I re-listened to Pinker’s Big Think, titled, The Ultimate Guide to Rationality. Well, tall order. The first time through, it seemed all over the map, or spectrum, or “the place”. But I heard a theme to it this time, that rationality got us out of the messes we were in but it requires more than merely existing for it to sustain us into a future that is healthy, wealthy, and wise. There are paradoxes, like rationality itself can lead to irrational group thinking.
The talk is an hour and fifteen minutes and my notes on it are 1,300 words, so I’m not sure I’ve accomplished the goal of summarizing it, or making sense of it, or making it a practical guide.