[extropy-chat] examples of rational irrationalism

[Al Brooks]

The question is: do rational reasons exist for
irrational thinking and behavior that enable one to
escape irrational reality? the answer is yes.
To an extraterrestrial visiting Earth,  drinking and
watching football would seem to be irrational, but it
makes perfect sense, drinking helps a guy to forget;
in watching football you can vicariously observe men
harming each other. If a guy wasn't watching football
and drinking he might very well be involved in
fisticuffs in bars, driving DUI, engaging in acts of
vandalism.
Working on dairy farms I saw men busting their humps
10- 15 hours a day, then drinking themselves into a
coma at night. Didn't make any sense... or did it? 
The farmers had large broods of children, and they
would invariably say, "you can't live forever-- except
through your kids". The work would give then plenty of
exercise, they would drink themselves into oblivion,
the children would inherit the farms after they passed
away, there was a great deal of rationality to the
irrationalism.
Even geniuses can be rationally irrational, I know a
free spirited professor who didn't want to get
married, it was the last thing he wanted, but his
libido overrode his better judgement, he ended up
married with children. He's not happy-- or not
particularly so-- but studies indicate marrieds live
longer, so being married with children makes
irrational sense to him.
Even this war makes sense, in an irrational way.
America is violent, the other side is violent; so
though war is irrational, this war is rational in  the
context of an irrational world. What can Bush say?
Could he appear on TV to say, "we're sadistic killers,
the enemy are sadistic killers, in a nationalistic
world headed by bumbling chief executives such as
myself we will know war. Yes I screwed it up, but I'm
such a vicious, resolute SOB you may do as well to
keep me on as president rather than take a chance with
someone else".





 
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