The Water Glass Question

Include me as an enternal optimist.
Heck, I am an astronomer and for me, everything is always "looking up!"

 

I lump myself in with Jared Diamond in this response:

I'm a cautious optimist. I recognize our problems yet remain optimistic in our ability to overcome them.

 

Just speaking of myself and how I view my life and how I approach my goals, passions, aspirations and relationships, I'm definitely a glass is half full person and am eternally optimistic.

When considering our collective actions and how we manage the planet and consider others in our daily approach to life, I'm rather skeptical and negative. I especially have a problem when an action of one society/culture/belief has a derogatory impact on another ("another" can be defined by all living organisms/systems). So in this regard I probably have a half empty perspective.

I guess I'm too conflicted to answer this poll.

 

I've always been fond of the third view of the economy: "What glass?"

Tom

 

A glass is completely full, one-half liquid and one-half air. Period.

 

The glass is always full, in both a literal and figurative sense, even though it doesn't always look that way. The real question is how much is water (or wine, or beer, or scotch, as you prefer) and how much is air.

Naturally, I voted 'some wiseass answer'.

 

i think i'll always have that hint of pessimism, even if i try to be optimistic.

 

I'm not going to vote because my answer is neither half, nor wiseass:

It depends on what's happening in the glass: If the glass is in process of filling, it's half full. If it's in process of emptying, it's half empty.

If I were halfway between the bottom and top of a mountain, and heading up, I wouldn't say "I'm half way down."

Likewise if half of my house was destroyed by a falling meteor I wouldn't say that my house is half built.

I take a pragmatic approach to much of life, and while I may appear outwardly as an optimist, I think it's more realistic to describe me as "wearing blinders to my own inevitable doom."

 

I say the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoid @ Nov 9 2007, 05:04 PM) [snapback]537426[/snapback]</div>

Oh, you beat me to it. As an engineer, my answer is that it's an inefficient use of resources - the glass was clearly overbuilt for the intended purpose.

A little OT, but reminds me of a commercial I saw on PBS: two bodybuilders are working out in a gym, and one asks the other, "How many bodybuilders does it take to replace a lightbulb?" The other bodybuilder pauses, and says "Uh, I'm not too good with numbers." And then they go back to lifting weights.

 

Is it beer? half-empty
Is it water? half-full
Is it animal milk? Ewww, throw it out
Is it wine? just about perfect

 

It's not an either-or question. It is half full and half empty. My mother calls herself a cheerful pessimist. She expects things to get worse, but she she enjoys life and does what she can to make matters better (at 90 years of age she is a life-long activist for social justice).

I'm an off-and-on activist, and make the best of a mixed deal: plenty of money but nobody to share it with.

My glass is definitely half full and and half empty. If I had a girlfriend, both our glasses would be completely full.

 

Actually, to be technical, it is "half a glass of".

It's a simple mathematical equation. Divide the glass in half (you can use an imaginary line). Fill one half (it will more than likely be the bottom half). Now, the glass is half water, and half not water.

Daniel has it right. One half is full, and the other half is not (empty).

So, you would ask for "Half a glass of wine, please"

 

The good news is it's half full. The bad news is the water in it is highly carcinogenic.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Nov 9 2007, 11:11 PM) [snapback]537637[/snapback]</div>

I filter my water. Makes it taste really good, and removes the large molecules, which should include the carcinogens. I don't need carcinogens in my water because I get them in my diet soda pop. But the filtered water tastes so much better than tap water than I drink a lot less soda pop than I used to.