How to dull the strategic brain

OP-ED: "Schott's Vocab: Pessimism Porn," by Ben Schott, New York Times, 26 March 2009.

Great definition:

Titillating bleak media reports on the state of the economic collapse.

Hugo Lindgen mused on the illicit thrills of bad news in New York magazine: "My wife busted me again the other day. I had slipped away from her and the kids and into the fantasy world of the Web. But not the kind of fantasy you're probably thinking of. This was pessimism porn. A friend had turned me on to a futurist named Gerald Celente, who anticipated the Asian financial crisis and other calamities. Now, Celente says, the U.S. is heading for a middle-class tax revolt, food riots and a Central Park engulfed by shantytowns.

Sound like any sites you frequent?

I made a decision a long time ago not to make my career a bet on bad things happening. I think that approach simply corrodes your strategic thought capacity. Human history is progress, so if you're constantly having to screen out the good to spot the bad, your vision will unduly narrow. If you bet on progress, you can easily contextualize the bad, because progress is never linear. But if you bet on retreat, you must consistently discount advances as "illusions" and "buying time" and so on, and after a while, you're just this broken clock who's dead-on twice a day.

As I've said earlier, porn desensitizes. If you want to dull your senses along with the pain, it's a great way to go, but it narrows the intake capacity. After a while, you're simply blind from all that self-pleasuring.

Comments

[John Robb]

Don't get this Tom. Sounds like you are screening out the bad to focus on the good. Isn't this the type of optimism porn (self pleasuring via CNBC) that got us into this mess?

[Arsalan]

Well aren't you a Hegelian. I would have to agree. Wolf stated on Zakaria's GPS that 2009 will ultimately be a very bad year, comparable to the 1930's. Wolf. is probably right. I just find such news to be down right paralyzing to hear.

[G. Nomet]

What we need in the IR/warfare blogosphere is an objective website that catalogues all predictions made by bloggers. Similar to a reputation market that some trading sites have. The traders who make consistent accurate calls get pushed up the list, while the ones who make crappy ones get pushed down.

Quantify who has a better map of reality.

The certain website you mention Tom -- who also linked to this post -- of course would back out of this little challenge with a self sealing fallacy: he only predicts things post hoc, when he is right after the fact it only then becomes an accurate prediction. When he is wrong or uncertain, he does "creative thinking" or "thought experiments".

[Sean Meade]

GN: we have this informally in the reputation economy. the crazy thing is, some people still want to hear from people who have been very wrong in the past.

[stuart abrams]

As Marx pointed out in the "Theses on Feuerbach" (neatly cited in "Great Powers"), thinking is the product of the objective reality of the thinker. This is true of optimism v. pessimism. Pessimism is a reflection of ideology derived from membership in a social class that perceives itself as threatened by historical evolution. Optimism is the opposite. Thus, it is not surprising that the great "dystopian" novels ("1984" and "Brave New World") were produced by upper-class Brits at a time when the Empire was crumbling. Optimism and pessimism cannot be classified as either accurate or inaccurate - it depends on your point of view.

[Louis Heberlein]

One of the academic and economic justifications for pushing negative derivatives, hedge funds etc. was that they would help to reduce poor investor choices in markets so that capital could have a better chance of being focused on quality choices. The Information Age was said to have clouded the process of looking for good emerging prospects.

Unfortunately, practice, promotion, and media propaganda soon replaced that academic / economic purpose especially when personal $ and egos of the new 'advisor' communities were involved.

The TV finance channels too often promote the shouting heads one liner dialogues using oversimplified "either - or" choices.

And, Yeah - Don't forget to buy more gold!

[John Robb]

GN, which site is that? Calculated Risk or Kedrosky? I've found them both to be good.

[Tom Barnett]

The question is always, "And where exactly are you hoping to go with that?"

[Tom Mull]

Is the cup half empty or half full? It is both half empty and half full! and it could be interpreted as neither half empty or half full. If I'm looking only at the contents of the cup it's either/or, or, both/and (half full of coffee or half full of air (empty of coffee). Then there is the cup itself and the space outside of the cup (neither/nor land). How people interpret tells me more about them than the facts oftentime. But, having been a pessimist for the first 40 someodd years of my life and an optimist since (I'm now 57 and I find optimism a more user friendly delusion), it seems that the cup gets more of what I'm bent toward.

For those that the past has worked well for and the present not, the world is going to heck in a hand basket. A definition of Nostalgia: Remembering yesterdays prices whilst forgetting yesterdays wages. =)

[Tom Barnett]

Tom, that last bit is very funny.

[Tom Mull]

Dr. Tom: That definition of nostalgia I got from Readers Digest over 20 years ago in their "Quotable Quotes". I have worked in assisted living for going on 12 years now and I am very familiar with the Nostalgia Effect of the elderly. The good ole days were pretty good for me when I was young but now that I'm old the world really sucks! It's gotta be the world and not cuz I got old and rickity ;). That Nostalgia Effect seems to be well along for "My Generation" of Boomers (kids these days, tisk, tisk). =)