No that wasn’t my issue with him there. My issue with him was that he was not reading what was being said making claims about what I had and hadn’t said even though he admitted to not reading all the comments in the discussion. So I will not apologise to him for being arrogant, aggressive and adversarial.

Not to mention that if you would read what I said you would see that I agreed with some of it too. Do I have to agree with all of it? No. I’ll apologise if he does as I wasn’t the one acting like a child.

So please tell me which inconsistencies in my other discussion did I not respond to? Point them out please and please tell me exactly where I didn’t listen to those inconsistencies. Describe those inconsistencies and then point out where I point blank refused to listen I dare you?

Not there, dyou know why? because I was treating God must be atheist with respect up until the point I realised he was going to give none back. I’m more than happy to give people the benefit of the doubt and treat them with respect but I won’t keep it up if I get none back. That’s just me.

“I never read all your other comments in this thread but the general ones, the ones directed at me, and some (but not all) of the comments directed at others.

I plead quilty to that charge.

Is it a site rule, or just your unnamed requirement by you which you spring on me now?” - god must be atheist

Read this, if a student said to me that he hadn’t read all of a book they were assigned and has no understanding of nuance in complex arguments then whatever he writes in response to it will be Subpar.

“Optimism alone or pessimism alone are ridiculous measures when it comes to fighting a physical phenomenon that threatens mankind.” God must be atheist

“By yours and others answers this is becoming apparent. Any measure employed alone is ridiculous. Luckily I never suggested that Optimism or Pessimism alone would be all that was needed. That’s no better than the theory of attraction nonsense peddled by self help con artists.” - my response

Look, agreement! So where exactly am I not following my own advice and where is God must be atheist following it?

Oh, not to mention that not a single one of god must be atheists responses was original they were all mirrors of other people’s responses.

“Most posts like this are usually full of shit, imo, but admit not as bad as that one lady posting virtual signalling psychology articles about her superior pacifism in the middle of a debate.”

If you think honestly think, collaboration, honest debate and admitting to ones own mistakes is what makes people full of shit then I don’t think we are going to get along and you should ignore my posts because I won’t be responding to you again. I’ve really not got time for people trying to make me feel badly just because they haven’t learned.

I never read all your other comments in this thread but the general ones, the ones directed at me, and some (but not all) of the comments directed at others.

then don’t claim I never made a distinction if you can’t even figure out which comments where the distinction is evident. Can’t exactly accuse anyone of lying about what they wrote when you didn’t read It.

I read that, in a paraphrase form, and I think not only are they insufficient, but superfluous and immaterial. That also includes insufficient, but insufficient can mean also that it is necessary. I say optimism and pessimism are neither sufficient, nor necessary in this instance.

Yet you think you can make fun of my grammar and semantics? Wow. Go away and rethink how you’re approaching education because it’s pretty much a patch job.

“You're pushing your own blunder's onus on the community? Pfuy.” Oh yes because you are 100% perfect and right in everything that you say or do in this community. I’m taking the onus for my mistakes if you’d learn how to read. You however jumped into the conversation late with a watered down and copier response that you mirrored from someone else far more up to the task of raising it than you.

Even Kant and many many other philosophers admitted to mistakes later in life from Socrates to the modern day.

If you go around looking for things to be 100% right before you listen to them then you are going to be eternally disappointed and I feel very sorry for you because you’re going to miss so many things. I hope you grow up soon and figure out what debate and discussion is all about but it would help if you learned some humility in the long run.

In reality, all philosophers are on the same team in the pursuit of knowledge even if they identify in different ways. We are all here for the same reasons. If you’re angry at me for knowing that I can change and improve my understanding by accepting the wisdom of others (including yourself by the way) then that’s your prerogative.

Where am I dismissing anything you arrogant fool?

What about "doing everything in our power, to avoid catastrophy and at the same time not make an impossible pre-judgement whether our efforts will be fruitful and work, or not, by being pessimistic or optimistic."

