
Man as a Rationalist Animal (2017) - simonsarris
https://samzdat.com/2017/05/22/man-as-a-rationalist-animal/
======
yitosda
There's a ton of (especially early) nerd culture idolizing many forms of what
most people know as the "Spock" character (somewhat more accurately, Vulcans
in general). This is typically contrasted with emotions, sometimes as a
mystical part of the human soul that exists outside of logic, sometimes as the
source of evil.

It's a constant bother. The only way to apply pure logic to any problem is to
pare it down to a mockery of the real world problem. That's why we have "gut"
or "emotions": We apply imperfect patterns to complex issues, otherwise we'd
never make it through a single day; it's an optimization.

Tech/nerd/stem types absolutely love to do this. We take a problem, pare it
down to its essence and then solve it. When no one listens and no logical
counterargument prevails, the cries for technocracy start to ring out. A
classic attempt to dissect this fallacy was the old blog post "What color are
your bits?" [1]

As technology companies continue to grow in power relative to all other
companies and governments, I'm very interested in watching how this plays out.

[1] [https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23](https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23)

~~~
SolaceQuantum
_" Tech/nerd/stem types absolutely love to do this. We take a problem, pare it
down to its essence and then solve it."_

In my experience, the tech/nerd/stem types being hypothesized about actually
do not pare a problem down to its essence. They instead do the equivalent to
attempting to solve the screaming of a hungry child by assuming the essence of
the problem is that "too much sound", so we put the child in a soundproofed
room.

In truth, it is entirely possible to apply pure logic to a problem _if the
problem is appropriately scoped to closely align with actual reality_. In my
experience, to deny the emotional aspects of something is actually irrational
behavior- it makes incorrect assumptions that the only things that exist are
what the tech/nerd/stem person understands themselves.

This results in the hypocritical behavior of a tech/nerd/stem type crying out
(emotionally) to solve the problems of emotionality.

~~~
yitosda
I think we agree, but I appreciate that my wording wasn't perfectly clear.

"pare down to its essence" was a bad way of saying "disregard intersecting
issues and focus on one logically resolvable issue." Your soundproofed room
analogy is apt.

I also agree with applying pure logic to a scoped problem being not only
possible but desirable... but I'd argue that properly scoped problems are
rarely as useful to solve as the scoper might think. In many cases "merely"
scoping the problem in a novel way leads directly to a truly useful course of
action, and is most of the hard work.

I agree completely with emotions being something we should not deny, but
rather be something to /include/ when trying to solve problems. (My complaints
are around emotions being placed outside or opposed to the realm of logic,
where accounting for them is "illogical")

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Yes, I agree- but what fo you mean by "merely scoping the problem in a novel
way" and how does it differ from the way I describe scoping?

(Not attacking, genuinely curious because I'd love to find new and more useful
courses of action when it comes to problems...)

~~~
yitosda
I think we are both arguing that some people narrow the scope of arguments to
the point that they aren't useful to the original problem, merely more
amenable to logic. Let's call this "not useful scoping".

I further argue that useful scoping (isolating the problem in a way that
solving it provides a solution amenable to all those who proposed the problem)
often /is/ the hard work, itself a product of much time and logic.

Far from proposing a useful course of action: I simply lament that we will
often choose our scope to support simple logic, rather than use complex logic
to improve the scope.

No surprise either: each life only has so many hours.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Ah, ok, thanks for clarifying.

It is possible to genuinely enjoy scoping the problems out though, evaluating
their complexities, etc. It's also possible to say "I don't have time to
evaluate the thing, so I'm not going to conclude anything about it" (although
the latter irritates lots of friends, haha)

------
kingkawn
The concept that emotions are irrational is itself irrational. They are a
physiologic reaction to environmental conditions that is a byproduct of untold
generations of evolutionary development. To dismiss them out of hand for the
sake of deifying a comparatively infant-like intellectual culture is not
reasonable. Emotions are Us, not some inconvenient creature to squash for the
greater good.

~~~
saint_fiasco
A common mistake (those who see themselves as) clever people make is that they
believe that if you win an argument, you are correct.

That's why when a person is upset and has a hard time expressing themselves,
or when an old person struggles to explain the importance of some traditional
custom to a new generation, people tend to automatically dismiss them. We
often care more about winning arguments than about finding truth.

~~~
jacobmoe
> A common mistake (those who see themselves as) clever people make is that
> they believe that if you win an argument, you are correct.

You contradict this later by saying "We often care more about winning
arguments than about finding truth." This is right - it's not that people
think that winning the argument means they're correct, it's just that it feels
good to win an argument. Winning does matter more than finding the true. Why?
Feelings. Feelings govern everything. Life would literally have no meaning
without the feeling tones that give it meaning.

~~~
saint_fiasco
Sure, but even total hedonists believe that sometimes you have to not spend
everything you have on candy, sacrificing immediate pleasure so you can eat
more total candy in the long run.

