We’re doing something a little different this holiday week. One of our top goals for 2025 is to connect fellow Rational Optimists with each other. So today, we’re publishing your answers to our request from last week to tell your fellow Rational Optimists about yourselves.
Thanks for all the responses. We received far too many answers (well over 100) to print them all. But below you’ll find a sampling. We’ve got members from all over the world!
Oh, and don’t forget to tell your friends to join Rational Optimist Society here. We now have 13,000 members. If each of you tell one friend, we’ll hit 25,000 in no time.
See you next year!
I live in Alberta Canada. I’m a semi-retired real estate developer. Real estate developers need to be optimists; we often risk our money to buy property that won’t be developed for many years. We plan for a future we can often only see in our mind’s eye.
To offset the (often significant) risk, a little dose of rationality isn’t a bad quality. I love the topic(s) of this society, and I particularly love the name.
I signed up after Stephen Pinker tweeted a link to Rational Optimist Society. I work as a web developer and have followed the philosophical conversations that have emerged from San Francisco and the tech community as a whole.
I live in Minneapolis. I am interested in connecting with fellow rationalist optimists, especially to collaborate on possible public service projects. I am particularly interested in blockchain technology.
I’m 76 years old. I enlisted in the Navy at 17 did one tour and got out. Went to college on the GI Bill. Went back into the Navy and went to Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola where we were pushed through by Marine DI’s. An intense 16 weeks.
Married at 56 for the first time and retired the day we got married. Currently enjoying retirement, volunteering in a number of things and like to play golf. Involved in the Church. Enjoying life. Have COPD and prostate cancer but I try not to let it affect my life. Life is good. Every day is a holiday and every meal is a banquet.
Hi, I am enjoying this information. Always been a fan of science and tech. I live in Oklahoma and heard about Rational Optimist Society at a financial planning meeting. Your article on geothermal was very interesting!
Hi: I enjoy your Rational Optimist newsletters. It seems to me that in the ever crazier world we live in bad news is all we read about. You provide some insight into the amazing things real people are working on to solve real problems. While these things may be a ways away from fruition, you present them in a positive light, giving hope for solutions. It makes me feel better about the world we are leaving for my grandchildren. Thanks for brightening my outlook regularly.
Hello Stephen I am writing to you in response to your note saying you would like to know more about the members. I am working in an IT services company in Business Development and am based in Singapore. For far too long I have been looking at the regular media which keeps prophesizing doomsday, and it is depressing. The regular media is manipulative and is being used for the benefit of a few rather than talk positive and give hope.
I am very impressed with ROS and the work you are doing is great. Thank you. I would like to know more about how can small investors like us can identify breakthrough tech and participate in some small manner. I would also like to know more about nano tech and its use in cancer treatment and also what’s happening in the Alzheimer world using nanotech. Keep up the good work.
I learned of your organization when a friend sent me a copy of your weekly newsletter. I enjoyed it and decided to join for myself. Spent most of my career managing the development of computer systems and related organizations. Now I'm just a Texas farmer who is very fortunate to be able to live the life what I do. Lean conservative, and very interested in learning what's going on in the world. It's much more fun to think about and work toward positive outcomes than being pessimistic.
I am from the best kept secret in the US – Rapid City, SD. I am a wealth manager working to assist clients with their personal financial decisions. Being in the financial world, you have to be an optimist or you would be jumping out of buildings every day.
While I feel many days like I am drinking information through a fire hose, exciting new things keep popping up to deliver people hopefully with better news and outcomes. Life is grand and even better when enjoyed with other people. Merry Christmas!!
Just love your upbeat, optimistic, truthful, brief, weekly publication. Am a retired home builder/realtor, returned to living in my home-town of Calgary, Alberta. I think I’ve been a rational optimist before I knew what that was.
I believe in common sense logic supported by research and data. Always believed that if “you” could think of it, “you” or someone could do it. Thank you for your weekly publication... I learn (and am constantly amazed) by it.
Hi, I live in Seattle, Washington. I'm a retired futures trader from Chicago. I have never been an optimist but I joined the Rational Optimist Society to open my eyes and lift my mood. It's working!
I am from South Korea. I earned my Ph. D in Polymer Physics in the Sates, worked in Japan for almost 15 years as CTO, and came back to Korea in 2019. I am still working as head of the Institute of the Future Tech in Korea. My core competence is to set up the theoretical and industrial backgrounds for new businesses and projects. I am optimistic in my scientific and social careers, rationally and reasonably.
