Interesting person on LJ

[liveonearth]

theheretic is a type I diabetic and former science fiction writer. I was wandering around in his journal and it is full of great ideas and interesting thoughts about our future and human nature.

Here's a quote from the middle of an entry about why he is alive, which in a word, is "insulin":

Optimism is a terrible evil, one of the greatest ever, imho. Like religion or shame. It is a destructive creation meant to enslave. Its very hard to explain why unless you're a serious pessimist like me. Optimism has positive results, but the negative ones are maddeningly squashed and ignored. People don't learn when they're optimists. They just keep thrashing around until they're dead. And usually, after they've infected more idiots with optimism so they'll die too. Peasants aren't optimists, they're just realistic about their odds of survival and accept an early death as the cost of being alive at all. If we were less greedy for comforts, and less optimistic, we'd have avoided the pitfalls that have already doomed our civilization, and will send people like me off to a painful death.

Comments

[neptunia67.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in what attracted you to this section of his post.

Being an optimist, what he says doesn't ring true. I'm not really sure I get the point of his post at all. But then again I don't know him so to come in cold it just seems incredibly cynical and negative. Then again, I might be the same if I had to depend on a drug for my life.

[littleblueghost.livejournal.com]

Ok, I don't know if I am an optimist, pessimist or realist...

I have hope for humanity, but realise the number of mistakes we have made getting to where we are today... and we need to make changes if we want a future. I am optimistic that we can, as individuals, make said changes, however I am pessemistic about it because the people that make the large scale decisions that affect us on the population basis tend to be selfish, and not looking out for the future, simply after there own greed.

I think the truly intelligent people look to the future with hope and fear, as they see where we could go - both sides of the coins (Is that a realistic point of view?)