Thread by @george__mack

Is optimism a scam?

Here's the skeptics guide to optimism:

If you study history, you find iconic examples of people bending reality with positive thinking

E.g. Churchill and Schwarzenegger

Here's the skeptic's response:

1. For every Churchill or Arnold, there are thousands of delusional people that said similar things who we've never heard of.

2. If optimism alone can bend reality -- why don't starving children use this tool?

The skeptic is correct.

The mistake the optimists made:

The marketing was way better than the product -- but the product wasn't bad.

The skeptics then throw out the baby with the bathwater:

To use the skeptics language:

The placebo effect has 100,000+ references on PubMed.

The placebo effect shows the impact optimistic or pessimistic expectations can have.

The Cocktail Party Effect is the best argument for optimism:

At cocktail parties, your brain blurs out 100's of surrounding sounds and focuses on your conversation

When the background sound mentions a trigger word: (e.g. Your name or hometown) -- your brain suddenly picks it up

Life is a huge cocktail party

Your brain is tuning out millions of inputs

If you're a optimist, your brain tunes into opportunities -- like a trigger word at a cocktail party

If you're a pessimist, your brain tunes into problems -- like a trigger word at a cocktail party

Optimism isn't going to fix the world's problems

But optimism combined with action might add a 1% improvement everyday to an individuals life (seems like more reasonable marketing)

And if you let that 1% compound, it can lead to something incredible with time (via @JamesClear)

Brian Armstrong used to write down:

“I will create a billion dollar tech company”

Is this the main reason for his success? Definitely not

But was it a small nudge at life's cocktail party that helped spot billion dollar opportunities? Maybe

It's never been sexier to be cynical or pessimistic.

If you still can't find any reason to be optimistic -- maybe try the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants everyday.

Read this email Steve Jobs sent to himself 13 months before he died

PS. If you want a rabbit hole on placebos

Dr. Bleecher ran out of morphine to operate on wounded soldiers in WW2

So he pretended to give them morphine before surgery -- but he actually used saltwater

The soldiers tolerated surgery as if they had morphine -- with saltwater

If you enjoyed this, I'm adding "The Skeptics Guide to Optimism" to my 0.1% of ideas.

You can get the full list here:

george-mack.com