Learning Kills Optimism Discussion
Learning Kills Optimism Discussion(Moved from UnitedStatesOfAmericaDiscussion)
Learning is the greatest killer of optimism.
What an interesting thing to say. I suppose it depends on what one "learns" and with what purpose one learns it.
This is, of course, only the product of direct experience, and may violate several sacred theories. Too bad. GravityWorks.
But there are problems without solutions, or problems too big for the actions of any small group of people to be significant to them. Learning about these problems, and they are many, sinks and kills optimism. And since ignorance entails ignorance of problems as well as solutions, it follows that learning, on the average, kills optimism.
Put another way; yes, it might be true that learning solutions improves optimism, but it is equally true that learning problems reduces optimism and further that there are more problems than there are (correct) solutions.
Oh, I'll cheerfully grant that "learning" depressing material tends to kill optimism. Problems without solutions? That's an odd assertion. Problems too big for the actions of any small group? Traditionally, I would guess that's also true.
For a valid technology set, I would anticipate that the most effective dissemination would be viral, inasmuch as self-defending bureaucracies would tend to resist such technology -- can't have people solving their own problems.
I do actually see your point. My optimism is the product of hands-on exposure to doing what works and watching what happens to people when you do that. I don't see war, hunger, poverty as unsolvable. Unfortunately they are handy tools for people of power with agendas that don't include solving them. This makes the solution harder, but not impossible.
I will further grant that workable techniques are a strange sort of best-kept secret: the people with the solutions want to encourage their widespread use, but this uniformly leads to their being attacked by those who depend on the problem's continued existence for their control.
I submit, however, that what works will eventually win out. But then, I'm something of an optimist.
And I'm a realist. I don't hope for anything which I don't have at least a squishy reason to believe is true. And I think a good dose of history would cure you of your easy optimism. And then, a dose of psychology might even kill it entirely. The history would tell you how many times good working solutions to problems have been suppressed and/or abandoned. The psychology would tell you we're in a race against the clock and that if we don't improve greatly soon (within two to five generations) then we will destroy ourselves. I still have hope but it's not based on the kind of material progress you're working for.
If people wanted the world to be a better place, even if only for themselves, then the last 3 millennia of history would never have happened. It would have been compressed into a few centuries. Remember; power structures don't exist in a vacuum, they exist because the population supports their existence.
Please elaborate how the last 3000 years (About 115 Generations) would have been compressed into 300 years (About 11 Generations) Just what kind of society and power structure would have been supported. Would it be generally optimistic, pessimistic, or pragmatic?
It's not a question of optimism or intelligence but of sanity. Assuming a doubling every generation, which is entirely feasible, then in 10 generations you can multiply a population a thousand fold. So you can go from 1 million people to 1 billion people within 200 years. This is the fundamental problem of history, one that becomes obvious if you play the CivilizationGame (not the computer game) and which cannot be solved if one keeps the assumption that human beings are rational.
Throughout human history, parents were too busy abusing their children, often killing them, to bother caring for them. And they were too busy being certifiable lunatics (consider the violent psychotic outbreaks we call "war") to advance their societies and their technology. The glacial pace of social and technological change is due entirely to a psychotic fear of change, any and all change. It's only now that this fear has lessened considerably that we experience marvelous advances within a single generation. (But only in the advanced countries, of course.)
If you started with a thousand emotionally well-adjusted people, wiped their memories and put them on a world with only basic technology (cities say), they would be back to our level within a single millennium. In fact, they would surpass it because they wouldn't have the warfare and iniquity we do.
And I think a good dose of history would cure you of your easy optimism.
If I thought I was condemned to relive history forever, that would be possible.
Easy optimism? Who said it was easy? It was learned. It was hard won. I don't call ten years of in-your-face work with socially and emotionally broken lives "easy" - but then, hey, it's only experience after all - that can't begin to compare with the lessons of history.
And then, a dose of psychology might even kill it entirely.
Yes. That's why I stay strictly away from psychology. I routinely offend people who have academic backgrounds in psychology. It's a false science; the very best that can be said for it is that it's a horribly broken science. I tell psychology buffs to keep their religion to themselves. Study it all you like. Practice it all you like. Just don't do it around me or with anyone I know.
A lot of psychology is junk, and a lot is good stuff. Do you dislike psychology because you don't like having to sort the two components out, because you disagree with the methodology, or because you don't appreciate the conclusions (which is what the above makes it sound like)?
Psychology is a failed subject. If it worked, the world would have been improved by its application. Its crown jewel, the American (US) educational system, wherein psychology has had a 50-year fling, is spiraling down into relevance extinction. It lacks the insight, the tools, or the technology to accomplish what could reasonably be expected of it: the improvement of the lives of those it touches.
True, every so often someone contributes something worthwhile to the subject, finds a way to get results from some splinter of theory within the scope of a unique interpretation, and every so often a practitioner through sheer dint of applied observation accomplishes some good. On the whole, however, if any of the physical sciences had to justify its existence on the kind of results broadly seen from psychology, such a science would have long since been junked.
Sciences have to do with understanding, not changing. As it is, there is a huge quantity of useless material stuck under the label psychology, but that's not to say there isn't anything good there, and capable workers will know the difference. Part of the problem, however, is that many people are unwilling to accept its conclusions or only ever hear about the pop psi garbage.
then how can I rid myself of this depression, without which I might be able to summon the will-power to actually improve my dreck life? Is there, then, no way?
Maybe it's just a question of perspective:
A Biologist was walking down the beach, and he came upon a young boy throwing starfish left by the tide, out into the water. When the man asked what the boy was doing the boy said he was saving starfish.
The Biologist said, "Look around you boy, do you really think you can make a difference?"
The boy stooped down and threw another starfish and said, "I did to that one!"
Looking back later the Biologist may have realized that he actually enjoyed helping the boy throw starfish back into the surf...
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