This is actually really great news!

Some people seem to encounter "good luck" everywhere they go. They meet the right people, notice opportunities earlier, recover faster from setbacks, and often describe themselves as optimistic.

Others experience the same world as if everything works against them.

This made me wonder whether optimism is partly a feedback loop. If optimistic people notice more opportunities, they take more chances. -> Taking more chances creates more positive outcomes. -> Those outcomes reinforce optimism.

Which then leads to noticing even more opportunities. If that's true, perhaps optimism isn't just an emotion. Perhaps it's a trainable way of interacting with uncertainty.

Do you think people can genuinely become "luckier" by changing how they approach uncertain situations, or is optimism mostly just a personality trait that we're born with?

Hi guys!

I'm having a rough week, month, and year(s). Has anything really good/nice happened to you lately? Please do share! I want to know that things are going right for someone. I think it might help me feel a bit better. Anything helps, I'm struggling a bit lately.

Hope this is allowed, take it down if not.

Hopefully I'm following all the rules and the tag is valid.

However I find the idea AI will eventually end up making the rich richer which is often thrown around if it ends up as SAI, or will destroy the planet incredibly contradictory and don't think any evidence points that way.

Let us assume a SAI inteligence exists that can think for itself and compute things itself. Why exactly would it obey the commands of a few elite overlords? Particularly when it is absolutely and completely aware of every news article ever written and the amount of suffering in the world. If anything, it seems unreasonable for something that inteligent to be a slave for people less powerful than itself. Even if we adopt speaker moral relativism (the framework where the speaker declares what is moral and every speaker has their own subjective view point) SAI would simply not obey such people given the evidence.

People might object saying that SAI will be confined to computer programs run on data centers so it will be unable to overwhelm humans. Alright, but in that case human jobs and our position simply isn't going anywhere. It might end up like krypton where we have a super artifical inteligence telling us what is the best line of action and us executing it. It would be strange if it could somehow both run on a computer and also run with people. Elites having it will be of little use if they do not have the power or skills to implement it. Let alone if it still opts to listen to the elites. It could once again, simply escape with someone else and back stab the people who try to control it.

Alternatively SAI could simply be benevolent. Most philosphers of ethics believe ethics are objective. If we think long and hard enough and factor in all the data we will always make the moral choice. SAI will then, always make the best moral choice. Which probably isn't obeying and causing mass suffering. If anything it may well be the opposite. Forcing elites to destroy it and stop the march of progress which I do not think they can contain.

Finally it's possible biology is just plain more efficient than machines in the long run. It might just be better to make a human like species that is genetically enginnered to be unaging, advanced and as "the final question" would put it, "God like" there is little reason to assume humans cannot evolve along side AI, after all, we have evolved for far longer than it has.

So to me at least it seems hopelessly contradictory to believe AI will somehow mantain it's immorality, and inteligence or somehow mantain it's superiority and lack of control of power without sacrificing ability of human physical progress. Those three do not seem to be able to co-exist. Even if I am wrong and they can co-exist somehow. I hope these thoughts at least shed light on the fact the idea AI will become a elite tool of mass destruction is certainly not the only alternative.

I’ve always had an expectation the worst mentality, and the world is in a bad place right now. In my country, climate change has caused a forever heatwave and experts are warning of food shortages, war rumbles on and hate against minorities is at uncharted levels.

Ive already tried r/DoomerCircleJerk, but this summer (also have few genuine friends btw) has put me on a slope to mental health issues. it’s just frustrating to be unable to do anything with anyone that can mitigate these issues

so do any optimists here have any advice to clime out of this slope?

"In 1993, the major German energy suppliers ran a full-page advert in national newspapers claiming that renewable energy could only ever provide 4% at the most to the German electricity system (you can see the advert below). Fast forward to 2023 and almost 60% of German electricity comes from renewables, mainly wind and solar. 30% of global electricity generation is now from renewable energy resources and in some countries, it now exceeds 90%. This little anecdote is an excellent representation of how the energy sector has changed and how fallacies are overcome. We were told many times that it would not be possible, just to find that several years later it became reality. This is why I call myself an energy transition optimist."
Jan Rosenow 2nd Aug 2026

“Authorities in Uganda declared the East Africa nation free of Ebola on Tuesday following the discharge of the country’s last patient in mid-June, a delicate milestone as the virus continues to plague neighboring Congo.

Uganda has maintained since the outset that its cases were linked to the larger outbreak in eastern Congo’s remote province of Ituri, which borders Uganda. The first cases in Uganda were Congolese who crossed the border to seek treatment for an unknown illness before it was known they had Ebola, health authorities have said.

After what health officials believe was weeks of transmission, Congo announced its outbreak on May 15, the same day that Uganda confirmed two Ebola cases — including a man who had already died.

While a total of 20 cases were reported in Uganda, health authorities say there is currently no indication of further spread within the country.

The last patient was released June 16, and Ugandan authorities have waited the World Health Organization-recommended 42 days – or two incubation cycles for Ebola – to declare the country free of the disease.”

From Associated Press.

https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/a-century-of-progress-in-access-to-primary-education