the optimistic DOOMERS and the pessimistic DENIERS ...

Michael Marshall

The DENIERS are ever optimistic about their ability to muck about with Man and Nature, wholesale, without ever making too much of a mess of it ---- but they are highly pessimistic about the ability of working class people to be able to string two sentences together about anything important.

DOOMERS are highly pessimistic that Newtonian Man can be trusted to do anything truly complicated without making a total cock up of it, but are very optimistic about the hidden cleverness of Nature's smallest, weakest members.

Optimism and pessimism are not in fact held consistently on all matters by anyone, not even by people we ALL agree seem born prenaturally optimistic or pessimistic.

We humans are in turn, pessimistic or optimistic, depending on the particulars of an issue.

DOOMER and DENIER are fun labels to smear upon others, but they are a dim reflection of the true complexity of  the cumulative
positions we hold over our lifetimes.

But where DENIERS and DOOMERS differ most, is over their  assessments of the ability of civilized humanity to be able to correctly predict the ultimate consequences of its activities upon our entire ecosystem.

In that narrow area alone, the labels DOOMER and DENIER, smear or not, are useful metaphors to describe both groups....