I never made an impossible prejudgment, I asked a question of the community? How is it possible to make an impossible prejudgment? That makes no sense.

You really need to calm down and learn what discussion is all about instead of making it a competition.

Okay unlike you I do actually read the comments, yours, others and people who aren’t even replying to me. If you had read the other comments you would know that I have actually made the distinction to others raising similar issues as yourself. I you read the reply I made to you properly you would also read that I agree with the overall premise that pessimism or optimism alone and even outlook alone is insufficient. So overall this has been a successful discussion really. Was I somewhat wrong in my opening statements and perspective? A little bit. Yet I am not struck down as if by lightning? I don’t care if I’m wrong, what I care about is knowing I’m willing to admit it and alter my perspective. It’s called intellectual honesty.

So if realism dictates after a dispassionate assessment; Optimism in the face of adversity. And, if we are also asking what the options are. Aren’t we already engaging in realism if we ask and discuss which is the better of the two options?

I just checked with others and they say that although compact, it’s understandable and correct.

Can anyone think of good terms for the “rest assured, success is guaranteed” kind of optimism and the “give up, success is impossible” kind of pessimism, in contrast to the more pragmatic “try your best because success is possible” optimism and “try your best because success is not guaranteed” pessimism?

Unjustified optimism/pessimism vs justified seems to me the best option for now, or just making it clear that we are optimistic about the fact that we can act now to lessen a pessimistic future outlook.

Aside from the quote not making any grammatical / semantic sense, it is nonsense to think that optimism is a help or a hindrance in the face of adversity, and it is a nonsense to think that pessimism is a help or a hindrance in the face of adversity. They both, optimims and pessimims, play no role in dispassionate assessments. Remember, optimism and pessimism are both reflections of passions; dispassionate excludes the role of passion; therefore it excludes optimism and pessimism.

If it didn’t make sense then how did you understand what I meant? If you’re having a problem with the language used that’s fine but if you understand my meaning then it clearly made sense. Also, if you’re best objection is grammatical in nature then it kind of just highlights that you don’t have a strong counter argument. Particularly as it pays no mind to theories describing utility in different emotional states.

What if optimism tells us, "hey, God will save us all, don't worry, we are made in his image, just forget it."

Then I’d say this is unjustified optimism about the future and apathy to ones own ability to act in the present for the lazy purposes of appealing to a higher authority to excuse oneself of responsibility.

Neither pessimism nor optimism plays a role in pragmatism. Your personal opinion on the future of a physical phenomenon is completely negligible. It is null and void. It is immaterial, it is totally irrelevant.

In the event happening it is completely null and void. In surviving said event however..

Optimism alone or pessimism alone are ridiculous measures when it comes to fighting a physical phenomenon that threatens mankind.

By yours and others answers this is becoming apparent. Any measure employed alone is ridiculous. Luckily I never suggested that Optimism or Pessimism alone would be all that was needed. That’s no better than the theory of attraction nonsense peddled by self help con artists.

Outlook is still going to be one of the many many contributing factors but that doesn’t subtract from the importance of discussing that factor.

Overall you are correct though and I’ve rethought my position.

In conclusion I feel with everyone involved this has been a very fruitful conversation.

My stance has shifted somewhat; We should absolutely feel pessimistic about the future, but should be optimistic in our ability to act now in the present to at least mitigate the damage climate change will invariably cause even if we figure out how to start reversing it within the next decade or two.

I think maybe the next thing to move on to once you and others have the chance to reply to my conclusion and offer your criticisms. Would be to open up a new discussion along the lines of asking what or who should we be prioritising in our efforts to increase the survival chances of some of the human race?

I think we can probably most of us agree that it shouldn’t just be the rich elite?

Anyway, keep an eye out for a new discussion.

“Realism says that the situation should be assessed as dispassionately as possible in order to weigh up the options. It also says that we should face the very real possibility that nothing will be done due to human denial and complacency.”

