I think one reason might be that the vast majority of the decisions we make are not going to make a significant difference as to our overall success by themselves; or rather, not as significant a difference as chance or other factors (e.g., native talent) could. For example, take the example about not buying into a snake-oil health product lessdazed uses above: you’ve benefited from your rationality, but it’s still small potatoes compared to the amount of benefit you could get from being in the right place at the right time and becoming a pop star… or getting lucky with the stock market… or starting a software company at just the right time. These people, who have to have varying degrees of something besides luck and a small amount of rationality to capitalize on it, are much more visible; even if their decisions were less-than-optimal, the other factors make up for it. Nothing’s stopping them from poisoning themselves with a scam miracle-elixir, though.
This ties in with the point lessdazed was making, that the rational person most likely loses less rather than wins big—that is, makes a large number of small decisions well, rather than a single important one extremely well. That’s not to be despised; I wonder what the results if we ask about overall well-being and happiness rather than fame and fortune.
I think one reason might be that the vast majority of the decisions we make are not going to make a significant difference as to our overall success by themselves; or rather, not as significant a difference as chance or other factors (e.g., native talent) could. For example, take the example about not buying into a snake-oil health product lessdazed uses above: you’ve benefited from your rationality, but it’s still small potatoes compared to the amount of benefit you could get from being in the right place at the right time and becoming a pop star… or getting lucky with the stock market… or starting a software company at just the right time. These people, who have to have varying degrees of something besides luck and a small amount of rationality to capitalize on it, are much more visible; even if their decisions were less-than-optimal, the other factors make up for it. Nothing’s stopping them from poisoning themselves with a scam miracle-elixir, though.
This ties in with the point lessdazed was making, that the rational person most likely loses less rather than wins big—that is, makes a large number of small decisions well, rather than a single important one extremely well. That’s not to be despised; I wonder what the results if we ask about overall well-being and happiness rather than fame and fortune.