Do you know what sub you're in? Either argue your point or find something else to do. I am.

> 2. Argue your Position

> Opinions are not valuable here, arguments are! Comments that solely express musings, opinions, beliefs, or assertions without argument may be removed.

> 3. Be Respectful

> Comments which blatantly do not contribute to the discussion may be removed

I'm not interested in discussing word meanings, let alone what a word is "normally taken to mean". It's a total waste of time and I'd rather read Pinker's article again.

I never made such a distinction. You did. And what difference does it make? What insights are we getting that lead us to a better understanding? It's a discussion that goes nowhere and that ends up being about semantics.

> You jumped to goals of a "selfish gene", while the example of falling in love is about immediate personal goals.

Those personal goals are related to evolution.

I don't quite see the distinction you are making. Irrational means non-rational. The prefix ir- means not or non.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ir-#Latin

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/in-#Latin

> The obvious answer is no but I say those things because of how I feel, it makes me and my partner feel great and it provides assurance that I'm loyal to my partner.

Which is rational if you want stability and a partner in your life. And it's also evolutionary advantageous, as I said.

> I didn't realize articles are a limited resource we need to mindful of spending.

Not what I said. I will say, though, that I am mindful of how I spend my time and reading philosophical articles that are boring and too long for its message and don't provide me any interesting ideas are a waste of time.

> It's irrational because if you get called on your bluff in those examples you have to do something that is drastically costly to yourself beyond the point of doing it.

Risky doesn't mean irrational and you don't have to do only one thing if someone calls your bluff.

> If I tell you that I want your money or I'll blow you and I up, and then you say "You won't do it." I then have to blow myself up which isn't optimal as that means I'm dead and can't get money anymore.

Yeah, you won't. So why do you "have" to blow yourself up? It's your choice, no one is forcing you. If you blow yourself up then you won't have another chance to try again either.

That's not what he's saying, though. He gives the examples of falling in love and violent threats which I don't think come from wanting to reduce cognitive loads.

I wouldn't consider falling in love irrational. I think he's conflating rationality with being stoic or having no emotions? One could argue that falling in love is actually very rational because it helps promote survival of the human species.

Either way, yes being silly or watching an exciting sports match can be "irrational" and fun but is that worthy of an article?

> While Odysseus had himself tied to the mast and rationally relinquished his option to act, his sailors plugged their ears with wax and rationally relinquished their option to know. At first this seems puzzling. One might think that knowledge is power, and you can never know too much. Just as it’s better to be rich than poor, because if you’re rich you can always give away your money and be poor, you might think it’s always better to know something, because you can always choose not to act on it. But in one of the paradoxes of rationality, that turns out not to be true. Sometimes it really is rational to plug your ears with wax [2]. Ignorance can be bliss, and sometimes what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

To call this rational ignorance is technically correct but a bit overly dramatic. Wearing sunglasses in sunlight would also be rational ignorance or wearing earplugs to protect from loud noises. Or a swimsuit to protect from the colder water because it "relinquishes" your option to feel the environment.

> Threats are another arena in which a lack of control can afford a paradoxical advantage. The problem with threatening to attack, strike, or punish is that the threat may be costly to carry out, rendering it a bluff that the target of the threat could call. To make it credible, the threatener must be committed to carrying it out, forfeiting the control that would give his target the leverage to threaten him right back by refusing to comply. A hijacker who wears an explosive belt that goes off with the slightest jostle, or protesters who chain themselves to the tracks in front of a train carrying fuel to a nuclear plant, cannot be scared away from their mission.

What is paradoxical about it? That's how threats work. It's rational to take a hijacker seriously.

To be honest, the article isn't very interesting. It's pop psychology you read on the toilet, like a longer version of a motivational poster. Did he write this because he has a quota to fulfill?