
Posiopaths: Positive only attitude can be toxic - TheAuditor
https://gp.blaisemcrowly.com/dont-kill-them-with-your-positivity
======
slfnflctd
A tangent of this can be found in more serious efforts at suicide prevention.
You are strongly exhorted in these situations to avoid saying things like "it
gets better"\-- because you don't know that it will, and saying this can make
things worse for the suffering. [I've argued with moderators about how much
this rule need be enforced in more casual forums open to the public, but the
answer is definitely more than zero.]

People who are ready to end their lives sometimes just want to voice their
grievances and not much else, at least initially. There are many parallels
between this and other kinds of critical situations faced by individuals or
institutions.

~~~
DanBC
Yes. This is a really important point. People have a natural desire to provide
help, and often they think that means fixing problems. But that can be
harmful.

Here's a short guide to suicide prevention that's aimed at members of the
public:
[https://www.zerosuicidealliance.com/training/](https://www.zerosuicidealliance.com/training/)

------
jchw
Shocking.

Some people may read this and think it is overly pessimistic. It is not. I
think this may be misunderstood to mean positivity is always bad, but it
isn’t.

Rather, this attitude is so pervasive that it’s hard to know what incidents in
particular they might’ve come to this conclusion from. It may not perfectly
fit every forum of discussion, but it is disturbing how much of this article
applies to possibly the majority of serious discussions online these days.

> “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's. clothing, but
> inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Mathew 7:15)

In a modern Internet environment where not only is one’s identity prominent
but also the key to how they are considered, understood and validated, this
quote could literally not be more poignant. If you don’t believe it, I say
just pay close attention next time you see something suspicious on social
media, a perfectly crafted narrative of BS that is backed by someone who’s own
identity and presentation is equally fabricated. Of course, not everyone out
there is full of crap, but I really do think a healthy dose of skepticism is
warranted.

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Ididntdothis
I once had a girlfriend whose mom would allow only positive things to be said.
The children were all emotionally stunted to some degree and the whole family
had this huge layer of dark feelings beneath the surface of perfect happiness.
Extreme positivity is just another form of control and oppression.

~~~
verylittlemeat
It's definitely a form of control. I know that we're all fucked up in the head
in our own special ways but one side of my family has the "positivity"
problem. It leads to really intense passive aggressive powderkeg.

The problem is the positive person is usually delusional and convinced to the
bone their way is correct. There is very little introspection there. Usually
when the positive person is in a situation where they're forced to be
"negative" or defensive you see some of the nastiest most vindictive behavior.

~~~
Ididntdothis
“I know that we're all fucked up in the head in our own special ways “

So true.

------
jacquesm
So, I know at least one 'Posiopath'. He's a successful speaker, 'influencer',
writer of a bunch of self help books and talks a mile a minute about seeing
chances, opportunities and wins. Behind the scenes he's an immature frightened
little boy with a big mouth, and his whole outward demeanor notwithstanding he
is super fragile. I never could figure out why there is such a need to be
perceived as successful, even the smallest wins get blown up way beyond their
ability to be sustained by reason. But I also can't deny that it worked for
him commercially, people lap up this false positivity as though it will
somehow make them a success.

~~~
verylittlemeat
Without going full armchair psychologist I would assume it has a lot to do
with how they were raised. I find that most true believers get that attitude
very early in life vs reading a book that told them to "fake it till they make
it".

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hinkley
I had a couple of conversations recently that made this pretty real for me.

me: people struggle with X, it doesn't really work.

he: I haven't heard any problems.

We all know that people don't want to talk to people who make them feel
stupid. Either by claiming the problem is all them, or by claiming everything
is amazing and there's nothing to worry about.

Meanwhile, I will call BS on stuff (even, much of the time, when it is mine)
and generally be sympathetic. So I hear about way more (although it's still
amazing sometimes the stuff I don't hear about until much later).

~~~
dvtrn
I have a friend (let’s say Peter) who is pretty bad about this and I’ve long
found it to be pretty damn annoying. Watched recently as they started doing
exactly what you described to a mutual friend (let’s say Paul) who was just
wanting to vent about work over some beers and food while we played Uno.

Peter and Paul work together but in quite different roles. Additionally Paul
has a considerable amount more experience both at their company and in their
industry, Peter got his job from a bit of good old fashioned nepotism and
never before this one had ever held a corporate job.

Well one day Peter tries shutting down Paul venting one day with the types of
refrains you mentioned “It’s not that bad I haven’t had to deal with that my
manager does it differently why don’t you just move teams” and Paul I guess
had enough of it too and goes “never mind I don’t want to talk about this with
you right now” in a friendly bit very noticeably annoyed tone.

I enjoyed that way too much.

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Tade0
My friend is a psychologist and he defines mental health as "the ability to
feel/express the full spectrum of emotions".

I think this is accurate.

