Replies to post #4578 on A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board (AIMUSERS)

[RoboAIMer]

Rien --

My friend, I have no problem, at all, with your disagreement. I would have been very surprised if you hadn't. :-)

Most of the companies, that thrive and survive, are probably started and run by realists. Most of the companies that fail (the majority) are probably started and run by optimists. Same answers for successful and unsuccessfull research and explorations.

No, it's the realists that create, invent, innovate, fix, problem solve and preserve the world, that provides the la-la land playground for the optimist's fantasies and trouble making and problem creating. If you're not dealing with reality, it's probably not going to work.

Since I've yet to see a "realistic" form of government, aside from self-government, I can't tell if your going to far or not. It would seem that history has pretty much made it's decision on communism and it's brother, socialism. Actually I do have very strong opinions about that, but we can have that discussion some other time, be sure to pack a lunch and a dinner. ggg

Without our builtin realism we would not survive. Now, do we have enough to keep on surviving? The jury is still out on that one. Don't sell the Neanderthals short, they lasted two million years (probably a bunch of realists). We're at about 15% of that time span, as I understand it.

Are we just having a dispute on semantics and definitions?

Later,

Robo

[Conrad]

Neandertals

I read a story one day to my kid(well, not one day, it took many nights of bedtime reading): The 13th Warrior, of Michael Crichton. It is a fiction about Neanderthals in Scandinavia.

I used to think Neanderthals were Nederlanders(Dutchmen) but after that story I changed my mind.

In The 13th Warrior the Neds survived, while they lasted, by brute force and extreme cruelty. The Dutch, instead, survived by ingenuity, as well as brute force and extreme cruelty(Ref. Dutch Colonial history; Slave Trade, as exposed by non-Dutch sources!). In school I learned that we colonized Indonesia to make them Christians so would be saved(I had no idea from what), and that we gave African Negro's better lives by extracting then from the dark jungles of Africa, and exposing them to Dutch civilization was, I learned, something they would be eternally grateful for.

Years later I went to the University to study physics and so, and began to read other books as wel. I discovered that eternity is a very short time.

I agree with Rien, though: Optimists will survive, but only the cruel ones will!
Nice guys don't survive, nor will they become rich.
They simply fade away.

Nice guy,
Poor guy,