Why are humans so pessimistic when they predict the future?

[Rali_hates_Mondays]

Hardly any optimistic predictions about the future are made. In history there are the works of H.G Wells and George Orwell, who predicted a cold, hellish, harsh and cynical future. AIDS was seen as the disease that would kill off the human race. Even today people have generally negative outllooks especially over global warming, terrorism and disease. Why are humans never positive about the future?

 

[winterknight]

It's hard to be optimistic with a misty optic.


... I have no idea what that means.

 

[RationalLunacy]

It all started when they arrrested Miss Cleo.....

 

[luminum]

I figure since the inevitability of all things is to end/die and people naturally interpret the end of all things as bad, though it isn't necessarily.

 

[blackbeltninja]

Because, as the T800 says in Terminator 2 while on a gas-stop on that desert stretch of highway, "it is in your nature to destroy yourselves."

Spot-on, I thought. We're not responsible enough collectively and rely on a few groups/nations to look out for everything and amend their own bad habits so we can carry on with our own. What I mean by that is, if enough people are trying to save the rainforests with any modicum of success, it doesn't matter as much if I don't try.

-d-

 

[Swellegant]

As far as books and movies go, it's simply not in the rules of fiction to have the happy ending at the beginning... "Chapter 1, Everything is wonderful; Chapter 2, Everything continues wonderfully; Chapter 3, And they all lived happily ever after." Doesn't make for much of a read.

Instead, much of futuristic fiction plays on the idea of turning something we want against us. Technology, space-travel, some ideal of social progress, or whatever, the writers of such fiction take the things we want and turn them into evils so that they can display their beliefs of the strengths of the human spirit. And it devolves back to the basic theme of "we are what we are, no matter how much cooler our robots and hover-cars and streamlined silver lamé jumpsuits get."

Or it is the author's explanation of what he or she thinks some new fad in thought or technology might lead us. 1984 was a rather scathing look at what fascism and socialism and communism, very fashionable utopian ideals at the time, would eventually lead to. It was bleak because Orwell didn't see these as good things and wanted to warn everyone else about the dangers of such utopian thought. And if you thought Orwell's future was bleak, you should take a gander at Evelyn Waugh's short stories written after the War... brrrr!

I find that the point of pessimistic futurism is to return our attention to the here and now, instead of letting us fantasize about how much better things will be later. It's sort of a cold shock to jolt us out of spiritual procrastinating.

 

[trawler69]

If we don't focus or aren't encouraged to focus on the bad we will ignore it and it will happen. For instance HIV, if this had been ignored because its results could be bad, none of the developments that have taken place in its treatment and awareness would ever have happend and it could have been the end of humanity. It still could be in some parts of the world if we don't help them.

George Orwell's 1984 with it's vision of the future, spurred groups to appear to prevent that scenario and was much quoted in the campaigns. These forward thinking authors do us a great service in opening our minds to the future possibilities and help us to do something to prevent them. Our main focus for the planet at the moment is global warming / climate change. It is pessemistic in that if we don't do something about it we are fucked as a race, the world will survive but we will become like the dinosaurs but with the difference that it will be through our own stupidity.

So I say thank you to those who paint a pessemistic picture of the future because it gives us something to avoid it is a warning.

A meterologist warns of a possible hurricane, do you say "Piss off you pessemistic bastard" or do you take precautions to save youself from it?

We need pessemistic opinions to take positive actions.

Well that's my take on it.

 

[iah822003]

Maybe you should watch "Bicentennial Man". They depict a more utopian future.

 

[looseliam]

Have you seen the future? It sucks.

 

[iah822003]

Well is there anything that would make us think otherwise?

 

[RenaissanceMan]

We need pessemistic opinions to take positive actions.

We try to identify possible problems we will need to face in the future...and sometimes people create problems which will never come up (like same-sex marraige causing the downfall of "traditional" marriage and all of humanity with it).

Fear is a wonderful motivator...for buying, improving, researching, etc. When it's far off, we usually downgrade it from fear to "concern" perhaps, but it still makes us do something about it. The closer it is, the closer it is to being fear... predicting the sky will fall in 3 million years was never as exciting as predicting it will in 2 weeks.

 

[Croynan]

I may be wrong, although local village idiotes rarely are, but after the 1000 days of John F. Kennedy, I think this country as a whole, has lost much of its spirit, vision and direction as to where we should be going in the years to come.

I still do no think that this country has recovered from that horrendous event and the deep psycological and profane effect it had on the people at that time.

True those generations have grown older and newer ones have come along, but the leadership we have seen since then has failed, i believe, to provide vision and positive goals as to where we should be headed.

True Mr. Kennedy did not win by a large margin, but his impact during those 1000 days was one of leadership, a vision, a sense of the future, an ability to reach out to the American public and present America on the world scene with a vew perspective.

Even during the misery of the Watergate Scandal and departure of Richard M. Nixon, did I feel as pessimistic about this country and its future as I do now. Why we have allowed ourselves to accept such a low standard of leadership during these past five years is beyond my comprehension. And to have individuals such as D. Cheyney and K. Rove anywhere near the presidency has been, i believe one of the greatest political disasters I have ever seen.

For the first time in the history of this country a woman will be the Speaker of the House and the third in line to the presidency. It is my hope that this most critical step we will be taking will be the one that will lead this country forward once again with some degree of dignity and responsibility of our role amongst other nations.

pessimistic random thoughts from the local village idiot.
eM.

 

[AdrianLD]

Because it is far easiler to be negative. Ironically, one of the few things you have control over is your own negativity. You have to be fast, but you can do it. So, I guess that most people are seduced by the dark side when it comes to predictions, but most of them only come true if enough people believe in them.

 

[MadeUpName27]

In the future - I will die.
In the future - You will die.
In the future - Everybody will die - eventually.

It's kind of tough to predict Rainbows and Sunshine and Bluebirds when you have accepted the cold, hard reality of life and death...

 

[TaigaStar]

Because (after writing and rewriting a long discourse that just got deleted on a whim) people like to think they're the be-all and end-all of existence and that nothing but the inevitable death we see in nature is all that lies ahead.

 

[Rali_hates_Mondays]

Do you think this pessimism is symptomatic of freedom of speech?

 

[blackbeltninja]

No. It's symptomatic of all the bad (to the envronment and each other) things we do on a daily basis, often without being called to task on it.

-d-

 

[Claudio63]

"Plane crashes killing hundreds" is headline news. Nobody gives a fuck about a plane making a routine, happy landing (except the passengers, of course).

Pessimists are intellectual and deep. Optimists are fools who live in la-la land.

A song about losing the man of your life is meaningful. A song about how much you love your man is a silly love song.

Dramas win awards, comedies are rarely "taken seriously".

etc.

I have no idea why we give more importance to sorrow and take our happiness for granted. I guess sour has a stronger taste than sweet.

 

[screwnutty]

Well there's two tv shows that show the human race being able to do more then just die and kill each other off.

The first being Star Trek. Come on now....deep down inside every one of you wants to be the captain!

The other show being Doctor Who!

The human race has so much potiential for greatness....were just to busy screwing each other around for the all might dollar right now! oh and the black oil....can't forget about that stuff!

 

[star-warrior]

Doris Day

Que Sera Sera

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

When I was young, I fell in love
I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead
Will we have rainbows, day after day
Here's what my sweetheart said.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Now I have children of my own
They ask their mother, what will I be
Will I be handsome, will I be rich
I tell them tenderly.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.​