# Optimism

Optimism (also called "positivity" etc.) is a [mental illness](disease.md) manifested by refusal to accept [truths](truth.md) too difficult or uncomfortable to bear. It is a voluntarily chosen cognitive bias, denial of reality, making one lie to self: in a situation where it's unclear whether A or B is true (and hence the most rational belief would be to count both as a potential possibility), an optimist will choose to declare one option as not true solely by the fact he would dislike if it was true, i.e. optimism literally by definition means choosing irrational beliefs out of mental weakness. Optimism is always [evil](evil.md), it is the opium of the masses and plagues especially western society of the [21st century](21st_century.md), it makes people do nothing against a worsening situation because they come to accept the lie that things are actually fine rather than trying to fix them -- that's why the ruling bodies, such as governments and [corporations](corporation.md), always promote optimism, they want people to stay passive, blind, comfortable, unaware and therefore harmless. An optimist on board of a sinking ship will not try to help the situation, he will refuse to prepare a life boat or send distress calls, he will close his eyes and ears to not see the disaster and will many a time attack those who refuse to do the same, accusing others of conspiracy theories and creating panic. An optimist in [dystopian society](capitalism.md) will not do anything to fix society, he will only keep repeating programmed phrases such as "it's not ideal but there are still some good things", and so he'll end up collaborating with the system on [making it worse and worse](slowly_boiling_the_frog.md).

## See Also

- [NPC](npc.md)
- [cynicism](cynicism.md)
- [pessimism](pessimism.md)
- [black pill](black_pill.md)