I’m not a fan of optimism. Optimism and pessimism are both a form of vulgar fatalism — the belief that things are going to get better or worse irrespective of what we do. If I believed that, I wouldn’t get out of bed.
But I believe very much in hope. And hope is the belief that if you materially improve your circumstances, you will gain a new vantage point from which you will see things that you couldn’t see before.
I keep seeing Cory Doctorow everywhere on my feed nowadays. It’s so frequent that it might even be annoying — if not for the fact that he’s consistently spitting bars.
It’s a wonder what you can do when your main job helps you to refine your word craft, and also you’ve been campaigning on tech and internet issues for literal decades, giving countless chances to refine your rhetoric.
He’s a valuable voice in the current climate, and I’m glad that “enshittification” catching on got him a much larger political platform than he had before.
Every word has slightly different meanings based on context. I’m fine with leaning into the differences to make a point as long if it’s obvious what they meant they’re not otherwise being pedantic about it.
I.e. “I’m not going to be a dork about it if they aren’t.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9LgLg0zlbJQ&t=734
can’t help but cringe at these I’m-13-and-this-is-deep quotes. Dude is just argueing about which synonym he likes more.
But they aren’t synonyms.
I keep seeing Cory Doctorow everywhere on my feed nowadays. It’s so frequent that it might even be annoying — if not for the fact that he’s consistently spitting bars.
It’s a wonder what you can do when your main job helps you to refine your word craft, and also you’ve been campaigning on tech and internet issues for literal decades, giving countless chances to refine your rhetoric.
He’s a valuable voice in the current climate, and I’m glad that “enshittification” catching on got him a much larger political platform than he had before.
I mean, I understand and agree with his message and that sounds pretty catchy… but doesn’t he have those definitions switched around?
After all you don’t have “optimism” when all is lost lol.
Every word has slightly different meanings based on context. I’m fine with leaning into the differences to make a point as long if it’s obvious what they meant they’re not otherwise being pedantic about it.
I.e. “I’m not going to be a dork about it if they aren’t.”
When all is lost it can only get better <- optimism!
Wont you be surprised when it gets even worse yet <- pessimism.
Nice quote. What’s the origin?
Added to the original comment. Sorry about that!
No worries, thanks!
Corey Doctorow.
I think.