[HervalFreire]

>but my point is that none of it is indicative that someone having generally a positive view of the world necessarily implies that they would have less grasp on reality.

From the podcast:

    Joanna: The people who were the most realistic, that actually see the world exactly as it is, tend to be slightly more depressed than others.

    Robert: Time and time again, researchers have found that depressed people lie less.

    Ruben: They see all the pain in the world. How horrible people are with each other and they tell you everything about themselves. What their weaknesses are, what terrible things they've done to other people and the problem is they're right....

That one research study they used as an example is one out of multitudes used to formulate the conclusion I cited above.

In short:

   People who tend to be realistic tend to be depressed. People who lie to themselves tend to be happy. 

I mean it's obvious that this point contradicts your claim. Ask yourself, are you lying to yourself right now? Are you currently being optimistically delusional about what was actually stated in the podcast? Hard to say.

[mewpmewp2]

It may be that on average "realistic" people are more depressed, but it doesn't mean an individual "realistic" person can't be generally happy.

It's only an "average". You can have a set with average of -20, but it could be a range of -60 to 20, so you can have 20s in the set while on average the set is below 0.

> They see all the pain in the world. How horrible people are with each other and they tell you everything about themselves. What their weaknesses are, what terrible things they've done to other people and the problem is they're right

There's both negatives and positives in the World. You can accept the negatives and appreciate the positives. Humans have suffered throughout the whole duration they have existed as species. You don't have to be depressed because of that. You can appreciate all what humanity has built, and where we have reached in our quest to advance and innovate. We are discovering more and more every day. You can focus on your curiosity. I have no problem discussing those topics or noticing those issues.

> What their weaknesses are

You can accept your weaknesses and either work on them or consider them not worthy to be worked on and focus on your strengths instead. Some weaknesses are worth working on, others are not and you can just accept that they exist.

> what terrible things they've done to other people and the problem is they're right

Everyone makes mistakes. No point in staying around feeling guilty about it. Move on and do your best.

> I mean it's obvious that this point contradicts your claim. Ask yourself, are you lying to yourself right now? Are you currently being optimistically delusional about what was actually stated in the podcast? Hard to say.

It's not contradicting, it's just taking one seemingly unhealthy mindset, that seems to correlate with certain type of realism, but overall you can have an healthy mindset about realism where you accept the bad and appreciate the good.

The podcast is missing this healthy type of acceptance and appreciation of truth.

[HervalFreire]

>The podcast is missing this healthy type of acceptance and appreciation of truth.

The podcast is grounded in science and only speculates about the consequences via the data and the studies it cites. The people who were interviewed are psychologists who empirically study this scientifically and their conclusions are more well developed then yours given that they've spent a huge amount of time dedicated to elucidating these findings.

Your conclusion on the other hand was not formulated on data. It was formulated in attempt to fulfill your bias. You took the data and tried to mold it so it would fit your current world view instead of adjusting your world view according to what the data straight forwardly implies. I mean you are trying to push the conclusions of the study toward a positive outcome when reality in essence doesn't care about positive or negative outcomes. It can all be negative and that is a completely valid outcome.

I mean where is the data about people who healthily accept the truth? You would need that data to formulate a scientific conclusion. If no such data exists then where did your conclusion come from?

Perhaps the subject of podcast was talking about something you're doing right now.

I ask myself in attempting to get at the absolute dark truth... is what I'm doing good for either of us in terms of mental health? Probably not. I take it back.

You're completely right and I'm wrong.