my extreme pragmatism depresses most people. I always hear hope for the best but plan for the worst and I think it is unnecessarily pessimistic. Hope for the best, plan for the averages, have a backup plan for the worst.

But the bottom line is that we're already incredibly wealthy by historical standards. I am in the bottom quintile by income in the U.S. (poor college student) and yet i enjoy a standard of living that is probably in the top 1% of all humans who've ever lived.

P.S. assuming you are Mr. Yudkowsky your posts at overcoming bias singlehandedly turned me from an empiricist into a rationalist.