I don’t consider him a rationalist character. He is always hung up about what is logical, as opposed to what is observably right.
Uhura: Mr. Spock, sometimes I think if I hear that word “frequency” again, I’ll cry.
Spock: It is illogical for a communications officer to resent the word “frequency.”
What kind of answer is that? “Too bad you dislike your job?” A rationalist answer would have been something along the lines of “Can you explain why, maybe we can find out what went wrong with your feelings and find a way to fix them or work them around?”
There is a difference between rationality and smartassery.
Hence “(straw)” in the title. See e.g. this summary of a talk by Julia Galef about the difference between being a Straw Vulcan (memetic hazard warning: TVTropes) and being an actual practitioner of rationality.
[EDITED to link to the LW article that has a transcript of the original talk an a link to the YouTube video.]
I don’t consider him a rationalist character. He is always hung up about what is logical, as opposed to what is observably right.
What kind of answer is that? “Too bad you dislike your job?” A rationalist answer would have been something along the lines of “Can you explain why, maybe we can find out what went wrong with your feelings and find a way to fix them or work them around?”
There is a difference between rationality and smartassery.
Hence “(straw)” in the title. See e.g. this summary of a talk by Julia Galef about the difference between being a Straw Vulcan (memetic hazard warning: TVTropes) and being an actual practitioner of rationality.
[EDITED to link to the LW article that has a transcript of the original talk an a link to the YouTube video.]
One that, presumably, would make Uhura cry.