Don’t ever become a pessimist… a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
|
|||||
|
We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people. Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house] Authors
Arts, Tech & CultureCivil LibertiesCommentary
EconomicsSamizdatistas |
19 comments to Samizdata quote for the day |
Who Are We?The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling. We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe. CategoriesArchivesFeed This PageLink Icons   |
|||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
Don’t agree. Pessimists have more fun because we’re always right.
And we’re rarely dissapointed.
I was going to ay that I agreed with the quote and add “but try telling that to Verity”. Alas, Verity got in before me. A curse upon you, Time Zones!
I think I found a new level of pessimism tonight after hearing David Willetts boasting about how Tony Blair needs the Tories to push through his policies.
Verity, you a pessimist? Who would have guessed?
Seriously, I notice that my more optimistic posts get a lot of outraged responses. There’s some interesting psychology at work here.
Optimist on potential, pessimist on reality, i.e. the old adage “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst”.
OPTIMIST, n.
A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
PESSIMISM, n.
A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
Johnathan – The force is with the pessimists. Even the time zones (see Nick M above).
Whenever I try being optimistic about something, my hopes are smashed against the rocks. But, when I am pessimistic, then I am pleasantly surprised when things go better than I planned!
I spent a good 2 hours on this (including dealing with those shysters at geocities – I’d forgotten what a kerfuffle their upload process was) so forgive me for being somewhat off-topic.
Don’t be a pessimist, go to –
Link
Hmmm… “Sorry, the page you requested was not found.”
Looks like the pessimists win again, Nick M.
Nick M – Bin Firefox. It is a loathesome system. It buggered up my life and I finally got rid of it.
I like Firefox. IE is the work of the Devil, Netscape is the work of an incompetent devil (with an addiction to “features” and I’m not a fan of the Opera.
My link was incorrect, sorry folks, and those giraffe-molesters at geocities can go hang.
The correct link is:
Link
Don’t agree. Pessimists have more fun because we’re always right.
But aren’t you always pessimistic about whether you’re right or not? If given a choice between being Eeyore and Tigger, I choose Pooh.
Three things occur to me:
(i) I have greatly enjoyed the books by Robert Heinlein that I have read, but have not read one of his for ages. I must put that right.
(ii) His definition of pessimist reminds me of the stopped clock. That clock is exactly right twice per day. Whereas the clock that is slightly fast or slightly slow is only exactly right once every zillion years.
(iii) The best sort of person to be is a realist.
Best regards
The fact that a stopped clock randomly happens to be right twice a day does not make it any less worthless.
If you believe you can do something, you might be wrong, but if you believe you can’t do something you will be right. Good things happen more often for (I didn’t say to) optimists.
The one who always sees his glass as half empty is the one with the forethought to get a refill before they run out.
Personally, my own outlook can be characterised as “cheerful realism|”.
I think pessimism is a bit of a cop-out, in a way. It is like sailing around with a constant white flag!