We should also resist the temptation of declaring victory in a discussion and
instead listen carefully to what irrational, emotional, even inarticulate
people have to say.

------
spieglt
I really like the Daodejing on this topic.

Chapter 17:

The greatest of rulers is but a shadowy presence;

Next is the ruler who is loved and praised;

Next is the one who is feared;

Next is the one who is reviled.

Those lacking in trust are not trusted.

However, [the greatest rulers] are cautious and honor words.

When their task is done and work complete,

Their people all say, "This is just how we are."

Chapter 29:

Those who would gain the world and do something with it, I see that they will
fail.

For the world is a spiritual vessel and one cannot put it to use.

Those who use it ruin it.

Those who grab hold of it lose it.

[...]

(Phillip J. Ivanhoe translation)

~~~
cwkoss
Reminds me of

Lao Tzu: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is
done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

~~~
spieglt
Yep, that's actually the last three lines I quoted from chapter 17 in a
different translation.

------
Emma_Goldman
The account of pessimism and optimism which the author begins with is too
simplistic.

What matters for our outlook is not, in the first instance, whether humanity's
failures in the past are attributable to malign motivations or technical
incompetence, but whether the problem - whatever it is - is soluble.

If our major failures are ultimately the result of ill will, but humans are
_inherently_ malign creatures, or our collective endeavours are _always_
undermined by the malignant actions of some individuals, then this would be
little comfort indeed.

~~~
saint_fiasco
> If our major failures are ultimately the result of ill will, but humans are
> inherently malign creatures, or our collective endeavours are always
> undermined by the malignant actions of some individuals, then this would be
> little comfort indeed.

If people really believed that they wouldn't complain so much about it and
they certainly wouldn't be politically active about it. There would be no
point.

Arguably, this is true for most of the population. But there is a big loud
minority that works very hard to make sure the correct lizard rules over us,
so they must believe that not all humans are inherently evil.

------
dllthomas
I found the Slate Star Codex review (recommended by this article) more
readable.

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-
lik...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like-a-
state/)

I think there are fascinating comparisons to be made to legacy code and the
full rewrite.

~~~
saint_fiasco
Especially when the thing that is being rewritten and refactored is not the
software but the human processes that the software is meant to facilitate.

How many managers choose to enforce, say, an Agile methodology on their team,
not because they are any good at Agile but because existing tools like JIRA
support that workflow and it's easier to just go along with it?

~~~
dllthomas
I think that's a separate interesting application of the principles involved,
but interesting as well to be sure.

------
theothermkn
What a sophomoric article. For example:

> At first, the state just puts random names on the streets. This helps some,
> but the residents still colloquially go by the old terms they know, which
> causes problems for dispatch. Moreover, most of those alleys are still too
> narrow for ambulances to get through. The state decides on a more radical
> project: it’s going to plow through what it can and build new, ordered
> streets based on a grid. While they’re at it, they decide to make one
> commercial district and one residential district – it’s just a better
> system.

Just count the absurdities. "[T]he state just puts random names on the
streets." Ludicrous. I mean, we can't even talk about this because we've
lumped so many different things into the term, "state." To even begin thinking
about this, we have to assume, as I'll do, a first-world democracy, for the
sake of having something to talk about. I'd give even odds that in no first
world democracy has "the state just [put] random names" on streets, especially
where the residents have "old terms they know." Even if they did, how likely
is it that no dispatcher would be, or know, a resident? How likely is complete
ignorance on their part.

Then, we have: "The state decides on a more radical project: it’s going to
plow through what it can and build new, ordered streets based on a grid."
What? Here we can go quite a ways down the scale from "enlightened democracy"
down toward "tin pot dictatorship" and we still strain credulity to think of a
public welfare project where "the state" whimsically decides to "plow through
what they can" and rebuild "based on a grid." (As evidenced, I suppose, by all
the recently reordered neighborhoods on Google Maps, and by the news stories
of the brand new kind of urban displacement that would entail.)

And they just "decide," "while they're at it," to rezone? Unlikely to the
point of making one angry. It shocks the intellect.

The article is pablum, meant to rehearse a mushy market ideology so that a
pathetic kind of know-it-all can feel better about their vaguely held lazy
beliefs.

~~~
nodemaker
I think the example was meant to be hypothetical and a bit absurd so that
people can understand the point being made. There are enough real world
examples of state intervention for the "common good" gone awry.

~~~
kazagistar
When you take examples over the top, you are simply lying, because that is the
difference between sensible choices made in reality and insane nonsense
choices made in ideology tinted nonreality. And extrapolating examples
globally is just as absurd... taking an exceptional mistake, and just assuming
it's the status quo.

These kind of bad mental shortcuts are the result of decades of propagandistic
programming, not any kind of reflection of reality.

~~~
ksdale
What is normal changes, what seems absurd today might be quite possible
tomorrow.

Besides that, there is the fact that "Authoritarian High Modernism" absolutely
existed in the past century and resulted in all sorts of "insane nonsense
choices" being made to the great detriment of millions of people.

