Posted by
glen ropella on
Jan 07, 2014; 5:22pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/11-American-Nations-tp7584250p7584650.html
On 01/06/2014 08:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> In Berkeley (to their credit) there was
> an annual celebration/parade entitled "How Berkeley can you be?" which
> allowed the populace to lampoon themselves (or actually, one another) in
> a semi-self-aware way that I could only hope for the far Right. I have
> to admit that I can't even imagine what that would look like.
There does seem to be a dearth of comedy skills on the right, though I
may be biased. Anecdotally, lefties seem to be better entertainers.
Perhaps this is related to the openness concept. Humor, like poetry,
seems to rely on ambiguity.
> That said, I present that *most* people (normal or not) mean "rational
> thought" to be thought and descriptions of said thought which is
> familiar and aligned with their own thinking. In that sense, I feel
> most people conflate "rational thought" with the colloquial "common sense".
Interesting. I agree that "rational" is used to mean "thinks like me".
But I'm not sure it's the same as "common sense". My initial
impression would be that even the most cliquish would see common sense
as something one did _not_ have to think about, almost instinctual.
Perhaps one is a superset of the other? E.g. "that person thinks like
me, but without a lick of common sense." (I got a lot of this as a kid
because I could reconstruct my teachers' logic, but continually
challenged them on their assumptions.)
> My best self _satisfices_ for the immediate problem (good
> enough for GubMent work) while _optimizing_ against the long haul. I
> know that by being _confident_ in my actions, I reduce the noise in the
> _execution_ of my intent and leave room for natural selection (making
> and recognizing mistakes?) to do it's work.
This would seem to answer John's question justifying the existence of
irrationality.
> I probably just caused a fork in the discussion which only you (Glen)
> and I can fully enjoy... but... I think this is all a very important if
> subtle point we are working over here.
I'd originally typed much more. But after reading this, I decided to
reduce it! ;-)
--
⇒⇐ glen
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