Originally Posted by windsock

I'm still not sure that traditional, behavioral pessimism is as linked to philosophical pessimism as you think. They certainly share most concepts (they're both pessimism, after all), and the argument that philo pessimism is just glass-half-empty on a grand scale could probably be debated. I haven't read enough about the two to understand the more specific nuances.

And I agree that a true pessimist probably couldn't exist, and neither could a true optimist. Similarly, I don't think a "true" nihilist could exist either because they'd either being a husk of a person or a husk that's hellbent on destroying things that it perceives to be meaningless, i.e. everything. Perhaps such an individual has existed in the past but I haven't heard of 'em.