Thinking, Fast and Slow was the catalyst that turned my rumbling dissatisfaction into the pursuit of a more rational approach to life. I wound up here. After a few years, what do I think causes human irrationality? Here’s a listicle.
Cognitive biases, whatever these are
Not understanding statistics
Akrasia
Little skill in accessing and processing theory and data
Not speaking science-ese
Lack of interest or passion for rationality
Not seeing rationality as a virtue, or even seeing it as a vice.
A sense of futility, the idea that epistemic rationality is not very useful, while instrumental rationality is often repugnant
A focus on associative thinking
Resentment
Not putting thought into action
Lack of incentives for rational thought and action itself
Mortality
Shame
Lack of time, energy, ability
An accurate awareness that it’s impossible to distinguish tribal affiliation and culture from a community
Everyone is already rational, given their context
Everyone thinks they’re already rational, and that other people are dumb
It’s a good heuristic to assume that other people are dumb
Rationality is disruptive, and even very “progressive” people have a conservative bias to stay the same, conform with their peers, and not question their own worldview
Rationality can misfire if we don’t take it far enough
All the writing, math, research, etc. is uncomfortable and not very fun compared to alternatives
Epistemic rationality is directly contradictory to instrumental rationality
Nihilism
Applause lights confuse people about what even is rationality
There’s at least 26 factors deflecting people from rationality, and people like a clear, simple answer
No curriculum
It’s not taught in school
In an irrational world, epistemic rationality is going to hold you back
Life is bad, and making it better just makes people more comfortable in badness
Very short-term thinking
People take their ideas way too seriously, without taking ideas in general seriously enough
Constant distraction
The paradox of choice
Lack of faith in other people or in the possibility for constructive change
Rationality looks at the whole world, which has more people in it than Dunbar’s number
The rationalists are all hiding on obscure blogs online
Rationality is inherently elitist
Rationality leads to convergence on the truth if we trust each other, but it leads to fragmentation of interests since we can’t think about everything, which makes us more isolated
Slinging opinions around is how people connect. Rationality is an argument.
“Rationality” is stupid. What’s really smart is to get good at harnessing your intuition, your social instincts, to make friends and play politics.
Rationality is paperclipping the world. Every technological advance that makes individuals more comfortable pillages the earth and increases inequality, so they’re all bad and we should just embrace the famine and pestilence until mother nature takes us back to the stone age and we can all exist in the circular dreamtime.
You can’t rationally commit to rationality without being rational first. We have no baptism ceremony.
We need a baptism ceremony but don’t want to be a cult, so we’re screwed, which we would also be if we became a cult.
David Brooks is right that EA is bad, we like EA, so we’re probably bad too.
We’re secretly all spiritual and just faking rational atheism because what we really want to do is convert.
There’s too much verbiage already in the world.
The singularity is coming; what’s the point?
Our leaders have abandoned us, and the best of us have been cut down like poppies.
Eschewing the dark arts is a self-defeating stance
Thinking, Fast and Slow was the catalyst that turned my rumbling dissatisfaction into the pursuit of a more rational approach to life. I wound up here. After a few years, what do I think causes human irrationality? Here’s a listicle.
Cognitive biases, whatever these are
Not understanding statistics
Akrasia
Little skill in accessing and processing theory and data
Not speaking science-ese
Lack of interest or passion for rationality
Not seeing rationality as a virtue, or even seeing it as a vice.
A sense of futility, the idea that epistemic rationality is not very useful, while instrumental rationality is often repugnant
A focus on associative thinking
Resentment
Not putting thought into action
Lack of incentives for rational thought and action itself
Mortality
Shame
Lack of time, energy, ability
An accurate awareness that it’s impossible to distinguish tribal affiliation and culture from a community
Everyone is already rational, given their context
Everyone thinks they’re already rational, and that other people are dumb
It’s a good heuristic to assume that other people are dumb
Rationality is disruptive, and even very “progressive” people have a conservative bias to stay the same, conform with their peers, and not question their own worldview
Rationality can misfire if we don’t take it far enough
All the writing, math, research, etc. is uncomfortable and not very fun compared to alternatives
Epistemic rationality is directly contradictory to instrumental rationality
Nihilism
Applause lights confuse people about what even is rationality
There’s at least 26 factors deflecting people from rationality, and people like a clear, simple answer
No curriculum
It’s not taught in school
In an irrational world, epistemic rationality is going to hold you back
Life is bad, and making it better just makes people more comfortable in badness
Very short-term thinking
People take their ideas way too seriously, without taking ideas in general seriously enough
Constant distraction
The paradox of choice
Lack of faith in other people or in the possibility for constructive change
Rationality looks at the whole world, which has more people in it than Dunbar’s number
The rationalists are all hiding on obscure blogs online
Rationality is inherently elitist
Rationality leads to convergence on the truth if we trust each other, but it leads to fragmentation of interests since we can’t think about everything, which makes us more isolated
Slinging opinions around is how people connect. Rationality is an argument.
“Rationality” is stupid. What’s really smart is to get good at harnessing your intuition, your social instincts, to make friends and play politics.
Rationality is paperclipping the world. Every technological advance that makes individuals more comfortable pillages the earth and increases inequality, so they’re all bad and we should just embrace the famine and pestilence until mother nature takes us back to the stone age and we can all exist in the circular dreamtime.
You can’t rationally commit to rationality without being rational first. We have no baptism ceremony.
We need a baptism ceremony but don’t want to be a cult, so we’re screwed, which we would also be if we became a cult.
David Brooks is right that EA is bad, we like EA, so we’re probably bad too.
We’re secretly all spiritual and just faking rational atheism because what we really want to do is convert.
There’s too much verbiage already in the world.
The singularity is coming; what’s the point?
Our leaders have abandoned us, and the best of us have been cut down like poppies.
Eschewing the dark arts is a self-defeating stance
A few other (even less pleasant) options:
51) God is inscrutable and rationality is no better than any other religion.
52) Different biology and experience across humans leads to very different models of action.
53) Everyone lies, all the time.