Why Pessimism Sounds Smart
>Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.<p>The entire piece is reiterating stereotypical VC twitter content but the most obvious point is that very few optimists make money. Most optimists will lose money. The reason that this doesn't matter in technology circles is because the overwhelming majority of tech folks hail from upper middle class households so the people who risk a lot can afford it and it's not that big of a deal if they crash.<p>Even if you believe the premise of the article about the future of technology, which is itself kind of a bad Whig history but that aside for a second, most people in general have no good reason to think that they're the ones to be able to capitalize on it.<p>Pessimism really isn't the right word here, Conservatism is more apt. And many people are conservative in particular at the individual level for very good reasons, because they cannot afford to play high risk games.