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On Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:16:45 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> So someone who wins the lotto will see it as predicting their winning
>> the lotto. Someone who finds $20 on the street will see that as being
>> confirmation that it was "predicted".
>>
> Interestingly, those that don't either ignore all the times it was
> wrong, or are never heard from again.
Sure, people tend to focus on what works when it works, not when it
doesn't.
>>> Otherwise, not so much.
>>> Its also rather fiddly. Some morons will take nearly anything as an
>>> example of "success".
>>
>> So, are you saying that being optimistic is moronic? Because after
>> all, optimists tend to take what they see that's positive as a sign of
>> success.
>>
> There is optimism and "blind optimism". The later works on a combination
> of personal, and selective bias. Personal bias means they won't remember
> a damn thing about when it didn't work. Selective bias means that the
> con artist will **never** admit to all the ones that never came back,
> called them a liar outright, or where otherwise annoyed, angered by,
> harmed by, or failed by, the scammer.
Everyone has personal biases. Even you. :-)
> Being optimistic when you have a good reason to is not moronic. Most
> people have a whole hell of a lot fewer "good" reasons for the things
> they do than they have mediocre, or even really bad, ones. Using those
> makes you human, which, unfortunately, way more often than I desperately
> wish was true, and amounts to the same thing as "moron".
I can't even begin to tell you the number of times something has happened
to me that has looked bad (and in fact probably been bad when it
happened), but in the end, things have worked out for the best. Even
when I lost my job and spent 4 months unemployed without unemployment
benefits - but with a mortgage.
I think that even though I was depressed, I was optimistic that things
would work out. And they did. Does that make me a moron for being
optimistic? I don't think so.
Jim
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