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They are philosophical animal. lol

I read this as ignorance is bliss, and it’s easier to live life and do all the day to day stuff you have to do if you’re blissful. So you should choose ignorance.

Is that the gist of it

"the poorer you are the less freedom you experience"

That's not what he's saying, though. He gives the examples of falling in love and violent threats which I don't think come from wanting to reduce cognitive loads.

I wouldn't consider falling in love irrational. I think he's conflating rationality with being stoic or having no emotions? One could argue that falling in love is actually very rational because it helps promote survival of the human species.

Either way, yes being silly or watching an exciting sports match can be "irrational" and fun but is that worthy of an article?

> While Odysseus had himself tied to the mast and rationally relinquished his option to act, his sailors plugged their ears with wax and rationally relinquished their option to know. At first this seems puzzling. One might think that knowledge is power, and you can never know too much. Just as it’s better to be rich than poor, because if you’re rich you can always give away your money and be poor, you might think it’s always better to know something, because you can always choose not to act on it. But in one of the paradoxes of rationality, that turns out not to be true. Sometimes it really is rational to plug your ears with wax [2]. Ignorance can be bliss, and sometimes what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

To call this rational ignorance is technically correct but a bit overly dramatic. Wearing sunglasses in sunlight would also be rational ignorance or wearing earplugs to protect from loud noises. Or a swimsuit to protect from the colder water because it "relinquishes" your option to feel the environment.

> Threats are another arena in which a lack of control can afford a paradoxical advantage. The problem with threatening to attack, strike, or punish is that the threat may be costly to carry out, rendering it a bluff that the target of the threat could call. To make it credible, the threatener must be committed to carrying it out, forfeiting the control that would give his target the leverage to threaten him right back by refusing to comply. A hijacker who wears an explosive belt that goes off with the slightest jostle, or protesters who chain themselves to the tracks in front of a train carrying fuel to a nuclear plant, cannot be scared away from their mission.

What is paradoxical about it? That's how threats work. It's rational to take a hijacker seriously.

To be honest, the article isn't very interesting. It's pop psychology you read on the toilet, like a longer version of a motivational poster. Did he write this because he has a quota to fulfill?

In this literature, a rational strategy is one that's suited to your goals. So a rational belief is a belief the holding of which will tend to better position you to achieve your goals.

Now, the fun part is that for a very long time, folks just assumed that true beliefs would further their goals, whereas false ones would not. "Rational," then took up a secondary definition something along the lines of "following truth-preserving rules." So on that secondary definition, it's rational to hold a belief if that belief -- objectively -- follows from your previous beliefs.

The behavioural economist Dan Ariely is much better at exploring this topic imo

The argument here seems to be "Cultivate self-awareness for rational decision making" rather than "choose irrationality"

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I’m the exact same. If you’re going to treat life like a performance is might as well be a genuine one

Hahahaha fair enough. I just ahhh I try to be genuine and clear. Anything else is a waste of energy.

Thank god for all the intentionally dumb women for allowing our egos to dance

What's the definition of 'rationality' we're going with here?

As a woman my experience has been that some are true ditzes. Many are very smart women who are dumbing themselves down intentionally in order to appeal (socially in a variety of ways) to certain men perceived -- usually correctly -- to have power. Thank God for all the smart good men.

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Pinker is a charlatan and an embarrassment, albeit an extremely popular one.

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Also, we have an economic system based on self-interest. It's not necessarily "irrational" in that context.

So spending 4 hours of your day riding public transportation isn't necessarily more rational than your 30 minute commute.

the benefits are collective and long-term, but the sacrifices are individual and instantaneous.

It's hard saying one is necessarily more rational than the other, especially when the individual won't live long enough to see the fruits of their sacrifices.

That's why individualist answers to collectivist/systemic problems will never work, imo.

I mean that and participation in Epstein's legal defence for soliciting underage prostitutes.

The guy is one of the many prominent vanguards of centrism,

Which is basically just deluding yourself into thinking the status quo is working.

It's a market, people want their fear placated by educated men dressed in formal suits, that's their job.

Yeah... All those ads you'll never see. So much waste.