Agreed. So if realism dictates after a dispassionate assessment; Optimism in the face of adversity. And, if we are also asking what the options are. Aren’t we already engaging in realism if we ask and discuss which is the better of the two options? So long as we are willing to periodically repeat our dispassionate assessments?

Are you familiar with Chaos theory in predicting weather patterns?

We cannot change.

The social protest is but a mere contradiction - we indulge and waste what we have and at the same time demand change to our own behaviour. Because we are not capable of effecting change, nor do we desire it.

All humans ever truly do is change, every day. That’s all life does; Obstacle, adapt, fail, adapt, succeed, obstacle, adapt etc. This is the basis for evolution. If you are trying to suggest we can’t evolve, that’s not to as evolution is happening with every single birth.

Now, social evolution is even more chaotic than physiological evolution because it involves so many abstract factors.

If you can honestly look back at how drastically our society has changed in just the last few decades let alone the last few centuries and still say that “we can’t change” them I’m sorry but it’s just wrong.

I think, if we stop categorically stating that “we can’t change” and instead ask ourselves “how do we change?” at least our mind is open to realistic possibilities and opportunities as opposed to disbelieving and missing them all. Once we have an answer to that question, we need to act on it and enter a conflict with ourselves for change. Sometimes you will fail, but you can always adapt both your tactics and strategy until you succeed.

People that say they can’t change are only correct until they stop believing that, at the point they stop believing that it becomes much more open for debate at the very least.

Chin up my friend. Outcomes might look grim but unless we are bound, chained and gagged we can always be optimistic in our ability to act in some way. Even speaking is an action, as is writing.

research has shown that positive thinking, in the form of fantasies about an idealized future, predicts low effort and poor performance.

Charity solicitations often encourage people to imagine a positive future of crisis resolution. The present studies shed light on how such positive fantasies are likely to affect giving,
depending on the amount of resources required. Idealized pos- itive fantasies about future crisis resolution lead people to per- ceive demanding requests (i.e., requests for relatively much money, effort, or time) as too demanding. Accordingly, such fantasies dampen helping when many resources are required to resolve a crisis.

Positive thinking in the form of fantasies specifically. However much can be said here about these papers. I agree with the conclusions already, however they aren’t really the full components of the Optimism argument. Optimism that we as an individual can act and contribute to effect change is not the same as positive thinking about a idealised fantasy about the future.

Maybe this is where we see the need for both optimism and Pessimism but should be clear on what we are being pessimistic about and what we are being optimistic about. We should absolutely be pessimistic about the future because realistically it is absolutely terrifying when you use futurism to determine potential outcomes based on how things appear to be going. However, unless you are bound, gagged and chained up permanently you can always be optimistic that you as an individual have the power to act and effect a magnitude of positive change that is at least better than 0%.

When we start to think about modality and utility in ethics in regards to studies in futurism; we should be broaching questions of what is and isn’t possible for ethics to achieve and even what is and isn’t possible for ethics to fail.

With so many probabilistic factors at play, any single positing of one possible outcome be it negative or positive is going to ultimately be misleading. Therefore any complete philosophy of futurism, must come with a multitude of predictions of potential outcomes and all of these predictions must come with their own pros and cons. No future is going to be either all positive or all negative, at least from a biocentrist perspective. At the point when no life is possible in the universe due to big freeze or crunch etc (whichever is the correct end theory) There will be no one around to say it is either positive or negative. While the universe holds life however; there is always the chance someone will be able to find both the good and the bad in every realistic potential outcome. Any form of life that claims it is only one or the other is probably wrong though.

Example number 1: We have a great economy, we are the strongest we’ve ever been, we’ve made America great again.

Vs

Example number 2: Sure not everything is great, but you can make it better.

Paraphrasing Trumps ramblings, and Obama’s “Make it better speech”.

@Isaac You may want to weigh in here also, in regards to potential solutions we never thought possible.

