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If people were 100% rational, would the world be better?
#40
RE: If people were 100% rational, would the world be better?
I think that you’re still framing the issue as though 100% rationality would lead to our conclusions about addressing climate change.

That all rational roads must by force lead to us and our position. That it takes a bad faith argument or the insistence that climate action as conceived would be evil - but that all of this would be zeroed out by 100% rationality.

That’s not been the case in my experience. While I don’t know any 100% rational people I’ve heard many 100% rational arguments from people against what we like to call the transition to appropriate technology and methodology.

They’re little mirrors of large scale arguments against the same. It is unclear, for example, why a completely rational producer would abandon massive investments in infrastructure and equipment specific to their models in order to service an ideological imperative held by others which they themselves have no personal a-rational attachment to.

It is similarly unclear that a 100% rational developing or disadvantaged producer( or society, for that matter) would forgo the benefits of rapid industrialization and mechanization, of petro-chemical agriculture and integrated pest management.

It’s unclear why a producer would abandon or fail to seek those subsidies and programs on the table for crops and methods deemed inappropriate in light of climate change.

It’s unclear why a producer would do -anything- to save the world knowing that a significant number of other people will refuse or simply not be able to comply, and in this, factually prevent the satisfaction of that goal.

Unclear in the case of full rationality- but a super easy pitch if the producer has some pre-existing a-rational attachment to the issue or goal. In this, I’d go so far as to say that the entire movement is made up of True Believers, for better and for worse. Climate action as conceived of is not a 100% rational goal. It’s rationalizable, after the fact, if it works, which it may not. The hook is always always always some personal conviction. That’s the difference between people who show up for free food and merchandise and snore through the presentations, the difference between people who see the dollars and cents but don’t care for the goal and the people who will pursue it at great expense to themselves.

People look for alternative models after they’re already hooked. They want to do something- and mist of them would like to see at least the pretense of rational expectations of success. Personal success, global success. It’s not always the case that these objectors are loons or making bad faith arguments or even that they have bad goals. Plenty of them want to be involved, but it actually and literally doesn’t make sense for them to do so. That’s the work that remains. They can’t be rationally argued out of their positions because their position is inarguably true until we find a solution that fits them.

Reason, rationality at any percentage, does not produce good outcomes..or at least outcomes you and I would call good. That’s not it’s function, not it’s effect. Our good outcomes may in fact be on the side of irrationality or a-rationality. Our motivation in this may be part of the set we’re zeroing out in the thought experiment. A world full of fully rational people may assess the issue outside of those zeroed out impulses and very legitimately conclude that climate action is a pleasant but indefensible fiction.

That it doesn’t work, won’t work, can’t work, and we’d only be harming people if we dive in headfirst.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: If people were 100% rational, would the world be better? - by The Grand Nudger - July 16, 2021 at 8:49 am

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