4 ms·

It's impossible to be perfectly rational without perfect and complete information. Crucially, for questions that affect us personally, this includes perfect ins

• flixic 5y ago
  That's why I appreciate that a rationality website is called LessWrong. Of course you can't be perfectly rational, but you can be less wrong.
  • _moof 5y ago
    Thanks for the reply. I think what I was trying to say by implication is that I think folks fall so far short of the ideal that it's actually a regression. Related to this is what I see as an implicit belief that "rationality" means completely dismissing the lived experience of actual humans, i.e. lots of people are suffering but hey, at least we applied principles in a soulless and mathematical way, because that's what's important.
    • UnFleshedOne 5y ago
      A soulless and mathematically applied principles is a good was to actually reduce the number of people suffering. Assuming that's what your goal was from the start. If you only look at "lived experience" and then make a random change you feel might help, but don't actually check if it does, you can make things worse (see the outcomes of all the aid to Africa for example).
• jhgb 5y ago
  Why? Are you equating rationality with omniscience? Then why have the separate word "rationality" in the first place?
• rafaelero 5y ago
  What a ridiculous take. Rationality is not the same as omniscience. Being rational is optimizing predictability by using the best available evidence we have. No one is claiming to know the answer for some future event, but trying to reach the best way to aggregate the current information.