Non-doomers live longer - Research-based evidence

uNkNowN ElEmEnt

YOu know what? I think like everything its a matter of perspective. You may see me as a doomer but I don't view myself that way at all.

So what if society crashes and we all wind up living like hobbits in earth houses, foraging all day for our food. I think I like that more than having to put up with this construct. I won't even start going on about my personal oppinions of what this life is doing to us, but I can't see that once the adjustment is made that living a much reduced life would be that much worse for us.

Shannymara

Lumpy · Last edited by Lumpy on Sun Dec 23, 2007 1:32 pm; edited 1 time in total

uNkNowN ElEmEnt

YOu can cite all the studies you want to... I don't believe them. I don't believe that there are that many optomistic people... out there. I think they chose passively pessimistic people for their test subjects, whose brains and bodies are going to shrivel up becuase of those reasons not because they might be pessimistic.

I think they may have a different definition of pessimism, becuase I don't think there are that many truly and noticeable optomistic people out there.

In my life I have only ever met 3 or 4 people I could truly call optomists (and I have met thousands of people). And though I liked them as people... frankly they drove me nuts!

Yes, they were lovely, and they loved bugging me about being such a skeptic and pessimist, and often tell me that I'd be happier as an optomist... but my life is not set up for that... maybe that's it... Maybe its that I live in a different socio-economic level than you do, cause I don't see many optomists down here.

I truly believe there are only maybe 1 optomist in 10,000 people. Maybe not as bad as that, but close, damned close. I think its more of this psychology (shrinkology) that tell us we are supposed to be happy and if we aren't then we need to see a shrink and fix it.

I think the rest of it is propaganda to try and convince us that that is how we are supposed to be. They appeal to our longing to live a long life and strive for a glimpse of immortality by telling us this is how we are supposed to be, and that if we are good little people we too can have this bliss.

Maybe I come from a long line of depressive pessimists but my grandpa just turned 93, and he's as ornery a SOB as you can get... My other grandpa finally died at 91 and he was the most abusive, biggest racist, mean, old bastard I'd ever met... bar none. And believe me I've met some real pricks.

Take my landlord for instance, or how about the senior prison guard who liked to make rookie women cry, or the murderer who once told a phone caller he wished he'd raped and killed the victim that got away so she'd shut up and stop marching for an endo to violence against women.

These are all really old bastards, if they aren't supposed to live as long, why are they still poisoning the world with their existence? I just don't see any evidence that what these studies profess is anywhere close to the reality around me.

Does this make any sense? am I getting across to anyone?

Schopenhaurer's studies in pessimism.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/pessimism/chapter1.html

PhebaAndThePilgrim

Good day from Pheba, from the farm:
I tend to look at this subject from a different viewpoint. I am a people watcher. I often wish I had a degree in sociology. But then I would be dumbed down and would not be a people watcher.
My theory for what it is worth: I believe that people who do not accept the doomer mindset really do know how bad things are. I believe the frenetic shopping and mad consumption are all symptoms of a deep underlying, gut wrenching fear. I believe that people already know that we are on a runaway train. A person would have to be totally brain dead not to subconsciously absorb the signs that are all around us.
I am much happier knowing what is going on. I would rather face a bleak future head on than go around living with some nameless nagging fear that I just could not put my finger on.
Concerning the other subject being discussed on this site. I often hope that I still have enough brain cells floating around to find a way to end it if I get in really bad shape.
I would much rather die than end up with somebody changing my diapers while I prattle on endlessly about events that happened decades ago.
My Mother died of cancer. She passed away in my home. I was her caregiver for 17 months. I plan on taking myself out rather than suffering in such a manner. Good people, bad people. Cancer cells are like corporations. They don't give a rats ass about anything or anybody. they both exist for one purpose: growth.
There was a made for TV miniseries called: "Angels in America". I really liked it. I am a huge Al Pacino fan. In the film Pacino plays a real jerk. He is a powerful attorney who is gay and ends up with AIDS. There is another sweet young man named Pryor. Pryor also ends up with AIDS. Good person, bad person. Pathology does not care.
Bored and snowed in; again.
Pheba.

