Well, if I've understood correctly the author implies that if you don't really use your 'belief' in a practical sense, then it is crony. And the only benefit of

Well, if I've understood correctly the author implies that if you don't really use your 'belief' in a practical sense, then it is crony. And the only benefit of irrational beliefs is to have a calculated social good impression. I think ethics do not need to be 'truthy'. Sometimes science is used for an ethical argument, but often it is just a weapon to make a certain impression. People care about other people not because they believe they we'll be rewarded for it. My great-grandmother was saved when Nazis occupied the city she lived in by her friend, who risked her life to do so. Was it because of "true" belief? Of course not. Or was it 'good impressions' - well nobody predicted at the time that the Nazis will lose. People have agency which stems from their life experience. For example author worked at Palantir for seven years. Was it 'rational' to do so? Probably, such companies may be a great place to work and compensation would be nice. Would it be 'irrational' to decline job offer from such company on ethical grounds? My point is that social reality is a fiction, point well-understood in certain traditions, but that fiction is what really our lives are, something as quite real as outcomes of scientific experiments. The absence of Truth as a bedrock of our experience may be problematic but it really opens up a horizon for change.