If people were 100% rational, would the world be better?

[The Grand Nudger]

Philosophically, I see an unsolvable paradox. Psychologically though, that is how the world feels to me. As I will explain...

That much is obvious, right....?  Just as I don't is equally obvious.  Perhaps, and this will be the third time I suggested as much, this has more to do with one person attaching the truth of an idea to a doomed premise, than it does to there being any paradox, unsolvable or otherwise?

Ultimately, I'm to take you seriously, and that means assuming that you see whatever mundane thing fills my own apprehension - you and I being pretty much interchangeable, and still you have an unresolvable where I don't.  It's a conundrum, for sure, but not so much for me.

Just to be clear I am not talking about faith in any particular religious tradition. I am talking about faith, or rather trust, in the basic presuppositions of rational thought.

I used to maintain that beliefs in the efficacy of human reason and an underlying cosmic order are properly basic beliefs. I would not say that they are necessarily true; but rather, in the absence of defeaters, both beliefs have warrant. As such, the right and proper epistimological approach would be to act "as if" our reality is indeed has a rational order and reason can illuminate that order. That, as opposed to taking the skeptical stance that any perceived order is just illusion and that any similarity between the stories in our heads and what is really going...any similarity is accidental.

You seemed to agree and immediately judged those beliefs to be obvious. Yes, reality has an underlying rational order* and, yes, human intelligence can have true discernment. But because of my current subjective psychological state though, I am questioning that obviousness and whether or not either belief qualifies properly basic.

*I know I am being a little sloppy with term like "intelligible reality" or "cosmic order".

Neither am I.  You said you took those things on faith and lost that faith.  I can see how, if a person took those things on faith, and lost that faith, they might feel as though they lost those things.  All of this is independent of any state of affairs in fact or mere reality..as whichever thing is true, that there's a there there or there isn't....you've managed to believe both. 

For my part, I can only see the one, and it doesn't take faith or even some explicitly scientific worldview, just eyeballs.  Again, you're only telling me about the disadvantages of taking things on faith. I don't know what to say other than...of course. Faith as you held it was poorly constructed, and failed. I don't have to concern myself over a failure of faith in this regard or any other. This..because I tend to ascribe truth only to things which are manifestly so, rather than believing in something on faith which was not manifestly so by other means.

Is human intelligence effective? Yes, manifestly so, and you might save yourself the ironic embarrassment of arguing otherwise. Is there order to reality? Again manifestly so..so much so that our lives depend on it. I don't have to clap real hard, or cheer, or close my eyes and wish and believe in what I can't see, faithing either thing into existence. These, frankly, are softball issues.

So, again, is there some specific irrationality or even a necessity of faith, or did you just register your objection to the idea that any thought is or can be rational, in toto..as you shared your apparently a-rational thoughts..with us? Am I just yelling down a cave here, do you really not appreciate the bind you've put yourself, and only yourself... in? I appreciate that you might be doing a thing because of your current pyschological state - but that's not exactly interchangeable with doing something because of some factual external state of affairs.....

I accept that your misplaced faith has caused you pain, I guess? I believe that this is a thing that's happened to you? Tale as old as time, is that what you want to hear? To be truthful, I think that you're pulling my leg, and you admit as much in that post. You didn't stop seeing order in the universe, you stopped believing in some faith imposed order that was important to you. You didn't stop thinking that human intelligence was effective, you're just consoling yourself with it's hypothetical inability as a final defense of the very faith you claim to have lost. Be less sloppy, your delivery is important to understanding what the fuck you're even talking about.

/two cents.