Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/26/optimists-live-longer.html
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I’m a pessimist so that I can prepare for the worse. Maybe I’ll live longer because I won’t walk out into the street expecting that car to stop in time.
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Sure optimists may live longer, but for us pessimists it will feel longer.
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Dang it 
Now I have something else to be pessimistic about 
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Well, fuck those optimistic fucks.
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Optimists extend their misery
- I corrected the headline
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“… Luckily, optimists see this as a benefit.”
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If you call that living.
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Fortunately it’s not a truly binary universe (aren’t they discovering “qutrits” now?) – therefore, consider:
OPTIMIST: The glass is half full!
PESSIMIST: The glass is half empty.
REALIST: The glass contains N ml. of liquid. Now, do you have a more interesting question?
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I’ll split the difference:
[lyrics by Mel Brooks – currently age 93]
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I’d love to be an optimist but everything sucks. What am I supposed to do?
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Unless they are American, then it’s in fluid ounces. (What a stupid measurement.)
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That was exactly the thought that ran through my mind.
And only optimists would believe that you can choose not to be a pessimist.
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That is just the Optimism speaking.
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ENGINEER: That glass is not the optimal size.
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From TFA:
“These relations were independent of socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors (e.g., smoking, diet, and alcohol use).”
I’m all for controlling confounding variables; but what kind of sample lets you disentangle the optimists from the depressed optimists(? A thing now?); or people who believe good things will happen from people who are reporting their life experience that good things happen?
Am I underestimating the supply of friendless alcoholics with chronic pain and a Panglossean outlook? The statistical wizardry of the contemporary researcher?
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PHYSICIST: Postulate a perfectly spherical glass…
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Depressed optimists aren’t a thing. Definitionally. The closest I can think of is bipolar.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER: Did you fail topology or have you never used a glass, physicist?
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