I’ll start answering your other questions in relation to the links now in the Optimism Pessimism discussion now that I’ve incubated on them a little.

It is what folks do that matters

I agree. So it’s what Optimism makes people do vs what Pessimism makes people do.

I think it’s ironic that even though this is man made climate change, people think there is nothing man can do to stop it. That may or may not be true but you can rest assured it’s mans job to try and fix mans own mistakes whether it is possible or not and the only way to have a fighting chance is to be optimistic.

No, biocentrism. I’m an ethicist not an economist.

what if your sphere of interest is the boats?

There might or might not be a way, so we must try for the best and neither give up nor rest assured, as either of those leads to inaction and so guaranteed failure.

Thank you for pointing this out, bit of implied virtue theory. Look for the golden mean between optimism and Pessimism. I like this :)

Simply by virtue of believing in and being open to better choices I feel.

A realistic assessment of the global warming crisis ought to result in feelings ranging from pessimism to despair, with a side trip to include rage

Ahhh, but here is where things get confusing for both of us I feel. I’ve been through these states already (just ask my fiancé I’ve been damn right miserable and pessimistic about this for the past few years.) So, why am I optimistic now? What has changed for me? I’m gonna need to think about this. Thank you, your responses are really helpful :)

Emotional states are body states as everything psychological is biological, this is psychology 101. Optimism is easy enough to produce in your body at will if you know how.

Follow instructions here: Stand up, take up a wide stance, hands on your hips, look up, force yourself to put on the biggest grin you can, hold for 1 minute. Let me know how it goes.

research has shown that positive thinking, in the form of fantasies about an idealized future, predicts low effort and poor performance.

I feel there is a difference here between unrealistic optimism and optimism coupled with realism.

Basically as good a description of the problem as you're ever going to get. Success measured by number of shiny items.

I actually agree with this, however I wasn’t describing this as things as a list of successes, but only as a list of things which previous generations would have thought impossible. Which they would have.

Define 'made it through'. What criteria are you using to determine that we've 'made it' - mere survival of the species (I expect that's going to happen anyway at some level).

Yeah the survival of the species will probably happen. The survival of our morals, culture and diversity is up for debate though. Those are things that I feel really need to be safeguarded as diversity increases long term survival.

As for morals... well when things start to get really bad you’ll see what I mean.

Um, I think you got lost in your metaphors here. Stomping on an optimism butterfly is supposed to accomplish what? Extinguish optimism?

Yeah it was pretty late when I was writing this and I did get lost in the metaphors a bit! Stepping on the Optimism butterfly in my mind at the time meant to choose to be optimistic but you’re right, it could be interpreted as stamping out optimism.

We believe that making even a small change in the past, would drastically alter the present.
— Mark Dennis

No, we don't.

We don’t? Everything I’ve read about chaos theory and time travel theory and every science fiction seems to indicate this and the margins aren’t always by millions of years. While literally stepping on one butterfly may be the sort of change that might take these magnitudes, to metaphorically choose the Optimism butterfly can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. A working class man may invest a dollar a month toward climate change research or technology to fight climate change, his student daughter may believe there is a way and go to school to study to look for it, in order to join the scientist whose optimism makes him work and research for a solution in the first place and the scientists grandmother may decide to gift as much of her accumulated wealth as she can to her grandsons research. These are all examples of (Freeing instead of stepping on?) the Optimism butterfly.

@jellyfish @Pantagruel@Artemis @Terrapin Station Want to weigh in on this? :)

About our chances of making safe our biosphere for us and as much within it as we can within the next 50 years. Should we as individuals be optimistic? Not really sure what else I can say to make myself clearer at the moment it’s late haha

Another argument for optimism.

The butterfly effect argument:
We believe that making even a small change in the past, would drastically alter the present. So is the Optimism butterfly the one we should be collectively stepping on? Doesn’t it also follow that if a small change to the past will drastically alter the present, then a small change in the present can drastically alter the future?

