The disagreeing students are rational and irrational at the same time; their rationality forces them to act irrationally. That's why it is a paradox, kind of si

The disagreeing students are rational and irrational at the same time; their rationality forces them to act irrationally. That's why it is a paradox, kind of similar to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_paradox Of course you can argue about the details in particular situation, just like you can explain that the card is not really a paradox, as the statements were written by different people, etc. The main reason why I pointed out the story is that it is a certain answer to the question, why are not rational people (more) successful? We can easily imagine a class of "irrational" students, who take the Varoufakis' proposal, all get their good grades, and move on to other tasks, beating the hardcore rationalists in the process.