Narz · Last edited by Narz on Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

Lumpy

Narz

Lumpy

Lumpy

hubbertspeak7777777 · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 487

[quote="Lumpy"]

Nano

If you have a positive outlook on life, you will care better for yourself and your surroundings. If you a depressed, then you will neglect yourself and your surroundings. Seems pretty clear which one is better.

I'm a doomer, but that causes me no trouble. It's my current appraisal of the situation, and is subject to change as time moves on. It's not a state of mind.

The alienation is the thing that bugs me. I have difficulty sometimes relating to people who don't insist on trying to understand what the future might *actually* bring, instead of assuming status quo and hoping for the best. That causes me much more psychological pain then any squeemishness about doom.

Furthermore, I hate that I am for economic reasons tied to the current system which is causing problems and is as unsustainable as it is immutable, at core. Phebagirl has it right, but IMO the fear she talks about is this troubling worry in most people that they might not be a part of the problem per se, but they are certainly not part of the solution either.

I'd like my work to benefit humanity and the planet in some way, but there is just no money in that. If you can think of a new way people can waste energy and resources in a pleasant way, then that is probably a good idea for a new business. o the contrary: if you think of a way for people to use less energy and resources (for a price), prepare to go bankrupt pretty quickly. To earn some $$$ in this world you have to dance with the monster, which is capitalism and consumerism. The alternative is (voluntary) poverty.

Lumpy

You know, maybe part of the problem in comumication here is what the term "doomer" means to each of us.

I stated in an earlier post what I thought it meant. Maybe some of you could enlighten me as to what it means to you.

Would appreciate that.
_________________
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." Thomas Jefferson

Heineken

Sorry if I offended, Lumpy. I didn't pay proper attention to your newbie status here---normally I'm gentler and more welcoming.

This is somewhat of a soapbox issue for me, which is what provoked my outburst.

I think there are many people twitching around today who are already close to dead. Sitting in their cars in the creeping traffic jams, on the way to their office morgues or home to the mortgage. Marooned on a thousand other neon-lit moons I could list.

A discussion of length of life is meaningless without simultaneous consideration of quality of life. I think this society is too obsessed with living longer, at the expense of more important considerations, such as exactly how those lives are being spent. The ultimate expression of this nonsense is seen the medical professions, which too often jump through hoops to keep terminally ill people alive for a few days longer.

The opportunities for truly meaningful lives for average people are being pinched off at every turn. We should be talking more about that and less about making it to 100.

Also, I think I raised a significant point about difficulties in the future that are likely to shorten lifespans no matter how "positive" our attitudes are. Unless we pay more attention to those problems, we're unlikely ever to be in a position, as individuals, to know if your theory is true.

Many lives around the world are shortened by disease, war, and starvation. What about them? Doesn't it seem silly trying to live to 100 when a child in Niger is dying of typhoid complicated by malnutrition? What has happened to our priorities?

The point has been made elsewhere that too much optimism may lead to complacency over the issues that are threatening this planet and its passengers. If we feel good about ourselves and the world, we may be less likely to feel any urgency about taking the drastic measures that are needed to head off disaster.

I carefully re-read the article you linked and the linked item at the bottom of the article. I saw no actual discussion of the evidence linking a positive attitude to a longer life. It's possible that it was a finding of the study, but we don't know how strong the statistical association was. It would take many other well-designed studies to even begin to confirm this finding.

Fairly recently there was a study result suggesting that a positive attitude did not increase survival time in breast cancer victims. I don't have the link at hand. So, there may be conflicting evidence as well.

Bottom line: Doomers are not necessarily unhappy, negative people. For example, I'm a hard-core doomer who lives each day to the fullest and does what he can for the environment. I own 75 acres of land and I manage that land for a "green" future, even though I believe, based on all I have learned, that that future is likely to be "brown."

Perhaps I have learned more than is healthy for me. But facts are facts, and I prefer to face them head-on.
_________________
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother

Heineken