“If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety.”
But “achieving a correct answer” isn’t the same thing as winning. Thus, the phrase “rationalists should win” is not a proper equivalence for the idea you wished to communicate. Sometimes acting with propriety involves losing—at least in a limited, specific context. Arguably, if you act with propriety, you always win.
It’s not about winning or losing, it’s how you play the game. Except that there may not be a game, and we’re not sure what the rules are, or even that they are.
“If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety.”
But “achieving a correct answer” isn’t the same thing as winning. Thus, the phrase “rationalists should win” is not a proper equivalence for the idea you wished to communicate. Sometimes acting with propriety involves losing—at least in a limited, specific context. Arguably, if you act with propriety, you always win.
It’s not about winning or losing, it’s how you play the game. Except that there may not be a game, and we’re not sure what the rules are, or even that they are.
These two sentences seem inconsistent. Care to unpack?
EDIT: replaced ‘contradictory’ with ‘inconsistent’. Logical quibble.
Destroying an Empire to win a war is no victory. And ending a battle to save an Empire is no defeat. - attributed to Kahless the Unforgettable
There is such a thing as a Pyrrhic victory. Likewise, some kinds of failure can be more valuable than ostensible success.
There is always a greater perspective. From that greater perspective, what a lesser perspective judges to be a win may be a loss, and vice versa.