I’m thrilled to be one of the first members of The Rational Optimist Society and part of a community that celebrates progress and the amazing things humans are capable of achieving. I’m from Egypt, and I work as a freelance translator, specializing in English and Arabic.
My career is a testament to how technology creates opportunity. Without the internet and computers, I wouldn’t have the job I have today. All my clients and collaborators are spread across the globe, and the internet makes it possible for me to connect with them seamlessly. If the internet shuts down tomorrow, I’d be completely lost!
As a translator, I’ve seen firsthand the rise of artificial intelligence and how it’s shaping my field. There’s no denying that AI could one day take over many aspects of my job. But even with that possibility, I remain optimistic. History shows us that while new technologies disrupt industries, they also create opportunities we never could have imagined. I believe the same will happen with AI. It might change the way I work, but it will also open doors to new possibilities for me and for humanity as a whole.
I wasn’t always this optimistic; it’s been a journey shaped by learning. Looking back at how breakthroughs like the industrial revolution, electricity, and the invention of computers transformed our lives, it’s hard not to feel inspired. I’m excited to be part of this community and to continue learning and growing alongside such inspiring individuals.
Greetings! I very much appreciate the notes you send and the premise behind the ROS. I live in northern Virginia, USA. I previously spent 22 years as a US Navy fighter pilot and test pilot, I had the privilege to command multiple FA-18 squadrons including the largest one in the US Navy where I was responsible for training nearly 70% of the Navy's fighter pilots.
I'm currently a Partner at Wilson Perumal & Company (WP&C), which is a management consulting firm. In my work here, I'm helping some of the most complex organizations in the world successfully move from the Industrial Age into the Age of Complexity. Some complexity is good, but too much is always bad—the most successful companies are the ones that figure out how to reduce bad complexity AND do better at working with the good complexity. I've recently led a transformation of the US Army's supply chain. They've called it the biggest change to Army logistics in a quarter century.
Senior Army leaders said last year that the changes should have taken 6-8 years to implement, but we did it in less than 24 months. I've been an enthusiastic optimist my entire life, which has enabled me to go after some big ideas. I love what you're doing with ROS and am excited to help out!
I am a businessman and technician. I really enjoy your publication. It offers a 180 degree shift from all of the negative information going around out there. This is exactly what our younger generation needs to tap into so we maintain a positive attitude on our future. This kind of publication is necessary for our country to set positive useful goals. If we think we can we will!
Thanks for this long overdue publication. I hope more agencies pick up on this thought. So many great things happening out there to give us all hope of a great future.
Hi Stephen and Dan. Mostly, I would like to thank you. The attitude and tone of your ROS emails are fantastic. The Rational Optimist Society is an absolute match for my personality and outlook. I am the most optimistic person that anybody knows. To this day am teased as being “Happy Murray.” At an Entrepreneurs Organization meeting years ago, I scored the highest EQ of the 140 people in the room.
I am now in my glory. Ten years ago, I started a medical laboratory, FlowLabs. We specialize in male fertility testing. Yes, I am the semen analysis King of Canada.
All pessimists I know are stuck in the minutia of their day-to-day struggle. None of the detail in your emails is a surprise to me. Sometimes I learn something new. Mostly they confirm my understanding. I have been telling people the same things for many years. I have always thought that Ray Kirzweil has it mostly right. On the other side of Kurzweil’s singularity will be a new order where biology and technology will blend. There will be no lines, no differentiation.
Whether or not our universe has seen this before, we are about to find out! Thank you for taking on the Rational Optimist Society. You hit the nail on the head! All the best for happy, healthy holidays!
I am a podiatrist in an orthopedic practice in Florida. Michael Shellenberger was an inspiration to me. I remember him always saying how the ocean is “dying” because of human activity. Back in the 70s that was probably true. My pessimism grew as I got older. I grew up wanting to be a marine biologist just like Jaques Cousteau.
Fortunately, I keep my eyes open and started realizing the world seemed fine. Better than fine. The skies are blue, the water is clean, animals and plants are thriving. The extinction of animals concerned me. It wasn’t too long ago that I started finding out how Seirra Cloud and other organizations had become political and not environmental protectors. I read Apocalypse Never, and it really helped me understand. In short, I realized I am a pessimist at heart and needed to change that. Every day I work to do that. Thank you for the work you are doing. It has helped me with that struggle.
