Blind optimism is silly. But time and again we’ve shown that tit-for-tat is the best strategy in repeated games.

Start optimistic. Stop if it doesn’t work. In the long-term you don’t need to win every iteration, just enough for a positive expected value. And make sure you don’t get wiped out in any single iteration.

The weeks are short but the decades are long and the industry is smaller than you’d think :)

>I've been the ultra-cynic before, and agree that doesn't work either. People don't like working with you, and don't trust you.

Is the issue being that one isn't being cynical enough? If you are very cynical about how things will turn out, and share that with others who don't appreciate it (even if you are right), then you are being optimistic in thinking it will change things. Controlling one's displays to others to appear as whatever gets one their best outcome is being even more cynical, to the point of abandoning any attempts at open honest relationships, but it likely works the best if one can pull it off.

Though that might be a very big if, and getting caught faking this likely is worse. Then again, is forcing oneself to adopt optimism just an attempt to do this indirectly, a sort of 'fool yourself so you can better fool others' approach when more direct manipulation doesn't work, given that drive for the optimism is to get better outcomes?

Is that really how most people would define optimism these days? I know that's what it meant in Voltaire's time, but something tells me that if you asked modern optimist whether they thought we lived in the best of all possible worlds, a majority of them would either say no or that they don't know.

Are you certain about which way the arrow of causality points there? Your friend might have more reason to be optimistic because he is financially secure.

Have you logged into LinkedIn lately?

Nothing but pseudo "grindset" cargo cultists as far as the eye can see writing worthless technical platitude posts.

It feels like a parody site of itself these days.

Underpaid as in 200k p/a undrrpaid?

> > but optimists win. > Win.. what?

Depends what you want to win?

You won’t have happy kids and a good family life, if you don’t think it’s possible. Same as you won’t make a cool open-source library, if you aren’t optimistic (or naive) enough to go work on that.

And if you keep saying everything is impossible a huge drag extremely worthless and why even bother trying, you won’t get the fun projects at work.