I honestly feel that the only appropriate response is something along the lines of “fuck defeatism”[1].
This comment isn’t targeted at you, but at a particular attractor in thought space.
Let me try to explain why I think rejecting this attractor is the right response rather than engaging with it.
I think it’s mostly that I don’t think that talking about things at this level of abstraction is useful. It feels much more productive to talk about specific plans. And if you have a general, high-abstraction argument that plans in general are useless, but I have a specific argument why a specific plan is useful, I know which one I’d go with :-).
Don’t get me wrong, I think that if someone struggles for a certain amount of time to try to make a difference and just hits wall after wall, then at some point they have to call it. But “never start” and “don’t even try” are completely different.
It’s also worth noting, that saving the world is a team sport. It’s okay to pursue a plan that depends on a bunch of other folk stepping up and playing their part.
I honestly feel that the only appropriate response is something along the lines of “fuck defeatism”[1].
This comment isn’t targeted at you, but at a particular attractor in thought space.
Let me try to explain why I think rejecting this attractor is the right response rather than engaging with it.
I think it’s mostly that I don’t think that talking about things at this level of abstraction is useful. It feels much more productive to talk about specific plans. And if you have a general, high-abstraction argument that plans in general are useless, but I have a specific argument why a specific plan is useful, I know which one I’d go with :-).
Don’t get me wrong, I think that if someone struggles for a certain amount of time to try to make a difference and just hits wall after wall, then at some point they have to call it. But “never start” and “don’t even try” are completely different.
It’s also worth noting, that saving the world is a team sport. It’s okay to pursue a plan that depends on a bunch of other folk stepping up and playing their part.
I would also suggest that this is the best way to respond to depression rather than “trying to argue your way out of it”.
I’m not defeatist! I’m picky.
And I’m not talking specifics because i don’t want to provoke argument.