Stephen, pleasure meeting you virtually and appreciate the effort you’re making to inform regarding the truly transformative ideas that mankind co to use to develop that will make this world a continuing better place to live.
I’m a 52 year old CFO for a chemical distribution company in Houston, TX. I grew up in a small town in Minnesota, and I am amazed every day when I think about all the ways that all our lives have been transformed for the better.
You don’t have to go back many years to when there wasn’t clean water and thousands of people died because of lack of clean drinking water (still a problem globally), but chemical processes have enabled us to effectively end this problem. In the 1950s millions of people were starving to death due to lack of food because crop yields were so poor, fertilizer (another chemical process) set us free to where we now worry about the quality of food we eat as opposed to crying because our children didn’t have food to eat.
There are amazing breakthroughs taking place continually and the bounds of human curiosity and creativity have the potential to create an amazing world as long as we can encourage one another to not eat ourselves. Love what you’re doing and keep up the good work!
Hi, I'm Steve from Sunny Southern California. I work in the high tech industry, and have always been highly optimistic. I'm glad to see someone out there focusing on the good out there, and on people and companies working hard to create amazing new things to make the world a better place for all. Love reading your newsletter every weekend! Keep up the great work!
As a very early Boomer, I have been an optimist from childhood. Learning from depression era parents that I can survive, and thrive, if I make that choice. From gardening, which is perhaps the most optimistic thing a person can do, to reading biographies of the makers of history, the expectation of progress has been instilled in me. I have been deeply involved with helping others achieve their goals through coaching as well as over 45 years of financial planning. Both of these activities have allowed me to see others have positive outcomes, which only reinforces my optimism.
I’m huddled down in the great white north called Minnesota. I’m a financial analyst by trade, but a gamer at heart! I would consider myself a Rational Realist with pessimistic leanings, but I’m hoping to expand my world view and possibly shift toward optimism by (in part) being a member of the Rational Optimist Society. Keep up the good work!
Stephen, Dan, and the Rational Optimist team, your "rational optimist" concept resonates with me because in order to solve problems, you need to be an optimist at some level. The more difficult the problem, the more of an optimist you must be to think you can solve it.
Here in San Diego, we have been attacking a host of seemingly intractable problems. As you likely know, solving civic problems has become a near impossibility...largely because of the politics involved. Thank you for your weekly emails. I am learning a great deal...and enjoying them.
Retired technology executive. Live in Cumming GA (just north of Atlanta). Married, 5 kids, 7 grandkids. Always been a rational optimist, but never called it that. Spent 7 years flying jet fighters in the USAF, and have 5 patents in energy automation and optimization.
Hello, the weekly newsletter was forwarded to me recently and I have now subscribed having found the content informative. I especially found the drone air force interesting. And that came out just prior to the New Jersey drone hot topic.
We are from New Orleans and moved to the Mississippi gulf coast small town of Pass Christian. Our two grown children in a peaceful easy environment. I am a road & bridge construction manager and my wife is a practicing attorney. We are optimistic about the country’s future for all citizens. Best to you all at Rational Optimist Society.
Hi, I’m answering your request for a little summary about your early members. I’m originally from Florida, and I have worked in the environmental insurance industry as a risk analyst for nearly 30 years. As such, I’m not inherently a rational optimist…my job revolves around imagining the worst case scenarios & designing coverage that addresses them at a competitive price. I’m not sure I have it in me to become a rational optimist. I find myself reading your articles and thinking about all the things that could go wrong.
However, as a new grandparent, I have also been needing a huge dose of optimism to see the potential for a better future for my grandchild. That’s why I signed up and that’s why I read the correspondence each week. I am also hoping you can recommend some innovative investments that are publicly available, not just those reserved exclusively for ultra rich venture capitalists. Thanks for reading!
I’ve really enjoyed the Rational Optimist thus far. I’m from Layton, Utah. I’ve been in retirement less than one year. By nature I am more of a pessimist than an optimist. I signed up for this society because I need balance in my investing activities.
My educational background is finance with an MBA. I was the CFO for a small 500 million dollar organization. I would consider myself a conservative which means I don’t really fit into either of the existing political parties. I look forward to hearing more rational optimism in the future.
Hey, you don’t have to wait until the end of the week for good news.
Follow us on X and check out our podcast for regular updates.
Writer: Stephen McBride: https://x.com/DisruptionHedge
Editor: Dan Steinhart: https://x.com/dan_steinhart
Rational Optimist Society: https://x.com/RationalOptSoc