A long time ago I I read about philosophical pessimism and came to the conclusion that what those pessimists say is actually as close to a fact about existence as one can get. Many philosophical pessimists like Schopenhauer or Zapffe agreed with the feature of our uniqueness that leads to desperation and pessimism about who or what we are.

And yet, what occured to me as rather peculiar about humanity is that we do not submit to this pessimism about life or not all of us at least. In fact, we have put up such a great fight for survival that were still alive today enjoying the benefits that our forefathers have bestowed upon us with the transmission of knowledge and continuation of society.

I was reading a magazine today called The Economist, about technogurus in Silicon Valley, Stanford, and Caltech who seem to be the positivists of our day and are creating new gadgets and devices that sustain and improve our daily lives. The point of bringing this up is that it seems that humans that are attracted to ideals and even utopias are doing something about lack or suffering.

So, while there is the lamentation of philosophers since Schopenhauer about philosophical pessimism, people are continuously doing something about it, with all the magic of the invisible hand, and scientific progress, and investments by our leaders in a better future. The point is that philosophical pessimism isn't an exclusive argument that can be mounted against reality or as a brute fact, and even if philosophical pessimism and Buddha's four noble truths are brute facts, then there are people aware, either consciously or unconsciously, that the issues brought up by pessimists do seem true, yet life is getting better because of these truths and the work our forefathers and science and the new age positivists are making the world better off.