Day 0028

Left hardly any time for drawing or thinking today, stayed in and worked as much as I could manage.

Been looking at the American presidential elections. What use is knowledge, data, science, facts, when you can activate people's irrationality and win their trust without the need for any appeals to logic or reason? It's worth remembering that we are fundamentally irrational beings and that arguments based on rationality alone will never work as effectively as those appeals that touch our primeval nature as well. We are composite beings, semi-rational animals, and it is useful to remember that.

So when you are surprised or angry or vexed by someone else's behaviour you really should just be annoyed at yourself for failing to expect people to act in the vexing manner: you know what you are dealing with and you should model your expectations accordingly. There is no reason to expect people to act in rationally optimal ways, or even come close to it. And you can't make them act in rationally optimal ways by explaining in a rational way why they should. Given our irrational natures, the rational way to treat us is to mix in a good dose of irrationality. Leverage emotions, group-think, herd-mentality, in-group favouritism, out-group derogation, but do so in a way that nudges people towards a rationally justifiable end state. The trouble is when people exploit our irrational biases to push us toward goals that are themselves chosen by the same irrational system and don't stand up to any reasonable scrutiny.