Do flat Earthers think rationally?
Here's a truly unpopular opinion:
Everybody is rational.
Yes, even flat Earthers, moon landing conspiracy theorists, Biden voters, Trump voters, your mother-in-law and of course that idiot online who just went on a rant about that thing. I would even say that an utterly drunk alcoholic is rational.
Rationality (at least in this context) means acting in the best way you know within the limitations of your perception, knowledge, and understanding.
Rationality means taking certain things for granted, arriving at conclusions based on those preconceptions, and then acting on those conclusions - however misguided they may be.
It's not always conscious, but it's always present.
Each of us has a unique view of the world, unique experience, unique knowledge, unique understanding, and a unique set of traumas, preconceptions and biases that guide our worldview, actions and decisions.
What most people don't have is the skill (or the will) to revise their underlying assumptions based on new data.
But even the hyper-rational people who claim to be able to do this are limited. I claim to be able to change my worldview to fit the evidence. I have a track record of doing this frequently. And yet I constantly stumble on my own biases and unexamined beliefs, which means my perception at any given moment is limited and necessarily wrong (including in this post!)
But so is everyone else's.
This point of view (which I adopted from Harry Browne) increased my level of empathy and my ability to understand other people 10x, maybe 100x more than all the coaching, therapy, and active listening training I've done.
And it considerably increased my sales and negotiation skills too.
I’m late to the party here but this one has me thinking! I looked up the definition of the word “rational” and interestingly I can’t find a definition that isn’t quite subjective. So in that sense, I suppose I can’t argue your point! 😊
The undertones of what I recall here in this article though is something that resonates with a similar experience I had. As an engineer, in the past, I tended to hang out in the “right vs wrong” mindset a lot in life. It didn’t serve me well, overall. When I moved into more customer facing roles I read the classic business book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” It appears it had a very similar impact on me to what you learned from Harry Browne. Which overall boils down to “shut up, stop trying to prove a point, and listen” 😊
I agree this is a key lesson that everyone who finds themselves hanging out on their analytical side a lot needs to learn!
You're taking it a step farther than I would I think. I definitely think there's objective reality, I just think we only perceive it subjectively and therefore see partial aspects of it. Like that elephant metaphor.