I believe that there is a common thread between all of us....

[Devastatin Dave]

Strangly enough, through my many years here and the times i am removed and then unleashed upon the unexpecting, I have found a common thread. i believe each of us here have a smal amount of sadist in us and most if not all are cynics and most are not optomists. Please argue this point before I open my veins and have homosexual sex with Ghandi...

[a completely inoffensive name]

Strangly enough, through my many years here and the times i am removed and then unleashed upon the unexpectintg, I have found a common thread. i believe each of us here have a smal amount of sadist in us and most if not all are cynics and most are not optomists. Please argue this point before I open my veins and have homosexual sex with Ghandi...

I'm not going to argue that most people here are cynics, but I personally am in the optimist category.

[Beskar]

we all have a common thread - we post here!

I am with ACIN.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Mixed review here. If you mean cynical as in "people all suck" then no. If you mean cynical as in "people are often pretty self-serving and short-sighted" then yes.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Mixed review here. If you mean cynical as in "people all suck" then no. If you mean cynical as in "people are often pretty self-serving and short-sighted" then yes.

I would say your second definition is more of a realist then the cynical view.

[Husar]

I would say your second definition is more of a realist then the cynical view.

But doesn't the definition of a realist heavily depend on what one perceives as reality?

I'm not very optomistic, I mean optimistic, about peoples' grammar and spelling.

[a completely inoffensive name]

But doesn't the definition of a realist heavily depend on what one perceives as reality?

I'm not very optomistic, I mean optimistic, about peoples' grammar and spelling.

Not really, the behavior and general attitudes of civilizations and societies can be dissected and studied somewhat empirically. Although it's not as progressed as the natural sciences, the studies of sociology and psychology have certainly shed a much more enlightened view of how people operate. It seems according to the evidence that humans are very much based upon some basic primal urges of "get mine before I can help others".

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I would say your second definition is more of a realist then the cynical view.

But "realist" is what cynics call themselves.

Not really, the behavior and general attitudes of civilizations and societies can be dissected and studied somewhat empirically. Although it's not as progressed as the natural sciences, the studies of sociology and psychology have certainly shed a much more enlightened view of how people operate. It seems according to the evidence that humans are very much based upon some basic primal urges of "get mine before I can help others".

This kind of thing always suffers from the vagueness of stating facts clearly (the least important part) and implying conclusions very loosely. "People are often pretty self serving" is a fact (though it doesn't say how often and how self serving) but the fact itself doesn't clearly lead to a particular attitude, just the phrasing does. You could take either an optimistic or a cynical attitude towards the fact. The very statement implies "people are not always self serving" which sounds nicer.

[a completely inoffensive name]

But "realist" is what cynics call themselves.

And tea partiers call themselves freedom fighters. I'm not trying to invoke a true scotsman here, but just because someone labels themselves as something doesn't always mean they are. Granted the definition of "realist" and cynical are not as well defined as terms like socialist and fascist, but they are nevertheless separate terms. There are people who think the worst of people, people who think the best of people and people who realize that some people are chill and others are asses.

This kind of thing always suffers from the vagueness of stating facts clearly (the least important part) and implying conclusions very loosely. "People are often pretty self serving" is a fact (though it doesn't say how often and how self serving) but the fact itself doesn't clearly lead to a particular attitude, just the phrasing does. You could take either an optimistic or a cynical attitude towards the fact. The very statement implies "people are not always self serving" which sounds nicer.

Ok, well how about this. It has been seen that the economic system which has operated the best in human societies has been capitalism, which is a system based primarily on the goal of getting more for yourself with side effects that can act as a positive impact on those who consume within the system (such as competition among store owners lowering costs). It is quite important that Communism envisioned by Carl Marx was not the dominant system and I don't think the fact that one prevailed over the other gives us a "vague sense" at all. We also see though from the Guilded Age in the US that this system of people's greed competing against each other has a breaking point upon the populace. At some point, people got pissed and wanted things to be more fair instead of promoting the robber barons to continue fulfilling the American dream. At what point did this occur? What was the straw on the camels back that led to the creation and acceptance of unions? I don't know my history that well to tell you exactly when people started asking for trust busting, but the fact is, the American society has a limit on how far they will take unfairness on the basis that at one point they will "get theirs". The line changes every generation, but it is there. The same can be applied globally or at least for Western Democracies now that they have reached a high level of globalization.

From what I just said, you can come up with a more precise answer that can't be flipped around depending on your attitude. "Americans will defend the goal of getting ahead of others until blah blah blah happens." "Human's will defend the goal of getting ahead of others until blah blah blah happens."