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> Rational people tend to be progressive and "left leaning" Rational people tend to be rational. And rational people don't dismiss the views of others because

• ansible 11y ago
  Rational people tend to be rational. And rational people don't dismiss the views of others because they don't share them. Well, rational people can and should dismiss the views of others because they don't share them... if they've taken the time to investigate the validity of those views. Isn't that the point of being rational?
  • maratd 11y ago
    > Well, rational people can and should dismiss the views of others because they don't share them... if they've taken the time to investigate the validity of those views. You can only make that kind of a conclusion assuming two things: 1. Perfect information. You are aware of everything there is to know which might be tangential to the matter at hand. 2. Identical environment. You share the same exact circumstances as everyone else. Neither #1 nor #2 are ever true. You never know everything there is to know. Frequently, we know very little and more important, what little we know doesn't overlap with the knowledge of others. So every person has a little bit, never the entire picture, and we all have very different little bits. We also don't exist in the same environment. We have vastly different backgrounds, circumstances, motivations, etc. which lead to wildly diverging self-interests. When you dismiss the views of others because you don't share them, you're not being rational ... you're just being stupid.
    • ansible 11y ago
      You can only make that kind of a conclusion assuming two things: 1. Perfect information. You are aware of everything there is to know which might be tangential to the matter at hand. Perfect information is not at all necessary for rational thought. There's a whole field of research about probabilistic reasoning that helps with that. 2. Identical environment. You share the same exact circumstances as everyone else. That's really just a special case of point 1. When you dismiss the views of others because you don't share them, you're not being rational ... you're just being stupid. That's not what I said, either. I explicitly talked about investigating those views. Suppose my friend comes up to me and says "Blue cars are more reliable than red cars." I inquire further as to how he came up with that statement, and he gives me nothing useful. "Its just my opinion / feeling / premonition / whatever." Is it rational for me to believe my friend's statement? No, because there is no evidence. Now suppose that one of the workers in the car factory hates the color red. And he's been subtly sabotaging those, and taking extra time to make sure the blue ones are better. There's that perfect information you're talking about that I'm missing. However, even in that case, should I be believing my friend's statement about blue cars? No, because I don't have evidence, and neither did he. Until someone collects at least some evidence, it isn't reasonable for me to believe that blue cars are more reliable, because I don't have any basis in theory (that the color blue can actually affect mechanical reliability) or in practice (the statistics for the cars)... even though my friend's statement is actually true. Rationality is a tool we use to discern truth from falseness. But we still have to do the work.
• 0xFFC 11y ago
  Please read carefully , He/She didn't say "rational people dismiss other people's view" he said "liberalism has monopoly on rational people". Don't change the meaning of what he said.