When a high schooler thinks that their crush is in love with them, that simple belief sends them over the moon. In most cases, it will have minimal decision value, but the effect on their utility is hard to overstate.
For a high schooler, believing that their crush is in love with them actually has a lot of decision value because it informs a proper strategy of how to act with their crush to build a relationship with them. Being falsely convinced of it makes it more likely to act in a way that the crush finds creepy and repeals the crush.
He is a stone-cold materialist and aspiritualist who spends his free time arguing online about the stupidity of those Galactus’ believers and how they will never understand the true nature of life and the universe.
This does not describe a rationalist. There are people for whom that description is true, but it’s not what rationalism is.
When it comes to your religious beliefs you ignore how these kinds of beliefs actually work in the real world. Religious people frequently get into situations that bring up doubt and dealing with that doubt is a key element of what it means to be religious.
You might argue that in some obscure node of the graph, Lucius’ beliefs were inevitably more accurate and thus led to marginally better decisions. But even so, I think Gina has a huge, enormous, easily-winning asset on her side: optimism.
Optimism is what makes you not pay sunk costs and makes you take more risks. There are risks that are beneficial to take and risks that aren’t beneficial to take. Rationalism is partly about knowing the difference between the two and taking the risks that are beneficial to take while not taking those that aren’t.
For a high schooler, believing that their crush is in love with them actually has a lot of decision value because it informs a proper strategy of how to act with their crush to build a relationship with them. Being falsely convinced of it makes it more likely to act in a way that the crush finds creepy and repeals the crush.
This does not describe a rationalist. There are people for whom that description is true, but it’s not what rationalism is.
When it comes to your religious beliefs you ignore how these kinds of beliefs actually work in the real world. Religious people frequently get into situations that bring up doubt and dealing with that doubt is a key element of what it means to be religious.
Optimism is what makes you not pay sunk costs and makes you take more risks. There are risks that are beneficial to take and risks that aren’t beneficial to take. Rationalism is partly about knowing the difference between the two and taking the risks that are beneficial to take while not taking those that aren’t.