Optimism is “a way of explaining failure, not prophesying success” : If we’ve failed at something, it’s because we didn’t have the right knowledge in time. In The Beginning of Infinity, physicist David Deutsch defines The Principle of Optimism : “All evils are caused by insufficient knowledge.”įrom that principle, Deutsch writes, flow a few implications that help understand optimism: When most people think of optimism, my guess is that they’re picturing blind optimism : “proceeding as if one knows that the bad outcomes will not happen.” Blind optimism isn’t what we’re talking about it’s as useless as pessimism. Throughout the rest of the piece, Klein directly explains why the kids are (gonna be) alright, and indirectly lays out a case for optimism.īefore we get too much further, it’s important to define what I mean by optimism. Do you still believe in Us (human beings)?”Ĭave’s answer is excellent, addressing the evil of cynicism and the virtue of hopefulness.Įzra Klein, Your Kids Are Not Doomed, The New York Times I’m losing faith in other people, and I’m scared to pass these feelings to my little son. This weekend, Julian Weisser tweeted Nick Cave’s response to a question from a reader named Valerio, “Following the last few years I’m feeling empty and more cynical than ever. But pessimism is more pervasive than it has a right to be. That suggests that some people are wired to be optimistic and others are wired to be pessimistic, and both are equally valid, and that’s just the way it is. It’s how I’m wired.īut wiring is the wrong way to phrase it. I’m far more interested in answering the question, “What does the world look like if this goes right?” than in analyzing all of the reasons something might not work. It comes across in the pieces I write on specific companies, too. I’ve never written that down before, or even thought it coherently until very recently, but it’s been an undercurrent throughout many of the essays I’ve written: Schumpeter’s Gale, Compounding Crazy, Existential Optimism, The Best is Yet to Come, The Best is Still Yet to Come, The Invisible Swarm, The Laboratory for Complex Problems, Ownership and the American Dream, Newton’s Alchemy, and more. Not Boring’s mission is to make the world more optimistic.
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