For Pragmatism. Which is more likely to increase our chances of weathering climate change? Optimism or Pessimism?

What does realism say in your perspective?

But which of the two is more pragmatic? Is believing there is a way with optimism better than disbelieving there is a way with Pessimism?

I’m a pragmatist by philosophy so I’m already responding with pragmatism.

Which is the better motivator to actually act and contribute toward the problem within your area of it? For example, if I was pessimistic, would I have bothered to post and ask the question?

Think of the problem as if it were a referendum where we actually have the ability to vote on whether or not climate change even happens. Answering with Optimism is voting for it not to happen and Pessimism is voting for it to happen. What happens if too many people vote Pessimism and what happens if enough people vote Optimism? That’s not to say outlook is the only factor here, but is it a contributing factor?

it's quite possibly the shortest route to a life of comfort and ease if you have the right mettle.

You could also say, that people that have the right mettle maybe have a duty to not seek a life of comfort and ease and instead seek a life in service of others. It’s easy to get comfort and ease with the right mindset, but to be honest it’s a little boring.

I value a good economy based on what a good economy can do for people. However, if not everyone is enjoying the benefits of a booming economy, is a booming economy a good thing?

Is making a million dollars the goal or is the million dollars the vehicle to the goal?

Is being rich good or is using richness for good things good?

seeking to prevent harm by causing harm is not justifiable in my book.

Even if you have to cause harm to an adult to stop them killing a child? Or a dog attempting to kill a baby or a kitten?

Some quick Googling suggests that someone named Velleman is mainly responsible for its introduction to philosophy of mind, and since we were discussing the status of moral beliefs (a la Kantianism vs Humeanism) in the context where that was introduced, rather than the meaning of moral assertions

I’d very much like to hear your opinions of Humeanism in this regard as it will make an interesting study in discussing new beliefs from the same geographical location today by comparing them to my own. (Me and Hume are both from Edinburgh although admittedly his family also had an estate down south in Berwick.) So I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on how the Cultural context of Scotland effected the status of Humes moral beliefs and then I can tell you what contextual differences there are there now.

They may or may not play vital role in the preservation of the interconnected food chain. Their poop may be a delicacy to those microbes that are the feed for other bigger microbes, that feed the algea with nitrogen, and the algea feed blue whales and halibut... which feed us.

This what I wrote is conjecture, but I can see some merit in figuring that humans have not uncovered for their own edification some vital links in the natural preservation of life on this planet.

It may be conjecture but its point is pretty valid as we do have data on a lot of systems like you describe.
This strengthens my point that there is value in these systems and each creature within the system has a right to what it values from it, so long as it doesn't endanger the system itself.

The guy talks about ethics as a dual mechanism: drowning kitties and puppies is abhorrent, and more abhorrent is drowning your own children. Nobody does that**, and people even go into a burning building, much like cats do, to save their children. The guy calls that private ethics, and he juxtaposes that with public ethics, and he claims that public ethics grew out of private ethics, by transferring the reward-punishment system from one, which preserves the closest relative possible, to ethics that preserve society as such. He names a number of parameters, most of which I can't remember, that are different between what he calls private ethics and public ethics, but the jist is that private ethics are DNA driven, inborn; public are taught by peers and by other educators. Oh, and private ethics are universal, unavoidable, not a matter of choice, (see **) but public ethics are varied, and the individual not necessarily makes all of them his own.

As grotesque and abhorrent as I find the idea of drowning kittens and puppies, to say that nobody does that is wrong. However, we could also argue that the only motivation behind this is mental illness and the acts of the mentally ill cannot be moral statements outside of lucidity (Depending on the condition, Episodic Schizophrenics for example can make acts out of moral motivation when not in an episode).

I'm about to go to sleep but I will search and watch what you suggested and give you a thought out perspective on it tomorrow at some point.

Then you have Shogi from Japan, 9 and 6 men Morris and so much more I forget how many I’ve played now. Shogi is much harder than chess though and I suck at it.

