I completely agree with this -- obviously we have to made decisions and build systems based on the data we observe and collect, but the idea that it's some inco

I completely agree with this -- obviously we have to made decisions and build systems based on the data we observe and collect, but the idea that it's some incorruptible or unbiased exercise is one that I think is both appealing and naïve. By assuming there's a "right" way to arrive at conclusions, people run the very dangerous risk of believing they've got the One True Answer, and everyone else are Wrong. I think reality is a lot closer to the idea that there is no objective/rational way to decide what information is relevant and what information isn't, and we have to constantly adjust that dial in everything we think about and do. There is an article about a group of people who have greatly reduced emotional capacity (not sociopaths, something more severe), and are therefore more or less rendered incapable of making decisions. It's a fascinating read, but I can't find it in my brief searches. Maybe someone else knows what I'm talking about? Edit: I found the relevant anecdote! From an NPR interview https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101334645 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101334... about a book called "How We Decide": "And I think one of the best examples of this comes from the work of a neurologist named Antonio Demasio, who in the early 1980s was studying patients who, because of a brain tumor, lost the ability to experience their emotions. So they didn't feel the everyday feelings of fear and pleasure. And you'd think, if you were Plato, that these people would be philosopher-kings, that they would be perfectly rational creatures, they'd make the best set of decisions possible. And instead, what you find is that they are like me in the cereal aisle, that they're pathologically indecisive, that they would spend all day trying to figure out where to eat lunch. They'd spend five hours choosing between a blue pen or a black pen or a red pen, that all these everyday decisions we take for granted, they couldn't make. And that's because they were missing these subtle, visceral signals that were telling them to just choose the black pen or to eat the tuna fish sandwich or whatever. And then when we're cut off from these emotional signals, the most basic decisions become all but impossible."