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We Don’t Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders.
Cynicism is the cheap seats. It’s the fast food of intellectual positions. Anyone can point at something and say it’s broken, corrupt, or destined to fail. The real challenge? Building something better.
The cynic sees a proposal for change and immediately lists why it won’t work. They’re usually right about specific failure modes — systems are complex, and failure has many mothers. But being right about potential problems differs from being right about the whole.
The cynical position feels sophisticated. It signals worldliness, experience, and a certain battle-hardened wisdom. “Oh, you sweet summer child,” the cynic says, “I’ve seen how these things really work.”
But what if this sophistication is itself a form of naïveté?
The Cost of Perpetual Skepticism
Cynicism comes with hidden taxes. Every time we default to assuming the worst, we pay in missed opportunities, reduced social trust, and diminished creative capacity. These costs compound over time, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in which cynical expectations shape cynical realities.
Cynicism is quite good at masquerading as wisdom. Pattern recognition is valuable — we should learn from history and past failures. But pattern recognition becomes pattern…