www-manton-org-etlydh.txt (2850B)
1 ● [1]Manton Reece 2 [2]About [3]Photos [4]Videos [5]Archive [6]30 days [7]90 parks [8]Reading [9] 3 Search [10]Also on Micro.blog 4 5 Optimism by default 6 7 [11]Apr 12, 2026 8 9 [12]This new essay by JA Westenberg about pessimism comes at just about the 10 perfect time, relating to many things in the current tech world: 11 12 Whoever can list the most reasons something won’t work gets treated as the 13 smartest person in the room. If you say “I think this could go well,” you 14 get ~the look. That slight tilt of the head. Optimism is treated like a 15 belief in astrology. 16 17 And: 18 19 When pessimism becomes the default in public conversation, it starts 20 building the world it claims to be describing. People who believe nothing 21 can be different don’t vote, don’t volunteer, don’t start companies, don’t 22 run for office, don’t build the thing that might have mattered. 23 24 I always want to be the naive optimist who believes in people and believes in 25 ambitious new projects that probably won’t work. Everything good I’ve done is a 26 result of that. 27 28 [13]Also on Bluesky 29 ● Matt Anderson 30 31 I appreciate how well the quote and your post put words to this concept! 32 Totally agree! 33 34 [14]2026-04-12 08:39 35 36 Sign in with [15]Micro.blog, [16]Mastodon, or [17]Bluesky to reply: 37 38 [ ] 39 [ ] 40 [ ] 41 [ ] 42 43 [22][Post] 44 45 [23] [3] 46 [24] Manton Reece [25]@manton 47 48 • [26]RSS 49 • [27]JSON Feed 50 • [28]Surprise me! 51 • [29]Tweets 52 53 ×←→ 54 55 References: 56 57 [1] https://www.manton.org/ 58 [2] https://www.manton.org/about/ 59 [3] https://www.manton.org/photos/ 60 [4] https://www.manton.org/videos/ 61 [5] https://www.manton.org/archive/ 62 [6] https://www.manton.org/30-days/ 63 [7] https://www.manton.org/90-parks/ 64 [8] https://www.manton.org/reading/ 65 [9] https://www.manton.org/search/ 66 [10] https://micro.blog/manton 67 [11] https://www.manton.org/2026/04/12/optimism-by-default.html 68 [12] https://www.joanwestenberg.com/optimism-is-not-a-personality-flaw/ 69 [13] at://did:plc:pko7wbcggok753hnvndxh3ni/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjcekyspzw2z 70 [14] https://micro.blog/mathyousee/88102104 71 [15] https://micro.blog/account/comments/88099573/mb?url=https://www.manton.org/2026/04/12/optimism-by-default.html 72 [16] https://micro.blog/account/comments/88099573/mastodon?url=https://www.manton.org/2026/04/12/optimism-by-default.html 73 [17] https://micro.blog/account/comments/88099573/bluesky?url=https://www.manton.org/2026/04/12/optimism-by-default.html 74 [23] https://www.manton.org/ 75 [24] https://www.manton.org/ 76 [25] https://micro.blog/manton 77 [26] https://www.manton.org/feed.xml 78 [27] https://www.manton.org/feed.json 79 [28] https://www.manton.org/surprise-me/ 80 [29] https://www.manton.org/tweets/