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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Of course, it is obviously inevitable that at some point the doomsayers will be correct (and, to note, there are also many times they've been right in the past - I wouldn't have wanted to be born in Europe just before the Black Death, or in Rome just before it fell, or in 510 or so just to be in prime age during what is often called "the worst year in history" in 536, ...)

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Yup however you wouldn't be here today if someone.in your ancestry didn't live through that - assuming your family is from that part of the world

I’m sure it was deeply unpleasant for my ancestors and I’m currently thinking the world may be up being way more unpleasant for my descendants than it was for me.

The point this sub thread is that people always had reason to suspect this and at all previous time it was an error.

There were lots of doomsayers in history that weren’t wrong I’d the point, yes those of us talking have ancestors that got through terrible times (some of them predicted some not), that wiped out large swaths of people and survived but there are lots of other terrible outcomes that are terrible and unwelcome.

My grandfather lived through ww2 m, which was a HEAVILY predicted event filled with doomsaying right after WW1, and it was a point of debate.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience, lots of people didn’t make it and entire communities were destroyed, for them it was the end.

... the adjective "Pollyannaish" and the noun "Pollyannaism" became popular terms for a personality type characterised by irrepressible optimism evident in the face of even the most adverse or discouraging of circumstances. It is sometimes used pejoratively, referring to someone whose optimism is excessive to the point of naïveté or refusing to accept the facts of an unfortunate situation.

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