1: Our epistemic rationality has probably gotten way ahead of our instrumental rationality
I would defend the instrumental rationality of having a rule of thumb that unless you’re quite wealthy, you don’t bother looking into anything that appears to be a ‘get rich quick’ scheme, or seek to invest in high-risk high-return projects you can’t evaluate.
Yes sometimes it will fail big, if you miss the boat on bitcoin, or Facebook or whatever. Every strategy fails in some scenarios. Sometimes betting it all on 23 red will have been the right call.
But because it i) lowers risk, ii) saves you wasting time looking into lots of dud investments to find the occasional good one, iii) makes you less of a mark for scams and delusions, I think it’s sensible for most.
I would defend the instrumental rationality of having a rule of thumb that unless you’re quite wealthy, you don’t bother looking into anything that appears to be a ‘get rich quick’ scheme, or seek to invest in high-risk high-return projects you can’t evaluate.
Yes sometimes it will fail big, if you miss the boat on bitcoin, or Facebook or whatever. Every strategy fails in some scenarios. Sometimes betting it all on 23 red will have been the right call.
But because it i) lowers risk, ii) saves you wasting time looking into lots of dud investments to find the occasional good one, iii) makes you less of a mark for scams and delusions, I think it’s sensible for most.