Robert Downey Jr is one of my favourite actors. I enjoyed his roles as Tom Stark in the Iron Man series and as Sherlock Holmes. Sometime back, Downey  was being interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, when he made this surprising statement in response to Stewart’s question on optimism: “Here’s what I heard.” Downey said. “This was a discussion between a Russian military guy and Chuck Missler, who’s a Christian. … Love Chuck. … He asked the Russian guy is there hope for Western civilization,” “The Russian guy said you have to understand the difference between an optimist and a pessimist.