[Ibon]

Evolution favored optimists because they were the risk takers that colonized new territory. A pessimist is not going to range far beyond the familiar. Can you imagine a polynesian pessimist getting in that boat with hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean and believing he was going to find land?

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'C')an you imagine a polynesian pessimist getting in that boat with hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean and believing he was going to find land?

[fletch_961]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'N')ot your point that doomers are optimist. But that there are conundrums that will hurt us all. There is no easy way out.

It is kinda like the doomed man saying, "So kill me already!" He is not an optimist, just tired of the torture.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')epression, anxiety, anger and other negative emotions have been linked to heart disease and heart attacks. But what about the flip side — are positive emotions connected to better heart health? Yes, say two reports that addressed this question from different directions.

At Duke University Medical Center, researchers asked 2,618 men and women scheduled to have a coronary angiogram questions about what they expected their future cardiovascular health to be like. Fifteen years later, they found that those who'd had the highest expectations were 24 percent less likely to have died of heart disease than those with the lowest expectations. That study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The next study was long term and looked at Boston-area men. It took note of a marker of psychological and emotional health called self-regulation. In the group of men who scored highest on a test for self-regulation, 6 percent had a heart attack or died of cardiovascular disease over the following 12 years, compared with 14 percent in the group scoring lowest. The study was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

These findings add to the evidence that a positive outlook or positive emotions somehow contribute to a healthy heart and arteries.

[dorlomin]

The selfish gene. Optimists take risks that are bad for the individual, you might think setting sail on a dug out canoe to find a new island is near suicide and for many it will be. But for the one that find a new island the gene to a whole island population.

How many optimists perished trying to cross the southern Arabian peninsual before the rest of the world that was not Africa was conquered?

Genes spread better when there is lots of optimistic cannon fodder dying to get to bigger better newer pastures.

Just theory but I think it has some value.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'E')volution favored optimists because they were the risk takers that colonized new territory. A pessimist is not going to range far beyond the familiar. Can you imagine a polynesian pessimist getting in that boat with hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean and believing he was going to find land?

[SeaGypsy]

I have several friends born into traditional Polynesian families, you do what you are told or you are excommunicated, which won't help you contribution to the gene pool much. Also these are Royalist tribes, where you are born into a definite position/ caste. One of which has always been the caste of slave/ emergency meat.