ABC Radio National

Future Tense





Date/Time 26 Dec 2014 3:43:34am
I believe in Star Trek. I grew up on Star Trek and I see Captain Picard as the model of the ideal man and a trekiverse as a human utopia.

But, I've also done lots of personal research on why people are happy, optimistic, learned helplessness, compassion exhaustion etc etc.

And my current belief is that optimism is generally honestly related to ones true life experience. While people are more likely to be successful if they manage to maintain their optimism in spite of bad experience, and there are people who are just pessimistic no matter what, the degree of optimism in the world appears to be a fairish barometer for measuring reality - apparently overall we are just a little more optimistic than warranted.

There is a book out about learned helplessness - some kind of self help guide. One of the things I got from that is that TODAY people are more likely to be optimistic if they don't take responsibility for their actions, and if they are comfortable with lying, cheating and distorting reality in their own minds.

This is the exact opposite of Scientist: someone who is committed to the truth and objectively observing reality.

I think that is the challenge.

Don't get me wrong - I absolutely applaud the idea of optimism and reaching for the sky. It's all about how to do it so that people can believe, expect, demand and drive that level of progress.

Currently in Australia, we are closing down schools, lying about the situation in our public hospitals and our government is trying to wind back the rollout of the National Broadband Network. We need that optimism, expectation and drive.
