“If man ever flies, it will not be within our lifetime, not within a thousand years.” - Wilbur Wright to his brother Orville
Not only did Wilbur have a most difficult problem to solve, he also had to contend with negativity from all sides, incompetence in his field, and the cynics that are attracted to these types of situations. Wilbur’s exclamation to his brother was one of frustration and not one of belief and conviction. When doing something very hard, frustration is a constant companion. Solving the hardest problems is distasteful in that it attracts the cynics like flies to a cow pie. Not only does the champion confront a most difficult puzzle, there is always the hanger on curmudgeon that takes pleasure in tantalizing the put upon hero in his moments of weakness and frustration. The cynic cannot leave the hero to his difficult work, they must exacerbate his frustrations. So, I ask, what is the reason behind this lengthy critique of what Peter says? It's caught my interest. Other people become experts at video games; I've gotten similarly addicted to cold fusion debunking. This type of behavior is interesting from the standpoint of psychology. “I think we should call it the “Mary Yugo” symptom.” This brand of behavior is born in disillusionment, depression, and hostility (along with defensive pessimism) all form the constellation of traits that make up the cynic. Pop culture portrayals of cynics imply their dim worldview is just part of their constitution—think of Dr. Seuss's Grinch. Indeed, psychologists agree that cynicism is at least partly in the genes. People who have an inborn tendency toward depressive disorders are at increased risk of developing a cynical outlook, and Yale University cognitive psychologist Frank Keil found that children as young as 7 begin responding cynically to suspect statements as part of normal development. But University of California-Irvine personality researcher Salvatore Maddi contends that many cynics aren't so much born as made. According to Maddi, the first seeds of cynicism are often planted when people put in effort to achieve a goal like snagging a promotion at work or raising a self-sufficient child—and then see their high hopes dashed. This disconnect between expectation and reality gives budding cynics a feeling of helplessness, prompting the emergence of a hallmark of the cynical personality: the sense that nothing anyone does in life really matters. Such helplessness marks depression, too. While cynical people are at no greater risk for depression, says Michael Yapko, a clinical psychologist, those who ruminate on their pessimistic thoughts are. Another distinction between general grumpiness and a diagnosable disorder, Yapko says, is whether one's cynical attitude is directed toward just one realm of life—the government, say—or toward family members, work, and everything else. A few cynics become clandestine rule breakers. Most, however, merely keep their critical antennae extended at all times—trained disproportionately on others, not themselves, which leads them to be suspicious of people's motives. "When we're being cynical, we're always looking for evidence that something is fishy with a situation," says Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School who has conducted studies on employee cynicism. Of course, this kind of unforgiving judgment is sometimes justified, which is why cynics have always aroused so much interest and provoked so much hilarity. "It's hard to argue against cynics—they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side." When Bitterness Is Bad For You Don't stop parroting Daily Show host Jon Stewart just yet, but a cynical outlook really can take years off of your life. Thanks to their nihilistic bent, cynics tend to engage in more self-destructive behaviors than their sunnier peers. Research has shown that they smoke and drink more, and are more likely to commit suicide. Cynics also suffer and die from heart problems in disproportionate numbers. Cardiologist Donald Haas at New York's Mount Sinai Medical School found that suspicious people who suffer from heart disease are more than twice as likely as their more optimistic counterparts to end up gravely ill or hospitalized for their condition. Haas speculates that cynics may be less likely to follow doctors' orders—either out of spite or despondency. Why a Small Daily Dose of Cynicism Works Though cynicism may not be healthy in the long run, it can serve as an emotional coat of armor that blunts life's everyday indignities. Philip Mirvis, a cynicism researcher at Boston College, says cynics' caustic, detached outlook on life, also known as defensive pessimism, helps "protect them from what they imagine to be the slings and arrows of hustlers and higher-ups." If they assume from the outset that a client can't be trusted, or that a new mother-in-law will be a witch, they'll be well prepared in the event these fears come true. Casting a cynical eye on situations you can't control reduces the emotional attachment to a particular outcome, says Yapko, and actually lowers your vulnerability to depression. It may be healthy for the cynics to cast out their demons here at vortex, but it makes the rest of us optimists worse for wear. For those new evaluators of the truth about LENR, please realize that there is a form of psychiatric therapy in play here as a constant undercurrent in these discussions. On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 6:15 AM, Joshua Cude <joshua.c...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Axil Axil <janap...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> Joshua Cude is reminiscent of the old geezers who righteously proclaimed >> from their wheelchairs that man would never fly, set in their sclerotic >> attitudes pressed into their brains through years behind the reins of their >> horse drawn wagons. >> >> >> > You should keep an open mind to the possibility that cold fusion is not > the Wright brothers' airplane. Maybe it's Blondlott’s N-rays. It’s > Fedyakin’s polywater. It’s the alchemists’ gold from lead. It’s Lorentz’s > ether. It’s Le Verrier’s planet vulcan. It’s Popoff’s faith healing. It’s L > Ron Hubbard’s Xenu. It’s Uri Geller’s bent spoon. It’s Madoff’s Ponzi > scheme. It's Agricola's dowsing. It's Hahnemann's homeopathy. It’s > Wakefield’s autism from vaccines… > > Remember Asimov's comment: to be a persecuted genius, it is not enough to > be persecuted. > > > And by the way, it was not only geezers who were skeptical of aviation. > Wilbur Wright said in 1901, "If man ever flies, it will not be within our > lifetime, not within a thousand years." > > > Meanwhile, Langley, a pioneer of aviation, started investigating > aerodynamics as his second career. He was near 70 (and a strong advocate) > when the Wrights first flew. > > > >
