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Rational means you'll make choices that benefit yourself. It's one of the core assumptions of game theory, economics, and policymaking. All the math breaks as s

by jart 5y ago

Rational means you'll make choices that benefit yourself. It's one of the core assumptions of game theory, economics, and policymaking. All the math breaks as soon as that's not the case because irrational is unpredictable. What's nice about rational agency is that it makes cooperation without hierarchy possible so it's been known to rustle the jimmies of the first estate.

skissane 5y ago
There are at least two forms of rationality – epistemic rationality (aka theoretical rationality), and instrumental rationality. Your comment doesn't clearly draw the distinction between them. In the context of discussions about the rationality of religious belief, we are primarily talking about epistemic/theoretical rationality, although non-epistemic rationality does sometimes come up (for example, Pascal's wager). Some people think epistemic rationality can be reduced to instrumental rationality, but the philosopher Thomas Kelly wrote what is (to me at least) a pretty convincing refutation of that viewpoint: https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrumental.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrume...
- jart 5y ago
  I'm familiar with the rationalist movement and all the rationalists I've met have been wonderful people with few exceptions. I hadn't heard of epistemic rationality, but I find it interesting how the LessWrong definition (top search result) makes it sound like self-criticism and atonement.
  - skissane 5y ago
    One concern I have is how closely many people associate "rationality" with the "rationalist movement" (LessWrong, etc). Rationality has been discussed by philosophers for well over 2000 years. Aristotle famously declared that rationality was the feature that distinguished human beings from lesser animals. Most of those philosophers had radically different views from those of the contemporary "rationalist movement". Even today, many thinkers who radically disagree with the "rationalist movement" still believe in the importance of rationality, they just disagree with the "rationalist movement" on what actually counts as "rational".
    - jart 5y ago
      Well now they get to be a footnote in Plato's Republic. I'm not concerned about what people believe. If they want to get excited about Bayes theorem then that's great. I'm not concerned if people disagree on what it's called or how it's defined. Do you think the people who get paid to be rational understand rationality? I've seen things like software that earned billions in additional revenue get rolled back because we couldn't explain how it made decisions. The answer is that I don't have the answers and no one else does too. What's remarkable is how philosophers like Charles Babbage helped us make thousands of years of philosophy executable and we've unleashed it unto the world. How do we begin to understand that let alone explain it to the world?
irrational 5y ago
Do we want people to make choices that benefit themselves? That seems to be the root of so many problems in the world. Shouldn't we encourage people to make choices that benefit others, benefit the wider community, etc.?
- jart 5y ago
  Of course and one way to do that is by ensuring everyone gains. Startups for example create wealth by building products that provide a service to their communities. Paul Graham talks about this sort of thing on his blog. I think that's great even though it's not the case for folks in rent-seeking economies with zero-sum games where people can only win by making the other guy lose. Would you encourage someone in that situation to act against their self-interest?
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  No, we should encourage choices that maximize the benefit over all individuals including the person who is making the choice. The person making the choice is in no way morally less important than others. We should also avoid thinking in terms of a false dichotomy. Most voluntary exchanges and relationships in the world are win-win-win, in that both counterparties are gaining and the externality is positive. In such a context, self-maximizing through profit seeking is the choice that maximizes the benefit to others. What we want to discourage is a much more narrow cone of behavior. Corruption. Negative externalities. Things that aren't win-win-win.
tarsinge 5y ago
> What's nice about rational agency is that it makes cooperation without hierarchy possible And economic liberalism is the belief system that it works for the greater good.
- Ieghaehia9 5y ago
  > And economic liberalism is the belief system that it works for the greater good. Perhaps also anarchism, due to its focus on having the minimum amount of hierarchy possible.

by jart 5y ago

skissane 5y ago

There are at least two forms of rationality – epistemic rationality (aka theoretical rationality), and instrumental rationality. Your comment doesn't clearly draw the distinction between them. In the context of discussions about the rationality of religious belief, we are primarily talking about epistemic/theoretical rationality, although non-epistemic rationality does sometimes come up (for example, Pascal's wager). Some people think epistemic rationality can be reduced to instrumental rationality, but the philosopher Thomas Kelly wrote what is (to me at least) a pretty convincing refutation of that viewpoint: https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrumental.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrume...

jart 5y ago
I'm familiar with the rationalist movement and all the rationalists I've met have been wonderful people with few exceptions. I hadn't heard of epistemic rationality, but I find it interesting how the LessWrong definition (top search result) makes it sound like self-criticism and atonement.
- skissane 5y ago
  One concern I have is how closely many people associate "rationality" with the "rationalist movement" (LessWrong, etc). Rationality has been discussed by philosophers for well over 2000 years. Aristotle famously declared that rationality was the feature that distinguished human beings from lesser animals. Most of those philosophers had radically different views from those of the contemporary "rationalist movement". Even today, many thinkers who radically disagree with the "rationalist movement" still believe in the importance of rationality, they just disagree with the "rationalist movement" on what actually counts as "rational".
  - jart 5y ago
    Well now they get to be a footnote in Plato's Republic. I'm not concerned about what people believe. If they want to get excited about Bayes theorem then that's great. I'm not concerned if people disagree on what it's called or how it's defined. Do you think the people who get paid to be rational understand rationality? I've seen things like software that earned billions in additional revenue get rolled back because we couldn't explain how it made decisions. The answer is that I don't have the answers and no one else does too. What's remarkable is how philosophers like Charles Babbage helped us make thousands of years of philosophy executable and we've unleashed it unto the world. How do we begin to understand that let alone explain it to the world?

irrational 5y ago

Do we want people to make choices that benefit themselves? That seems to be the root of so many problems in the world. Shouldn't we encourage people to make choices that benefit others, benefit the wider community, etc.?

jart 5y ago
Of course and one way to do that is by ensuring everyone gains. Startups for example create wealth by building products that provide a service to their communities. Paul Graham talks about this sort of thing on his blog. I think that's great even though it's not the case for folks in rent-seeking economies with zero-sum games where people can only win by making the other guy lose. Would you encourage someone in that situation to act against their self-interest?
fighterpilot 5y ago
No, we should encourage choices that maximize the benefit over all individuals including the person who is making the choice. The person making the choice is in no way morally less important than others. We should also avoid thinking in terms of a false dichotomy. Most voluntary exchanges and relationships in the world are win-win-win, in that both counterparties are gaining and the externality is positive. In such a context, self-maximizing through profit seeking is the choice that maximizes the benefit to others. What we want to discourage is a much more narrow cone of behavior. Corruption. Negative externalities. Things that aren't win-win-win.

tarsinge 5y ago

> What's nice about rational agency is that it makes cooperation without hierarchy possible And economic liberalism is the belief system that it works for the greater good.

Ieghaehia9 5y ago
> And economic liberalism is the belief system that it works for the greater good. Perhaps also anarchism, due to its focus on having the minimum amount of hierarchy possible.