I think the sad thing is that like the article said, we fall into those patterns because we see it all too commonly, and because negative information travels faster, its easy to etch that into our brains. Its useful to be delusional, a lot of new business owners are and some even make it despite the odds! One example is marijuana legalization, amazing how fast its gone, if someone told me that I would be able to put an 8th of weed into a cartridge, buy it for $20 and it not to have a smell in a few years I would call them insane. Good things are happening, and like you said things can get better (depending on your measurement of better), but not being naive is often the more useful action, although there are times I dived into something hoping for the best, it not working out most of the time, but the times it did, I don't regret it. In the US I saw Oregon decriminalize drugs, and as a trend I would hope to see more of that and I am going to be more optimistic about that occuring.

I think its best summed up as I regret not doing things rather than trying and not succeeding, as long as (like you said) it was a pragmatic risk.