I liked this post, and upvoted, but this sounds like it might be somewhat cherry-picking? If you say that the pessimism is “repeatedly wrong”, then you are ignoring the areas where it has been repeatedly right. E.g. perpetual motion machines and faster-than-light travel continue to remain impossible, as does curing aging (even though we might now begin to be in a position to actually cure it, people have tried various means of becoming immortal for probably thousands of years, and so far the pessimism has always been right).
Pessimism about resources running out is repeatedly wrong, as far as I can tell. I asked for examples on Twitter and got no major examples from the last couple of centuries, and only a handful of minor ones.
I don’t mean to argue that pessimism as such is always wrong. There are contexts where it is realistic. See my comments on descriptive vs. prescriptive optimism.
I liked this post, and upvoted, but this sounds like it might be somewhat cherry-picking? If you say that the pessimism is “repeatedly wrong”, then you are ignoring the areas where it has been repeatedly right. E.g. perpetual motion machines and faster-than-light travel continue to remain impossible, as does curing aging (even though we might now begin to be in a position to actually cure it, people have tried various means of becoming immortal for probably thousands of years, and so far the pessimism has always been right).
Pessimism about resources running out is repeatedly wrong, as far as I can tell. I asked for examples on Twitter and got no major examples from the last couple of centuries, and only a handful of minor ones.
I don’t mean to argue that pessimism as such is always wrong. There are contexts where it is realistic. See my comments on descriptive vs. prescriptive optimism.