, but you are in fact centralized in offering no-solution arguments. Even if there were no solution, it's illogical not to try one because we can't predict the future, and not trying is literally the only way to ENSURE failure. Trying is not the road to failure. Cynicism is a complete dive into voluntary failure.

Without reading the article, if things really are worse then you think, it’s not pessimism to say they are worse. It’s pessimism to expect the worst without complete data or to expect the worst based on ambiguous or incomplete information.

And you will find it that once you become cynical, and say someone badly betrays you, you will have trouble going back to naive optimism

But you are right, and cynicism shouldnt have the last word

Let's talk numbers! How bout the numbers that suggest 70% of all wildlife has been eliminated since 1970. We definitely got this!! Just believe!!!

Thank you for your ideas. I really understand you when it comes to uncertainty about the unknown. That is quite the reason for me being an agnostic.

I think the introduction of virtual reality and the capabilities it will bring for the future will play a part in how we see life as it is… Why do we make virtual reality games? For the experience i would think. Even if that game had say suffering involved lets say, wouldn’t that make it just more realistic. If there is a god i would think that he intended for this and for us to experience just life itself, whatever it throws at you.

YOU have zero advocacy on these issues, and you're projecting it. I can't go a single day without seeing someone take concrete action related to that conflict. The reality that a world leader is the other side of that conflict, and that it's taking a little bit of time, doesn't mean progress is eternally impossible.

These were the actions of a select few people. The human race at large can absolutely outpace these efforts, that's not even up for debate. It's a cultural problem and as soon as we solve that, everything will improve. However, you seem to preclude this as being impossible, which is illogical given the numbers.

Kinda feels like that pales in comparison the the effect that cynicism has. When you lose your ability to trust others, you isolate, you gain less experiences, and ultimately you aren't a part of society anymore. Those folks shouldnt have the same effect on public policy that people who still have that ability to care have. In a community, the idea of "caring" becoming some sort of distorted lens is a very low risk. Checks and balances are prevalent.