Pessimism/pessimists

We next ask what are the implications of being aware of future self-control problems by comparing naifs and sophisticates. We identify two effects. First, sophistication about future self-control problems can make people pessimistic about future behavior (that is, they believe in general that they will hit more often than they would if they had no self-control problem). We refer to this phenomenon as the pessimism effect. Second, sophistication about future self-control problems may make people realize that they will resist future temptations only if they resist temptation today. We refer to this phenomenon as the incentive effect. Because the habit formation property of addictive products implies that current indulgence has larger future costs the more people expect to refrain in the future, pessimism about future behavior tends to exacerbate overconsumption due to self-control problems. The incentive effect, in contrast, tends to mitigate overconsumption due to self-control problems. Hence, whether sophisticates hit more or less often than naifs depends on the relative magnitudes of the pessimism and incentive effects. 

As an example of Ya.B. s role in the development of particle physics we quote from an article by G. I. Budker on colliding beams, The idea of antiparallel particles is not new it is a trivial consequence of the theory of relativity, As far as I know, it was first expressed by Academician Zeldovich, though in a very pessimistic context. His pessimism is quite understandable [53]. As is well known, G. I. Budker and his collaborators and their foreign colleagues were able to overcome the enormous difficulties which caused this pessimism. The role of colliding beams in particle physics is impossible to overestimate. 

Second, pessimism toward the demise of white supremacy and antiblackness implies in some way a belief in or an argument for the impermeability of the Racial Divide. In fact, it does not, and for at least two reasons. First, there is no necessary relationship between the two postulates (because the Racial Divide can be permeable while white supremacy and antiblackness remain robust) and, additionally, the second claim (re the impermeability of the Racial Divide) is deeply ambiguous in its own right. That is to say, it is unclear whether this ascribed imperviousness is put forward by the authors in question as descriptive (i.e., the divide can-not be breached) or as normative (i.e., the divide should not be breached). More to the point, Stephens fails to indicate where or how those purportedly pessimistic scholars of race and racism under scrutiny actually deny... 

As the war went on Fischer became more pessimistic. He lost his two sons. Walter committed suicide in a fit depression in November 1916, and Alfred died of spotted typhus in March 1917 while working as a doctor s assistant in a hospital in Romania. In a letter to Natalie Leube, a family friend, Fischer wrote of the consequences of this "insane war, which brings Germany and all Europe sorrow and misery. The result for me, as for millions of other fathers and mothers, is a dreadful bitterness toward the mad circumstances and persons responsible for this great misfortune." " He expressed his pessimism and loathing of the war in a letter to the German... 

Following the completion of versions 1 and 2 of the SRM, it was recognised that in a number of areas e.g. non-passenger train derailments and train collisions, the results from the model were pessimistic. This knowledge led to the requirement for more refined modelling in version 3 of the SRM, thereby reducing the level of pessimism in the model. 

At one pessimistic extreme was the Pasteurian view that alcoholic fermentation of sucrose requires a living yeast cell. Enzyme studies were discouraged for 30 years until the accidental discovery of the cell-free process by Eduard Buchner in 1897. A more modern version of this extreme pessimism was expressed in 1931 by the eminent microbiologist, A. J. Kluyver ... 

It is instructive to note that Stringer (1973) expressed pessimism about the development of oxidation-resistant refractory metal alloys (Nb, Ta, Mo, W) and that Meier (1996) opines that attempts to protect Nb-base compounds by the selective oxidation of Al or Si are fruitless . Although we are not quite that pessimistic, it is clear that successful development of oxidation-resistant Nb-Al intermetallics for high- temperature structural applications will certainly require a truly radical, new approach. 

You probably recognize this difference between learned helplessness and learned optimism as the more popular pessimist vs. optimist distinction. As you have heard it asked before, "How do you see the glass of water " Is it half full or half empty We see it differently, depending on our current state of optimism or pessimism. This contrast in personal perception is illustrated humorously in Figure 6.9. The point is that our personality, past experience, and current situation influence whether we feel optimistic and in control or pessimistic and out of control. 

These considerations highlight another important point a prior that is pessimistic in terms of the reliability it implies may produce optimistic inference. Here, moving QN closer to 1 implies, before failure-free operation, pessimism a system Hkely to fail in few demands from the start of operation. But then observing it not faihng over even few demands then logically makes it very likely to have 0 pfd (optimism). Which prior distributions will produce pessimistic posteriors depends both on which posterior prediction we wish to minimise (e.g. posterior rehabihty for demands vs posterior probability of fault-freeness) and on the specific observations (here, the number of failure-free demands). It would thus be wrong to take from the worst-case posterior distribution we obtain here any measure different from posterior rehabihty for tfut demands, e.g. a certain percentile, or a posterior probabihty of fault-freeness, and believe it to be a conservative value for use in further claims about this system. 

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