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Indeed, it’s not a bad idea to pay attention to Steve Hsu’s advice.
Steve Hsu is right. Funnily, his aphorism also perfectly summarizes the experienced player’s perspective on life and the sexual market: smartly pessimistic about the evolved nature of women’s romantic desire and keenly observant of patterns that he can exploit. Wisely optimistic about his will to power to guide that nature to his personal advantage.
Hsu may be fairly-to-highly successful in more different ways than just about anybody I know.
Hsu is refering to theoretical pessimism/optimism rather than practical, no?
I have often noticed, in my own life as well, that the primary difference between how people perceive the world depends more on what they do than what they think. Armchair warriors often make the best strategists in their own minds because they have never actually been in a firefight- think neo-cons and how optimistic they were about the outcomes of invading Iraq, I believe Cheney estimated the cost at 50 billion pre-invasion. After the fact we have to total in all the possible costs associated with the invasion and it’s aftermath from veterans care and survivor benefits to lost standing of American influence, rebuilding costs, Shia dominated Iraq in the aftermath etc, etc. Final tally is now in the trillions because of an “optimism of the Will”.
Pyrrhic victory is an apt metaphor.
When someone actually does something they face realities rather than potentials.
When you quote the line- “…sometimes will can overcome the odds.” what it translates to- for me- is that an intellectual can accomplish something that ought not be accomplished simply because it fits his theoretical presupposition. For Hsu, inside the ivory towers of academia, this might appear to be correct, absent a connection to what folks once upon a time refered to as the “out of doors”, it appears to hold up. Of course there are the unintended consequences attendant to imposing one’s “optimism of Will” upon natural orders that are often unmentioned until the damage has been done.
Best example is is industrial agriculture. If we simply apply the laws of assembly line production to a natural process, let’s say animal husbandry, we can produce more pounds of meat per acre than a traditional small scale farming operation, AKA Cheney’s Iraq estimate. Fifty years later we face depletion of soils that took tens of thousands of years to build up, the destruction of family farming that has existed since the founding of this nation that may never be replaced, the pollution of waters and the attendant costs of associated illness and diseases, etc, etc.
Earl Butz may have had an “optimism of Will” that “overcame the odds” but cost us far more than was ever saved on a per pound basis at the grocery store.
I use farming and combat as metaphors because I know them both on a practical rather than theoretical level. optimism and pessimism are- as I said earlier in another comment- flip sides of the same coin and indivisible on a practical or working level. An infantryman who goes into combat without a full grasp of both is ineffective at best and a dead man at worst.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, best advice, evah.
Hardscrabble farmer: Where do you derive your ought from? The Holy Bible?
Carl Von Clausewitz said that the outcome of war depended on quantifiable metrics and the strength of will. You, however, have the wrong end of the stick. Armchair warriors reduce everything to quantifiable metrics while people who have engaged in the activity understand the importance of will in the event itself.
For Cheney’s purposes his “optimism of the will” was a complete success. He bended Iraq and the US government to his pleasure. The implication that you’re owed something for being a gold star human being on this planet has no reality – in theory or in practice.
BCD-
No idea what you mean by “ought”.
FWIW Von Clauswitz was a soldier prior to being a military strategist and his greatest contribution to military history was the concept of “the fog of war” wherein military commanders on the ground in the thick of action determine outcomes, not “armchair generals” a thousand miles away. But I thank you for reinforcing my original thesis.
No one outside of my immediate circle of family and community owes me anything and if you believe that Cheney (and by extension neo-con policy in Iraq) was a “success” I can understand how you missed my message by such a wide berth.
Steve Hsu is putting his own spin on an aphorism who’s author invites a certain suspicion from those not beholden to atheism.
A “pessimism of the intellect” is an admission that one cannot get to a spiritual realm through his “intellect.” And because the “pessimism of the intellect” had already rejected ALL “empirical evidence” for “spirit” then his “intellect” was his last resort. When Steve Hsu says that the “pessimism of the intellect” means to be a “scientist,” he is ACTUALLY saying, “be an atheist… Know that there is no empirical evidence for “spirit” and therefore you will not reach the “spirit” intellectually, either.” So instead, assert “optimism of the will.” Speak “odds.” Say something nonsensical like “will” overcoming “odds.” Then take this false conception of reality and claim it real. Will can overcome Odds.
Where I ask???
Where has the “will” with no spirit overcome the “Odds?”
And where has “will” with no spirit ever been optimistic?
hardscrabble farmer: The Iraq war has left Iraq in far better straits than before. Sure, there’s still sectarian violence, but at least dissidents and people’s daughters aren’t rounded up and murdered or raped as before. And there is a working democratic system. The rest of the Middle East can’t make that claim.
I agree with Steve Hsu, but honestly, such a perspective doesn’t seem to be accessible to most people because ultimately “optimism” and “pessimism” are very nebulous and threadbare terms.
The classic “glass half full, glass half empty” delineation demonstrates how fluid (sorry!) our concept of optimism and pessimism can be.
Hsu is essentially telling us that our own personal self-truths are optimism incarnate. If you believe that there is no god, this can be your own private optimism but another’s doomed pessimism. Conversely, your belief that there is a god might very well be my own pessimistic burden since I’m an atheist.
Is there even a uniform contextual foundation by which to use these words sincerely?