Ask HN: How do you deal with irrationality?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=534514

by pj • 17 years ago

5 8 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm a fairly rational person. Perhaps some around me would say too rational. A lot of you here are rational. I know it because I read your comments. Many of you are also wiser and more experienced in dealing with the world around you than I am. I am itchy on the trigger finger sometimes and I get myself into trouble and offend people -- without intending to.

I had a conversation the other day with some rational folks. One of them was noticing an increasing trend in his discomfort with the world around him. An older gentleman in the conversation said he noticed that trend in himself years before and was bothered by what the younger person had said, because "it doesn't get any easier," he said.

I watch interviews with Ayn Rand and read Kant and their words are words I have said myself before. It is scary to think that the thoughts in my head mirror those who are "outside society." I don't want to be outside society. Sometimes I want to fit in.

It's difficult to look around and see continuing trends in irrational behavior leading the world into what appears to be a very negative direction. "Why don't we just make the right decision, it's so obvious!?" I think to myself...

What do I do? How do I find peace with it. I don't want to grow into a grumpy old cynical man. I am full of optimism. I was told years ago, "You just haven't had your wings clipped yet." I don't want them clipped, what do I do? How do I deal with a crazy world? Or am I crazy? Am I alone in this? I don't know...

noodle• 17 years ago

basically, never forget that you're a part of the society that you wish to instill the change in. its a problem the second you think things are so bad that you don't want any part of it anymore. as long as you think that change is possible and worth working for, you're doing fine.

inerte• 17 years ago

With humor.

If I can't, I just tell myself: Wow, the world is an amazing place. All these different people. I just hope that we can co-exist peacefully.

Once I was drinking beer with a philosophist and two writers, plus a history student (my friend). Another philosophist, friend of the first philosophist, came to join us, and he was an asshole. He made stupid jokes, and one of the writers started arguing with him.

After the second philosophist left, the first one and the writer started talking about if the way the writer treated the second philosophist was acceptable.

They went on this discussion for, I kid you not, 90 minutes. Then they turned to me and asked me to be the judge, and I said:

- I think you're both right. You (the writer), was right because the philosophist what joined us was a jerk. But you (the philosophist) is complaining how your friend (the writer) treated your other friend, so I think what you're really saying matters more, because you're telling your friend that he did something that you don't like, and he's just not listening. So you're the winner.

Everyone on the table said "that's an interesting angle on the discussion", and the two went back to argue who was right.

My friend (the history student) said that I didn't "get" the contend, because they were arguing for/with Reason (with capital R), and so they were expecting me to say who was right logically.

Now, what everyone didn't know is that, while I know a little bit of Kant and Nietzsche, I simply wasn't playing their game. With me was my (then recent) girlfriend. So I didn't said what I said for them, I said so my girl could listen.

I was trying to impress her. I was trying to show how I understand relationships and how we should see things through this point of view. Women like that, you know? :p

Anyway.

The two weren't really "arguing". They were philosophying (sp?). That's how they have fun. By endlessly trying to desconstruct the opponent's argument, by going into schools of thought, that's what they do on a Friday night at a bar's table.

It's so fucking boring.

But it made my day. I was really glad to learn how philosophists spend their weekend nights. It was just like me! Improving their skills, while having fun.

Moral of the history? There's none.

tmpguest• 17 years ago

Did you get a shag?

rg123• 17 years ago

One very positive thing about the Internet is that, even if your outlook is not common in your physical community or society in general, you can find virtual communities where you do fit in. This can definitely help avoid that alienated feeling.

One way I can relate to what you're saying is that I am not religious, yet most people I encounter offline, including pretty much all of my family and most of my friends, are. It's nice to find that it's not at all difficult to find people online who share my views on religion.

Yet, I still do have good relationships with friends and family despite differences on religion and other subjects - and I think the key to this is focusing on the common ground we can share and enjoy together instead of on the differences. After all, we're all human beings with different emotional biases and flaws, even those of us who consider ourselves among the more rational. And love and enjoyment of art and music and nature and sex and humor, etc. - all of that is emotional rather than rational. So for all the problems we get from irrationality, we also get the positives.

All the crap out there in the world can be dismaying, but eventually, you know, the sun will burn out and this world will be dead, and even if the human race manages to migrate elsewhere, at some distant time beyond the death of this solar system, the universe will collapse back in on itself (or whatever), so keep things in perspective. Improve what you can improve in life, and enjoy what you can enjoy, and don't get overwhelmed by the lack of perfection in the world, because everything is ultimately temporary.

paulgb• 17 years ago

I often find it useful to remind myself that we're doing pretty damn well for a bunch of monkeys.

systemtrigger• 17 years ago

> Or am I crazy? If you're crazy then I'm crazy too because what you have described I have felt in some form or another for a long time. You're definitely not alone and I think you're posing smart questions and yeah if I had some more time I would want to suggest to you that there are ways to channel your gift in an inspired direction.

Look, what I really liked about Ayn Rand is her perspective on selfishness. She basically said Stop listening to altruism b.s. and be relentlessly selfish. If you "get" that then you grant yourself the freedom to architect your own future, your own world. So number one, you're the painter of your life's canvas and you owe it to yourself to satisfy yourself long-term. What should you paint? I say sketch it out at first. You're talking about being frustrated with stupid people: stop focussing on them. Avoid toxic people and spaces - cultivate your selfish world. And don't let anyone tell you that taking care of #1 isn't beautiful. It is. It's the only way I know after reading a ton of philosophy how to be happy. (And please no one should take this to mean screw over other people. It's way more fun to be loving, selectively.)

Be honest and stay rational, righteous friend.

Tangurena• 17 years ago

People learn at their own rates, and if you're a parent, you'll learn (extremely uncomfortably) that your children have to - must - make their own mistakes. And poking folks, rubbing their noses in their mistakes is a good way to get a black eye - not a friend.

pj• 17 years ago

Thanks everyone.

Ask HN: How do you deal with irrationality?

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