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Most of what we do is irrational. Entertainment is irrational. Music is irrational. Sex for pleasure is irrational. Climbing Mt. Everest is doubly irrational, s
by api 9y ago
Most of what we do is irrational. Entertainment is irrational. Music is irrational. Sex for pleasure is irrational. Climbing Mt. Everest is doubly irrational, since lots of people have already done it so it's nothing all that special.
So just call manned space exploration and settlement an extreme sport. We spend far more money on existing sports and sport-related media than we do on space.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Most of what we do is irrational. Entertainment is irrational. Music is irrational. Sex for pleasure is irrational. None of those things are inherently irrational; they produce utility (subjective enjoyment is the definition of utility), and insofar as they are chosen against other alternatives to maximize realized utility, it's exactly rational. Now, the absence of perfect knowledge and the fact that even with knowledge people don't always optimize total expected utility does mean that people are irrational, but the particular activities you point to are not inherently examples of irrationality any more than, say, investing in the stock market or wage labor are.