>Except I'm trying to cover rational and irrational cases in separate halves of the "if". I know in many circumstances people aren't going to be rational. Those

>Except I'm trying to cover rational and irrational cases in separate halves of the "if". I know in many circumstances people aren't going to be rational. Those are covered by a separate argument entirely. Your worldview is still to rigid to understand what I'm saying and maybe it's because I'm being too diplomatic. I'm not willing to say in absolute terms that Region 2 makes all decisions because science is never absolute; I'm trying to be generous in my wording and you're reading too much into it to fit your own aims. That's a perfect example of Region 3 rationalizing your mental model. You're essentially saying "It's perfectly safe to stare at the sun." and when presented with different evidence, you retort "Aha! What about during an eclipse! See!? I told you I was right!" It's superficially true, sure, but such a minority circumstance that it's not only of little value, but it fails to understand the actual principles that guide the counterargument. >All I'm saying is that region 3 is sometimes involved Nobody is denying region 3 is involved, the key part is if it's making a the decision or just rationalizing it to make us feel good. Do you actually know what the "ratio of people" is to make your statement true, or is that just a useful mechanism for avoiding backpedaling on the claim? If we were talking about performing long division rather than a social function, we'd probably have a different discussion, but Region 2 is what governs our social interactions. Look. Even the people at the forefront of cognitive psychology admit they can't overcome their Region 2 biases. These are Nobel laureates who've studied this stuff for decades and even they admit they are unable to make unbiased, rational decisions in real time. If they can't overcome it, the ratio of people who can is probably vanishingly small. If you were to say from the onset that you acknowledge that people don't make such decisions with their rational mind, but if they were to, it would be a bad decision, that's perfectly sensible. You'd have acknowledged you understand both the mechanisms underpinning human cognition and the fact that you're hypothetical scenario is limited to a theoretical thought experiment. But that's not what you did, you made a claim and kept rules-lawyering around it when presented with counterclaims. A thoughtful and curious person would say, "Huh. I guess I didn't realize that's the way the mind works." and then update their mental model accordingly. Those that aren't will dig their heels in to avoid the cognitive dissonance that occurs when their mental model is incorrect.