> Many fought desperately to survive—gnawing frozen scraps of food, doing whatever it took to live another day—despite knowing there was no escape, no rescue coming, nothing but more suffering ahead. This represents the pure Endurist drive: choosing existence even when it offers nothing but pain.
Except of course that most of them didn't know that, because for most of them it wasn't actually true. The majority of prisoners in the Kolyma camps were released under Khrushchev, and though they obviously couldn't have anticipated the exact circumstances of the thaw, they had more than enough reason to *hope* for one.
Some people can sustain themselves on hopes far more remote, and treat *almost-certain* very very differently from *certain*. I suspect this accounts for much of "endurist" sentiment.
While you're right about the eventual releases under Khrushchev, this fails to account for a crucial fact: the vast majority of prisoners in Kolyma died there. Looking at those who survived creates a severe selection bias. That said, your general point stands - it wasn't a completely hopeless situation precisely because there was hope for release.
Your observation about hope driving endurism is interesting, but I think it actually reinforces rather than explains away true endurist positions. When someone chooses to endure based on vanishingly small probabilities of improvement, they are implicitly assigning infinite value to existence - since one can always imagine some tiny probability (divine intervention, aliens, miraculous cures), this becomes functionally equivalent to pure endurism.
How did you come up with these terms - "endurist" and "serenist"? They're very apt. What do you think drives some people to be one vs the other? Do you think these tendencies are in-born or are they nurtured? I often think of people you refer to as "serenists" as being "misfits" of a certain kind. But "serenist" is much more specific term. I like it.
I tried to come up with terms that would be descriptive but wouldn’t require memorizing new words. I'm glad you like them.
I also tried to describe some of the psychological differences between serenists and endurists in the psychological profiles section. I would assume the differences are probably a combination of genetics (e.g., a high suffering threshold or experiencing more joy in life for endurists) and environment or culture, but it's definitely an interesting angle for more research.
I don't think serenists are necessarily misfits, although there is a correlation between suffering and being a serenist, as well as between suffering and being a misfit.
> Many fought desperately to survive—gnawing frozen scraps of food, doing whatever it took to live another day—despite knowing there was no escape, no rescue coming, nothing but more suffering ahead. This represents the pure Endurist drive: choosing existence even when it offers nothing but pain.
Except of course that most of them didn't know that, because for most of them it wasn't actually true. The majority of prisoners in the Kolyma camps were released under Khrushchev, and though they obviously couldn't have anticipated the exact circumstances of the thaw, they had more than enough reason to *hope* for one.
Some people can sustain themselves on hopes far more remote, and treat *almost-certain* very very differently from *certain*. I suspect this accounts for much of "endurist" sentiment.
While you're right about the eventual releases under Khrushchev, this fails to account for a crucial fact: the vast majority of prisoners in Kolyma died there. Looking at those who survived creates a severe selection bias. That said, your general point stands - it wasn't a completely hopeless situation precisely because there was hope for release.
Your observation about hope driving endurism is interesting, but I think it actually reinforces rather than explains away true endurist positions. When someone chooses to endure based on vanishingly small probabilities of improvement, they are implicitly assigning infinite value to existence - since one can always imagine some tiny probability (divine intervention, aliens, miraculous cures), this becomes functionally equivalent to pure endurism.
see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_mugging
Amazing, thank-you
How did you come up with these terms - "endurist" and "serenist"? They're very apt. What do you think drives some people to be one vs the other? Do you think these tendencies are in-born or are they nurtured? I often think of people you refer to as "serenists" as being "misfits" of a certain kind. But "serenist" is much more specific term. I like it.
I tried to come up with terms that would be descriptive but wouldn’t require memorizing new words. I'm glad you like them.
I also tried to describe some of the psychological differences between serenists and endurists in the psychological profiles section. I would assume the differences are probably a combination of genetics (e.g., a high suffering threshold or experiencing more joy in life for endurists) and environment or culture, but it's definitely an interesting angle for more research.
I don't think serenists are necessarily misfits, although there is a correlation between suffering and being a serenist, as well as between suffering and being a misfit.