# Pitting Der\_Trihs **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 5, 2026, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214 "2026-03-05T01:20:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/321 "2026-10-09T17:20:11Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > E.g. “At work, I like gossiping with my co-workers about the weather” makes a _ **ton** _ of sense Hmm. I think i chat about the weather, any only gossip about people. I’m on team, “gossip can be good, bad, or neutral”, and i think it’s critical to maintain any social group. And while i agree that the “posters i miss” might have been a better thread, i also think it was okay in this thread. Of course, i also engage in chit chat about things other than posters doing something dumb in the “what were you thinking” thread. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/322 "2026-10-09T17:34:45Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > i agree that the “posters i miss” might have been a better thread Nah. The absence and return can be noted and significant to those who might miss or who might not at all miss him. The positive or negative significance is not the point. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > by countless devotees of conspiracy theories Agree with @Babale here, I also think being in their POV would be a very sad experience. The problem of course becomes when they infringe on our world, causing harms. And here is where my sense of Der Trihs diverges from those conspiracies folk: he does not usually belabor his dystopian perspectives to the point that no other conversation is possible, he is not, to the best of my knowledge, generally causing any harms. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/323 "2026-10-09T18:13:32Z")
I think you to underestimate the satisfaction of being “in the know” and feeling superior to the sheeple that doomsayers glory in. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/324 "2026-10-09T18:46:40Z")
It doesn’t outweigh the capacity to have normal human relationships, which is difficult when you and those other humans live in entirely separate realities. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/325 "2026-10-09T18:47:10Z")
I’ve always said that being a pessimist is more reliably emotionally satisfying. It’s a form of bet-hedging. If you’re wrong, you get to live in a nice situation, whether that’s your team winning in sportsball despite your gloomy prediction, or Fascism being defeated worldwide despite your prediction of a perpetual Dark Age. And if you’re right you get to gloat about that. Either way there’s something good happening to/for you. By contrast, an optimist is sort of a double-or-nothing version of the same play. If you’re right, you get to gloat _and_ live in a nice situation, but if you’re wrong, you’re stuck in a bad situation _and_ everybody else piles on to tell you how wrong you were. Bummer. I’m mostly kidding here, but I think there’s at least some of that in a lot of people’s pessimism. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/326 "2026-10-09T18:49:56Z")
I’ve been a pessimist most of my life so I can relate to that. Expecting the worst and being pleasantly surprised can be nice. But there’s a difference between that, and predicting that the doom is coming any day now and obsessively focusing on that. Those sorts of people **never** get to appreciate when things _don’t_ go wrong, because to them it just hasn’t happened **yet**. There is a difference between pessimism and doomporn. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/327 "2026-10-09T18:57:53Z")
Pessimism is better for winning arguments, optimism is better fir getting out of bed in the morning. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/328 "2026-10-10T21:12:00Z")
I thought the Dope collective had, over the years, successfully argued him out of posting misogyny. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/329 "2026-10-10T22:23:46Z")
Mostly. Still some odd ideas about rape pop up from time to time. But rarely. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/330 "2026-10-10T22:33:56Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > By contrast, an optimist is sort of a double-or-nothing version of the same play. If you’re right, you get to gloat _and_ live in a nice situation, but if you’re wrong, you’re stuck in a bad situation _and_ everybody else piles on to tell you how wrong you were. Bummer. As I see it, being the pessimist is the hard play, at least if we’re talking about serious consequences in the modern era. You can warn people about (for example) the fact that nuclear war is still a risk worth taking very seriously, and arguably it’s closer at hand than it’s been even at some points of the Cold War. The optimist can simply say “you worry too much, it’ll never happen”. They’ll always seem to be right, because if the unthinkable does happen, nobody’s going to sit down and say “huh, the pessimists got it right, we should listen to them next time”. We’ll likely be too dead or too preoccupied to reflect on things like that. If somehow the topic does come up, the observation will not be particularly popular, i.e. “how could you possibly find it appropriate to settle old scores in the middle of a crisis like this.” So the optimists “win” by default. Honestly I think this explains a lot of our politics. Whether we’re talking about nuclear war, climate change, the next investment bubble, the brain drain from the US, erosion of the Pax Americana and American soft power, the slow erosion of the security situation in Europe and Asia, the optimistic case always has the advantage in that bad things never happen until they do, and when they do, it’ll be someone else’s problem. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/331 "2026-10-10T22:37:56Z")
In my world office talk/chat are not the same thing as gossip. Gossip has a mostly negative connotation. Voices are lowered, certain parties are excluded. But it’s not a mortal sin, and the word can be used is a self-mocking manner. Your experience is apparently different. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/332 "2026-10-11T00:20:05Z")
I understand tone is unclear on the internet but to be clear, you may have missed a giant whooshing sound over your head. Talking about the weather is not considered gossip by the vast majority of people. Gossip isn’t necessarily negative but it is, as some have tried to explain above, generally about personal or private matters of other people. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/333 "2026-10-11T14:30:53Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > He also said the same thing years ago about the situation well before Trump. It hasn’t occurred to you that he was right then and we’ve been moving towards fascism for years, you fucking idiot? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/334 "2026-10-11T14:47:43Z")
Trump and his fascism didn’t come out of nowhere. And DT’s not the only one who’s been saying for years that the Republican party was moving in this direction. He’s wrong about some things, but he’s been right (if often hyperbolic) about the Republican party, and American right-wing, for many, many years. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/335 "2026-10-11T17:30:41Z")
I enjoy his posts, hyperbolic or not. I am glad he is back. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/336 "2026-10-11T20:48:49Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > It hasn’t occurred to you that he was right then and we’ve been moving towards fascism for years, you fucking idiot? As noted repeatedly, he’s not the only one and people have been saying it long before he’s been posting here. And as also noted, it ignores the other predictions. If he was as right as much as claimed, if we were still alive at all to this point, we’d have been living in a post apocalyptic wasteland in the aftermath of W taking over as a fascist dictator a couple decades ago. That’s not “right” in a meaningful sense. That’s “right” in the stopped clock sense. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/337 "2026-10-11T20:51:39Z")
He’s been more right than the dismissive morons who kept repeating, it’ll be fine, you’re exaggerating, someone will stop him. Now we have televised executions in time for Christmas. A lot of the people calling him crazy are the same complacent twats who killed America. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/338 "2026-10-11T20:53:18Z")
I’m glad the choices are either “he’s totally right about everything” or “he’s absolutely wrong about everything”. No middle excluded at all, nosirree. That guy who won the lottery “had a system” about the numbers. I guess we should be listening to him, too. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/339 "2026-10-11T20:54:00Z")
There’s a middle ground. He’s more right than you. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214/340 "2026-10-11T20:55:36Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > No middle excluded at all, nosirree. That guy who won the lottery “had a system” about the numbers. I guess we should be listening to him, too. Didn’t say that and fuck you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-der-trihs/1028214.md?page=18)