Optimism vs. Pessimism

When I saw the speed at which Danielle crafted her response it seemed a bit hinky to me so I searched her history, and she’s simply copied and pasted a previous debate. I would call this bad conduct, and maybe even plagiarism. I want to go on the record as stating that I’m disappointed. I was expecting to have an original debate with her, and now feel cheated/duped into having a cookie cutter debate to which she has put no new thought into, and was so lazy as to not even change the wording from 10 months ago. http://www.debate.org... I will present my argument here and respond to her in round 3. Pessimism gets a bad rap, but it’s no better or worse than optimism. Both have their place, and when it comes to what is most important in life, humans can’t afford to be optimistic. It’s human nature to take for granted what we have, but that doesn’t mean that the foundations that hold us where we are, aren’t more important than our current situation. Aristotle said, “All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.” Don’t you think you would be happier if you didn’t have to work, and were free to be creative and engage with others? But even though this is something we all innately know, it’s not something we do? Why do we choose working over happiness? Why don’t we quit our jobs and choose the optimism of being free over the pessimism that you need money to live? The reason we choose a job over happiness is because of a hierarchy of needs that we have. Take air for instance, it’s not something we think about, but it’s something that has the highest priority in our lives. We all prioritize these needs, and Abraham Maslow created a hierarchy of them with the most basic and most important ones at the bottom and the more complex and more frivolous ones at the top. https://i.imgur.com... In this debate, I will prove that when it comes to the most important things in life expecting future outcomes to be negative is in your best interest. 1) It won’t all work itself out 2) You need a job if you like to eat 3) Buying lottery tickets and going to casinos isn’t a good investment strategy 4) They will do it again 5) Doormats are the pavement for other people’s happiness 1) It won’t all work itself out Don’t have a place to stay like the tens of thousands of homeless in America? I’m sure that the 1,000+ people who die each year in America to Hypothermia where optimistic about their chances of living through the night, they would have been much better served to be pessimistic and found shelter. https://www.cdc.gov... For the 49 million Americans struggling to put food on the table, it’s a much better plan to go to a food bank than to be optimistic about finding food or expecting it to work itself out. Let the pessimism of starvation flow through you to overcome your humiliation as you eat that free food to maintain your strength. Without your strength, you won’t have enough energy to get out of the cold, and we’ve already been down that path haven’t we? https://www.dosomething.org... 2) You need a job if you like to eat I wrote a book that I was pessimistic about, so I didn’t quit my job. Had I been optimistic… well no sales for a year would have left me with no money, and no money would have left me with nothing to eat. There is a pattern here on how my arguments are going to build on top of each other. Shelter from the cold is most important, then comes food, then comes security, then comes the “good life”, and lastly comes relationships. It is all based on Maslow’s hierarchy of what is most important, and I won’t be arguing anything past level 3 in this debate. https://i.imgur.com... To build on that, it’s not enough that you are optimistic because you have a job. You need to be pessimistic about how much your job pays or you’ll be like the third of the people in this country who are the working poor who have no security. They were optimistic that all they needed was a job, rather than being good little pessimists like they should have been. https://www.rt.com... 3) Buying lottery tickets and going to casinos isn’t a good investment strategy I think we can all agree the lottery is paid for by optimists. And it’s because of this optimistic nature that most lottery winners go broke. There are links in the article about how lottery winners aren’t happier, and healthier (but that’s level 4 on the chart so I won’t get into it), but the sentence that is the most telling is this one: “Studies found that instead of getting people out of financial trouble, winning the lottery got people into more trouble, since bankruptcy rates soared for lottery winners three to five years after winning." https://www.cnbc.com... If you think the lottery is bad, then you haven’t been to a casino. It’s the mecca for taking advantage of optimists. As this article puts it “They put opportunities in your path” "As [guests] walk back and forth past all the bells and lights and flashy accoutrements,"… "they're tempted to throw a coin in here and there, and many times stay and play for a while." The optimist sees these as opportunities to get rich, the pessimist sees them for the money sinks they really are. Be a pessimist with your money, and you’ll have finical safety. http://www.businessinsider.com... 4) They will do it again It’s easy to be optimistic that you will change that person, and the only reason they cheated with you was because of how special you are. The cold hard pessimism of intimacy is that they are cheaters, and they are 3.5 times more likely to cheat on you again. As the pessimistic saying goes “once a cheater, always a cheater”. https://www.huffingtonpost.com... How many times have you heard about an optimist who stays in an abusive relationship because they believe the person will change? Yet 44% are arrested for another domestic violence charge within two years. “The chances are high that an abuser will be abusive again”. Be pessimistic, and expect them to do it again… then leave because no one deserves to be in an abusive relationship. https://www.domesticshelters.org... 5) Doormats are the pavement for other people’s happiness Stories of friends taking credit and advantage of others are common, I would be surprised to hear someone who’s worked in corporate America and hasn’t experienced it. “Deceiving and manipulating us to get what they want, covert aggressors very actively try to control other people.” https://www.psychologytoday.com... Be the pessimist, and don’t let your “friends” work on possible future returns, instead expect them to pull their weight in the friendship right now. If “her coworkers constantly take advantage of her kindness and willingness to help.”, don’t be optimistic about them changing, be pessimistic or as Michael Josephson said “What you allow you encourage”. Being optimistic encourages others to treat you like a doormat because you are always giving for a return on your investment that the pessimist knows will never happen. http://www.selfgrowth.com... Conclusion Maybe once you get past the basics it’s worthwhile to be optimistic, but as I’ve shown (if a bit cheeky) is that on the important issues like staying alive, eating, shelter, money, relationships, and partners being pessimistic is the best choice. Sure, you can be optimistic and believe that cottonmouth just wants to cuddle, but it’s better to expect a bad outcome and give the deadly snake a wide berth. It’s important to understand that as we look at Maslow’s chart we can see that most of the perceived benefits of optimism don’t come into play until the high end of the chart. (my arguments are all in levels 1 – 3) I don’t know about you, but I have yet to meet an optimistic dead person.