Please--everyone--abandon the use of "negative" and "positive" outside of the value-free domain of algebra! In the real social world, these two catch-all adjectives are meaningless, and thus perverse.

Depending on the context, "negative" can mean bad, evil, malicious, or--in the case of people like Umair Haque, merely critical of the status quo. Do you see the problem? The minute you accuse him (or anyone who is critical of the status quo) with being "negative," you are conflating "critical" with "bad." But there is nothing "bad" about criticism!

The same goes for the mindless use of "positive" as a synonym for "good." When in fact a positive feedback loop--a familiar and appropriate technical term from systems theory--is in most cases very bad news: it means a self-accelerating, uncontrollable spiral toward chaos--like the Coronavirus, among other things. Or like the erosion of civility in public discourse. And also, there is nothing good about using "positive" as a synonym for "optimistic" when in fact there is nothing to be optimistic about. That is simply denial. So do us all a favor by deleting these two linguistic parasites--"positive" and "negative" from your vocabulary. Outside of mathemetics (where these terms have a precise, value-free meaning) they do nothing but muddle our thinking. ANY substitute term--good or bad, kind or cruel, truthful or fraudulent, etc.--will always be clearer and more precise than "positive" and "negative."