[extropy-chat] Rational thinking

[Lee Corbin]

Eliezer writes (!)

> Lee Corbin wrote:
>> I have another, simple question.
>> 
>> Were the legendary founders of the United States who famously
>> pledged "our lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred honor" being
>> irrational?
> 
> That depends on what they were trying to do, of course.  Going on their 
> stated motives of essentially "the public utility", I'd say they did 
> pretty damn well for the eighteenth century.

Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in recorded history, Eliezer
Yudkowsky has declined to forcefully answer a question "yes" or
"no".  What sad (or happy) portent is this?

>> What is the structural difference---biases aside---between their
>> sacrifices and those of Kamikaze pilots or those of suicide bombers?
>> Merely the *likelihood* of loss?
> 
> The Founders were more educated and more philosophically sophisticated, 

Okay, I presently consider "rationality" (scare quotes fully intended) to
be an instrument which, like fire or the wheel, can be used for human
well-being or against human well-being.  The Nazis, for example, were
extremely rational in their decision making for a Final Solution to some
nagging questions bothering them, given their values. However, *having*
rationality or being able to deploy it gives us an opportunity to rise
above the animal level and go on pure gut reaction alone.

Those Founders deployed their rationality to good effect; the Nazis
obviously did not.  But that was not the question.

> going by historical records of the debates that went on at the 
> Constitutional Convention, and by their existence as literate, 
> politically active aristocrats of that day and age.

Yes. But the question still remains, When they put their own lives
at great risk, were they being rational, and how exactly is that
fundamentally different from the case of the kamikazes?

(It's Obvious to Me  /  What the Answer should Be    :-)

Lee