It seems to me that most people are pessimists. When they are presented with any kind of contrarian idea, they tend to focus on the negative aspects first and foremost. They will even go so far as to pretend that they are realists.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t jive. To be a realist means that you are in touch with reality, that you have the capacity to reason about reality, and that ultimately means you are rational. Is pessimism rational? Is pessimism a source of progress? Absolutely not.
It is a given that progress is rational and that non-progress is not. Optimism drives people past the edge of knowledge and certainty into unknown territory. This is where progress is made. Optimism drives progress, and optimism is rational.
the world is populated with both types. this may be a species survival mechanism guaranteeing that we don’t all wander mindlessly into the abyss.
Or perhaps pessimism is a negative trait, and natural selection will eventually lead to more optimism. After all, the source of most breakthroughs that brought technology and civilization to the world seems to have been done by the incorrigible optimists, those that withstood the ridicule of their radical ideas and made them a reality.