Also to anyone reading my last; if that shark happened to be Bruce the vegetarian Shark from Finding Nemo... then I highly encourage you to push the other person with detonators off the cliff.

I’m a chess player too and I really enjoyed reading this! :)

Sounds like me a little haha I’m an aggressive player too although I’m probably nowhere near this guys level. I’ve won 52% of all 121 of my recorded matches. That’s a vast improvement to when I started recording though. :)

Yet if it came down to choosing between a human life and, say, a shark, then under what circumstances might the shark be the priority?

We value ‘non human parts of the biosphere’, but only insofar as they are of benefit to human survival, stability, security, etc. As I’ve said before - we need to be honest about the limits of our ‘symbiosis’.

Good question; it depends greatly on the shark and the human and whether or not I am capable of saving them without it being a suicide mission for myself.

So let’s build a thought experiment; You are standing atop a cliff overlooking the bay. You have two remote detonators in your hand. One attached to a human swimming in the bay and the other to a shark swimming a short distance away and the detonators connect to explosives on each. Next to you on the cliff is someone else with the exact same setup and are connected to the same shark and human swimming in the bay.

This person tells you, “that if the shark attacks the human they will press the detonator attached to the shark, killing it. but not if you press the detonator for the human and kill them first or you could blow up the shark first and save the human.

So, if you do nothing then both the shark and the human will die. If you make a choice between the two only one will die. What do you do?

Is your answer going to be based on the identity of the individual human if they can be known or the species of shark if it can be known? What if it is an endangered species of shark and the human a serial killer? What if it’s a prolific shark species and a child? If we are taking into account all of these factors then we are morally considering all parties and are engaging in biocentrism no matter how we choose to act. If however we make it humans vs nature and we save the human every time then we are engaging in anthropocentrism

As for your second paragraph; I don’t believe this is true as there are plenty of animals on the endangered species list with little to no discernible benefits to our species save for our appreciation of its existence. Why are we valuing them I wonder? Why do things need to have a benefit for us in order for us to just appreciate the fact that they exist?

Take bacteria, if we didn’t get bacterial infections at all, where would we be right now in terms of managing our resources if bacteria didn’t play it’s part in thinning us out a little bit? Same question for Mosquitos?

we need to be honest about the limits of our ‘symbiosis’.[

This statement I agree with. We can’t ignore that we value our own place in the biosphere also and naturally will defend our ability to remain a part of it. However one can hope it never requires the total genocide of any life but Anthropocentrists I’m sure will make sure the biocentrists recognise when this is the only alternative or will act so biocentrists don’t have to do something they consider immoral. Just in case a species with Dalek like motivations and psychology happens to crop up. For me, a genocide would only be justified for us or another species to carry out if that aggressor species is a genuine threat to ALL life or just ALL human life specifically.

So for example, if an extremely large Asteroid with an atomosphere that contained some form of life was on a collision course with our planet, I’d say we’d be justified in blowing it out of the sky if diverting its course isn’t an easy option.

Not to me. Reverence for life demands Biocentrism. It would be foolish to ignore the value of the non human parts of the biosphere in our own and their survival. Whether that is an Earth biosphere, the solar systems, galaxy or universe. Symbiosis with nature is a far safer state of affairs than behaving parasitically toward it.

I’m so glad you guys brought up Pessimism!

I’ll open up a discussion soon on Optimism vs Pessimism using the question “how we should react to climate change?” as a medium for the overall debate between Optimism and Pessimism.

https://time.com/5709100/halt-climate-change-300-billion/

Y’all should read this. To quote a wizard: Hope is kindled!

but a drop in the bucket compared to the obscene resources spent on one of the worst contributors to climate change: the military industrial complex.

Couldn’t agree with this more! Almost makes you wonder, if the past decades military budgets for even just the USA let alone the Global military budget had been going towards climate science would we even have a problem right now or would it be anywhere near as threatening as it is? Or even 25% of it?

Something we both agree on haha