I think there are some things where logic is much more important, one being religion. Why? Because religion by its very nature is actively destructive to science, and it uses doctrine to defy and science.

Is it religion? No, it's the usage of the Argument of Authority. While religion has a significant portion of that usage, it does happen all the time too from other sources. (Notably politics.) Of course you will have problems when you use as Argument of Authority books which were not written as scientific explanations of things. We would have the same problem in a thousand years if the only knowledge that survived were science fiction books featuring concepts which are now outdated or imprecize but were mainstream when the books were written.

For example, given the obvious amount of harm human beings cause to this planet and other species, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that the human population be killed off so that millions of other species can thrive. But there are other issues at play there, namely the right of our species to continue existing. Is that a logical consideration? Nope. it's a moral one, and morality is not absolutely equivalent to logic.

Of course morality is not identical to logic. I didn't say it was. Morality is the source of unproven principles which logic has to develop.

It is reasonable to kill off the hoomins only provided that you value a certain state of the rest of the natural world over and above what you value hoomins. You need to think that this certain state of the rest of the natural world is a greater good than hoomins are. But logic is not at fault there. You are just showing that it would be possible to value hoomin life so little that depopulation becomes reasonable. Of course, the thing with values is that they are unprovable. Always. There is nothing that we could design as an experiment to prove that something is right or wrong, or better or worse. We can prove something causes or favors another thing; but not whether the other thing is good or not.

And of course, the rest of the natural world doesn't care for your care for it. Even without hoomins, another day another large meteorite will fall on Earth (and there is a longer list of other possible global scale catastrophes) and trigger an extinction event by which that beloved natural world will irreversible change to something else.

I'm afraid it's not that long-term focused on my part. What you're seeing is the process of my views changing as I reconsider these issues with respect to new information or realizations.

But it's just very ad hoc and that is my point. One day comes one point and you attack it for being overly rational; another day comes another point and it seems to you not rational enough. I can agree that the rich mix that is the world calls for different applications of rationality at different times, but it looks in your case like you can't make up your mind regarding what those different applications of rationality are.

To me these issues are not a game; they are deadly serious. Actual children are at stake here, and that's important to me. I would think that, as long as I have been here, you would've at least picked up on that much about me.

I do pick that up.

Precizely because of which it is all the more salient that you often attribute to your opponents not just a wrong argument or conclusion, but a wrong intention.



For instance, as I have mentioned, child sex contact offenses are on the rise for the same 30-40 years that pedohysteria has been with us. That is the fact. If you care about children, you have to conclude that the laws passed for the last 30-40 years have made them worse off, not better off, and therefore their repeal is in order.

This is about a real crime rate affecting real children. Even if it is an argument made in the abstract, from police statistics, through the rational question of what has happened in children's lives in the intervening years that their sexual abuse rate has gone up?

(And yes, I know reporting is probably higher, and I know some cases are going to be consensual - but neither factor is enough to explain the sustained increase)

There is no wrong intention there. Just what the facts are telling me I should be advocating for if I want to reduce child sexual abuse.

Notice further that 30-40 years of laws do not abolish the AOC. Only reduce it to an average early-teen range. Which for many of us isn't really significant.

I really don't care if you or Dante turn out to be logically correct about every issue presented here, because humanity is about way more than just seeking the most logical ends. real people are not automatons for which reason is the only measuring stick for a happy, healthy society. It only it were that simple.

You are having the problem of the Objectivists, only in reverse.

Ends and goals are NOT rational. They are personal and subjective.

What people do to achieve them, however, is rational.

Because that is the way hoomins go about meeting their goals. They may be constrained by their incomplete knowledge of a situation; by their own capacities; and further, yes, by cognitive biases leading them to minimize or exaggerate parts of the situation. But within these limitations, behavior is rational and goals-oriented. If you think it is irrational, chances are that you haven't found out the goals; or you haven't considered and gauged the situation the way the agent has--possibly because either of you does know more about it, but there can be many reasons.

The guy who takes a higher position which comes with a pay rise is as rational as the guy who rejects it because it demands more working hours. Both just have different goals, so they choose differently, but both are rationally choosing what they will do.


So...

I cannot tell you how to be happy. I can only tell you that whatever you are doing, you are doing it to meet your goals and chose it rationally with the knowledge you had when you did.


And indeed, because the only two ways I can know what other people's goals are, are by asking and listening to their answers, or by observing and examining their actions and their outcomes for a while... I most often have to take people's words at face value.