[extropy-chat] Rational thinking

[Eliezer S. Yudkowsky]

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.

> 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, 
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.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence