Ask HN: How can rational thinking increase in individuals and societies? - theideasmith
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Gustomaximus
Education and experiences.

Education: We should educate for core thinking process as in the old days like
logic and rhetoric topics. E.g. Logic can be taught and is undervalued as a
trait these days. I'd prefer to work with someone that had great logic than
rote learnt job requirements.

Experience: By balancing society and encouraging broad experience and social
mixing you will get a more rational society. In my experience 90% of society
is trying to be good citizens, but often they have a blinked view on the
world. Mixing widly for greater experiences will reduce the tribal tendency
people have e.g wealthy people to assume unemployed are lazy or the poor to
think the wealthy have it all roses. This would cross to other areas like
religion, guns, race if people can see the perspective where people are coming
from. And those with opposing views more likely dont feel they have to push to
the extreme to be understood. And simply seeing things in action opens your
eyes. Like people that claim single payer healthcare will never work. Go spend
some time in Canada, UK and Australia and you will see it works fairly well.
Likewise you'll see bad things that reinforce what you need to protect.

~~~
ccvannorman
It's worth noting that many (private) schools are picking up EQ as a primary
focus in addition to regular subjects, which has the result of churning out
kids more likely to evaluate themselves in their decision making (leading to
more rational paths).

~~~
natdempk
What does EQ stand for?

~~~
Gustomaximus
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence)

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Rainymood
Why would we want to increase rational thinking? Do you believe this is
beneficial for society?

What metric do we use to measure the happiness of a society? Do we want
everyone to be as educated as possible? I once read some study that correlated
intelligence with unhappiness (ignorance is bliss) so wouldnt it maybe be
smarter to try to keep as much people as uneducated as possible?

The "ideal" society is such a philosophical question. On a related tangent it
saddens me that although we have such technologic progress we still all work
40+ hours a week ... why?!

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ilaksh
The usual context for a question like this is actually finding out that
someone has different beliefs from you.

First thing is for people to realize the prevalence of belief systems and how
they are not derived or supported rationally.

Next thing is for people to realize that everyone has a belief system, no
matter how non-religious or empirical they think their worldview is.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Corollary: Realize that _you_ have a belief system, too, and therefore that,
when the other person has different beliefs, they aren't necessarily the one
who's wrong.

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joeclark77
Subsidiarity.

Subdsidiarity is the principle that decisions should be made locally as much
as possible. In government it's what we call "federalism": most decisions are
made by individuals; those that cannot are made by local government answerable
to the people; those that cannot be made locally may be made by the county or
state; only those very few decisions that cannot be made by states are the
purview of the federal government. The US was supposed to operate this way. It
hasn't since before World War I.

Why is subsidiarity connected to rational decision making? Simply, because the
world is too complex for any one person or group to understand, model,
predict, and control it. Most decisions can be made best by the individuals
concerned, who have the relevant knowledge. This also reduces the cognitive
burden on everyone else. Since higher authorities have few powers, their
impacts are minimal. Citizens who do not have the time or information to
follow those high level decisions may _rationally_ ignore and trust the
system, because it has little impact on them. Those who do have the
inclination to pay attention to politics can make a fair evaluation of their
leaders because the leaders are only involved in a few things.

One of the reasons you see people acting in such an emotional and heuristic
way, nowadays, is that the central governments and even transnational
organizations are at the same time manifestly incompetent and incredibly
impactful. All citizens _must_ be concerned with who wins the federal offices,
because the federal government seizes half of every dollar they earn, and
imposes itself into every intimate choice they make. So no one can afford to
ignore it. At the same time, government is so complex and makes so many
decisions that no citizen has the time or information to study it thoroughly.
So what can a rational person do? They must seek shortcuts, such as finding
trusted personalities to follow, or making judgments based on rules of thumb,
slogans, and so forth.

In sum, because rational choice is only possible when we have the time and the
information needed to make choices, neither the citizen nor the central
authority can make rational choices in a centralized superstate.
Decentralizing decision making spreads the work out to more minds, and places
less burden on each individual.

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internaut
By competition and selection. Evolution is the main algorithm that can scale
up and improve a complex system. How that is practically accomplished is a
separate topic but the theoretical answer is clear. I think one day the same
will become true in computation once a certain complexity threshold is
reached.

There is little point in educating and refining individuals (although they may
benefit) unless the whole network of society can be improved net.

P.J O'Rourke points out that a great many ignorant people exist in America,
especially in certain zip codes.

He says the average Russian is far more well read and educated, not just in
theory but in spirit too, and a great many of them have superior intelligence
that makes their population natural adepts in science and literature.

Despite all of this; Russia is poorer and considerably worse off than the USA
today.

It is good that you ask the question in the context of individuals _and_
groups. There is something of a microeconomics/macroeconomics divide here! The
aid of one does not help the other. It is a most strange and counter intuitive
paradox.

I say a good heuristic for our 'algorithm' for improving society and
individuals is a diversity of options. Then we allow society and individuals
to make the value judgments of what to choose independently. That is the
classic position of a Westerner such as myself.

The caveat then is to what extent does informing a judgment control that
outcome. That is a wicked problem. As computer scientists say, Garbage in,
Garbage out. I suspect if you solve for that then you have your answer.

Most of the time I believe we act instinctively. This implies there is also a
cost to rationality. I also believe rationality is a distant cousin to
education and raw intelligence. There are too many examples of educated quick
witted people who believe things that cannot be true.

To make a stab at a practical endeavour which would answer your question, I
would guess that directing attention productively could increase rationality.
I think in some way having a pencil and a piece of paper increases your powers
of reason, or at least the possible scope. Putting somebody into a room with a
cool temperature, good lighting, some paper and writing materials, no
distractions and perhaps preliminary meditation is very likely to increase
your powers of reason.

------
fuqted
An increase in honesty (both to themselves and others) causes people to search
for the reasons why they do what they do. Greater political and legal
scrutiny.

~~~
Tempest1981
Agreed. It's also helpful for us to find the reasons that _others_ do what
they do. It's more insightful than treating them with condescension.

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Mz
Education, experience and _better health._ Poor health negatively impacts
cognitive function.

[http://www.newsweek.com/diseases-
mind-133263?rx=us](http://www.newsweek.com/diseases-mind-133263?rx=us)

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theideasmith
How do we bypass cognitive limits?

Can we offload rationality to our subconscious without allowing ourselves to
succumb to heuristics? What are some strategies we can use for relying less on
heuristics and more on logic?

How can we avoid perceptual errors which influence our judgement?

etc.

~~~
fuqted
We don't know our cognitive limits.

Think about how hard you mentally push yourself on a day to day. It isn't a
stretch to think that cognition can be trained stronger.

Do you ever wonder what an Eagle's vision would be like if they lived inside
of a 10x15 room their whole life?

> At birth, the number of synapses per neuron is 2,500, but by age two or
> three, it’s about 15,000 per neuron. The brain eliminates connections that
> are seldom or never used, which is a normal part of brain development. [0]

How much do you think the average kid, or their adult counterpart, would need
to use their brain for sitting in front of the tv or working a menial job /
boring school?

I believe we set our own cognitive limits and I hope that we can learn to
reset them.

[0]:
[https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/4356e/](https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/4356e/)

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MichaelBurge
Buy a large island, found a city, and reject anyone who doesn't pass a
rationality test. Then include rationality in educational programs for kids.

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rixed
I believe the main usage of thoughts is to justify oneself, not to reason.
Therefore we should aim at decreasing the need for self justification?

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dmfdmf
When people see that being rational is selfish they will do it of their own
accord.

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meric
More spirituality.

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ithipster
selective breeding

~~~
Gustomaximus
I suspect you're confusing intelligence with rationality.