~~~
threatofrain
As opposed to whether a person has an effective relationship with the world
given their personal limitations?

~~~
Tade0
Perhaps there's more than one school here. I don't know because it's not my
field.

------
bane
This is really insightful. I've noticed something like this as well, but with
some slight variations on theme. From time to time I've encountered people who
come off as incessantly positive, almost cheerleader-like personalities. They
often have very large numbers of admirers from previous workplaces.

The downside comes from a near perfect refusal to face challenges, problems,
and other negative issues. The refusal seems to occur using a variety of
strategies, from the observations the article here observes to simply refusing
to acknowledge that a problem has been raised.

This is deadly in engineering disciplines where the day-to-day is centered
almost entirely around problem solving, trade-offs and negotiations.

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hirundo
> The dire need for us to start calling out people for using “positive things
> only” to silence and enforce apathy has never been greater.

This encapsulates my objection to Christianity. If we are all saved by the
love of Christ just for the asking, why strive? Why engage? How is the inner
peace that is supposed to be the payoff for faith compatible with the inner
turmoil needed to effect change?

I get called on by missionaries with some regularity. If they could actually
deliver to me these benefits as they claim, I think it would lead me to exit
the arena, to avoid conflict. It would diminish me. Like an opiate.

~~~
rubidium
The goal is to become like Christ. To heal the sick, fight for righteousness,
proclaim mercy, and sacrifice oneself for others even to the point of death.

I recommend going and reading what Jesus actually said, not what pop culture
equates to Christianity.

~~~
viklove
> what Jesus actually said

Really hard to find an objective source on this, isn't it?

------
FridgeSeal
Feels like this is what's going on in my team, our boss is perpetually trying
to make sure everyone is "psyched" and happy and as soon as people feel almost
anything else or aren't _super_ excited for what they're working on, it either
gets brought up in a 1-1 "why aren't you more excited? What's wrong?" or they
get the whole team together and we have a "workshop" on why we aren't as happy
as we were last week.

I get it to _some_ degree, you want to make sure that morale in your team is
good and that if people are feeling unhappy you try to fix it, but people
aren't going to be maximally happy all the time, sometimes you just feel
differently, and trying to get me to feel happy all the time drives me up the
wall more than anything.

------
deanCommie
Ugh, this is just going to feed the pessimists.

Look, I get it. All extremes are bad.

Myself - I trend more negative than positive. But I have a couple of friends
that are positive bundles of joy and optimism. I find them invigorating and
inspiring to be around and they push me to have a more pleasant outlook.

They are not posiopaths.

But my partner (who has long-term struggles with clinical depression) is
positively nauseated by them. If she read this article, she'd probably start
naming these people as posiopaths, even though they don't reflect the
antipatterns described.

A part of me wants to send this article to her to show what TRUE positive-only
attitudes look like, but I suspect she'll just map it directly to those whose
positivity makes her feel worse about her own negativity, and consider the
matter closed.

------
lazylizard
Are positive people lucky or something? Because on the opposite side of the
fence, i function along the lines of "what can go wrong, whats plan B, whats
mitigation, whats actionable?" and i cannot imagine life otherwise.

~~~
jakear
Maybe it’s a matter of not letting things that go wrong bother you? Or being
able to think in your feet and mitigate as events roll in, rather than
thinking out myriad possible mitigations for things that will never happen.

Small example: last weekend I was out in the wilderness camping by myself, no
cell service. Accidentally locked my keys in my car. Someone in that situation
might be upset/stressed/worried. Someone else in that situation might be
totally at ease because they have a backup key/slim Jim hidden on the chassis.
I was neither. I quickly realized I could bash a window in with a rock and did
so.

------
kylek
I feel like this applies to "influencers"

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kylebenzle
Reading Fantasyland [1] right now. A great book similar to this topic. When we
(in the West) allow and even encourage people to "live the life they want"
some will end up living in a fantasy.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Fantasyland-America-
Haywire-500-Year-...](https://www.amazon.com/Fantasyland-America-
Haywire-500-Year-History-ebook/dp/B004J4WNJE)

------
loopz
Another word for it: cognitive dissonance

It's even more pervasive than that: conditioning

Especially online communities are generally enemy of free-thinking, which
reflects the debates and focus.

------
CPLX
The “hide hypocrisy and privilege” paragraph is a very deft and succinct
summation of why people really hate a certain element of Silicon Valley
culture.

------
rendall
Nice rant. I would like specific examples, though. At first I thought it was
talking about New Age hippie healing gurus, and then suddenly it's talking
about politicians and business leaders. I would like to know the specific
context of this article

------
gbell12
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can
never afford to lose– with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of
your current reality, whatever they might be."

-James Stockdale, Vietnam POW

------
egypturnash
I am reading this and a little voice in the back of my head is asking "okay,
what forums did you just get kicked out of in the past couple of months, and
why?".

~~~
pdonis
My reaction was similar; I kept waiting for some specific example of the
problem being complained about, but never found one. Which, if I were in a
conversation with the author of the post, would probably lead me to say
something along the lines of "let's not be so negative..."

~~~
bigDinosaur
You see these kinds of problems in things like the Elm community, where any
critical tone is interpreted as a real attack against people. Predictably, the
real problems just don't get addressed because the owner(s) are simply
incapable of handling conflict or disagreement, and tend to shut it down
rather than really respond to it.

It's sad, in its own way, since I can see why a community would go this way:
the relentlessness of criticism can wear you down, so why not avoid it all? In
reality, you just pay a different price: those who are right but disagree in a
fairly critical way will leave. They're often a great asset. There's a
difference, and a fairly big one, between being negative and being mean, but
people often conflate them as one and the same.

~~~
RoseCrypto
I've experienced this. I play & stream a game called DCSS and the developers
of that game utilize a form of posiopathy to shut down any criticism. That is
to say, any criticism of their development decisions is - similar to what you
described - reframed as a "personal attack."

Personally I see this as a tool that authoritarians and small-minded people
use to deflect criticism and/or control people. People who have control/power
shut down conflict - ostensibly motivated by a desire to keep things "nice" or
"positive" \- but really it just compels people to accept the status quo.

I would actually argue that online communities and contemporary society in
general skews posiopathic, in part because of these kinds of "hall monitor"
type authority figures.

~~~
mistermann
If you're available to jump on an anonymous voice chat sometime, I'd be
interested in talking to you, the topic being, oh, I don't know, let's say
philosophy.

I should really get organized and put some anon email in my profile,
particularly since it's me making the request, I figured I'd just send you a
note here and see if it catches your eye first.

~~~
RoseCrypto
Sure, sounds all right. I'm pretty easy to find:
[https://rosecrypto.com/Contact](https://rosecrypto.com/Contact)

It'll be easier to talk off-site, in any event. I'm finding that the comments
section of ycombinator is like a shittier version of Reddit (if that's even
possible), where you get censored even harder for posting anything that power-
users don't like.

------
ulisesrmzroche
Read bright sided by Barbara ehrenreich. Great read on how pervasive and
damaging this kind of thinking is in America.

------
crimsonalucard
Everyone has a place on a team, an excess of one can be toxic in a certain
sense. What interests me is more the pessimist. Pessimism is certainly the
minority but it has been found that the pessimist view point is more in line
with reality.

Here's an interesting excerpt about the topic from a book called "Learned
optimism":

 _Overall, then, there is clear evidence that nondepressed people distort
reality in a self-serving direction and depressed people tend to see reality
accurately. How does this evidence, which is about depression, tie into
optimism and pessimism? Statistically, most depressed people score in the
pessimistic range of explanatory style, and most nondepressed people score
optimistically. This means that, on average, optimistic people will distort
reality and pessimists, as Ambrose Bierce defined them, will “see the world
aright.” The pessimist seems to be at the mercy of reality, whereas the
optimist has a massive defense against reality that maintains good cheer in
the face of a relentlessly indifferent universe. It is important to remember,
however that this relationship is statistical, and that pessimists do not have
a lock on reality. Some realists, the minority, are optimists, and some
distorters, also the minority, are pessimists.

Is depressive accuracy just a laboratory curiosity? I don’t think so. Rather
it leads us to the very heart of what pessimism is really about. It is our
first solid clue about why we have depression at all, the closest we’ve come
to an answer to the question asked earlier: why evolution has allowed
pessimism and depression to survive and prosper. If pessimism is at the base
of depression and suicide, if it results in lower achievement, and as we will
see, in poor immune function and in ill health, why didn’t it die out epochs
ago? What counterweighting function does pessimism serve for the human
species?

The benefits of pessimism may have arisen during our recent evolutionary
history. We are animals of the Pleistocene, the epoch of the ice ages. Our
emotional makeup has most recently been shaped by one hundred thousand years
of climactic catastrophe: waves of cold and heat; drought and flood; plenty
and sudden famine. Those of our ancestors who survived the Pleistocene may
have done so because they had the capacity to worry incessantly about the
future, to see sunny days as mere prelude to a harsh winter, to brood. We have
inherited these ancestors’ brains and therefore their capacity to see the
cloud rather than the silver lining.

Sometimes and in some niches in modern life, this deep-seated pessimism works.
Think about a successful large business. It has a diverse set of personalities
serving different roles. First, there are the optimists. The researchers and
developers, the planners, the marketers—all these need to be visionaries. They
have to dream things that don’t yet exist, to explore boundaries beyond the
company’s present reach. If they don’t, the competition will. But imagine a
company that consisted only of optimists, all of them fixed upon the exciting
possibilities ahead. It would be a disaster. _

In the context of the above quote, extreme optimism has a place as long as
it's tempered by the pessimist. Same with the extreme pessimist it has its
place, as long as its uplifted by the optimist, though what I'm seeing in
reality is that part of what it takes to be an optimist is to avoid looking at
reality and avoid listening or even being in the vicinity of the pessimist.

~~~
lstodd
Very much so.

Also, in my bouts of depression I always try to remember the concept of
unfiltered perception.

It is what the depression at its peak looks like. Unfiltered perception.
Pessimism is just a pale shade of that.

Thanks to Douglas Adams for introducing me to it.

See

