As Eliezer and many others on Less Wrong have said, the way the human species rose to dominate the Earth was through our intelligence- and not through our muscle power, biochemical weapons, or superior resistance to environmental hazards. Given our overwhelming power over other species, and the fact that many former top predators are now extinct or endangered, we should readily accept that general intelligence is a game-changing power on the species level.
Similarly, one of the key ingredients in the birth of the modern era was the discovery of science, and its counterpart, the discovery of the art of Traditional Rationality. Armed with these, the nations of Western Europe managed to dominate the entire rest of the world, even though, when they began their explorations in the 15th century, the Chinese were more advanced in many respects. Given how Western Europe, and the cultures derived from it, has so completely surpassed the rest of the world in terms of wealth and military might, we should readily accept that science and rationality is a game-changing power on the civilization level.
However, neither of these imply that intelligence, science, and rationality, as a practical matter, are the best way to get things done by individual people operating in the year 2009. We can easily see that many things which work on the species level, or the civilization level, do not work for individuals and small groups. For instance, until the discovery of nuclear weapons, armed conflict was often a primary means of settling disputes between nation-states. However, if you tried to settle your dispute with your neighbor, or your company's dispute with its competitor, using armed force, it would achieve nothing except getting you thrown in prison.
People are crazy and the world is mad, but it does not necessarily follow that we should try to solve our own problems primarily by becoming more sane. Plenty of people achieve many of their goals despite being completely nuts. Adolf Hitler, for example, achieved a large fraction of his (extremely ambitious!) goals, despite having numerous beliefs that most of us would recognize as making no sense whatsoever.
We know, as a matter of historical fact, that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, despite being generally incompetent, unintelligent, irrational, superstitious and just plain insane, managed to take over a country of tens of millions of people from nothing, in the span of fifteen years. So far as I am aware, no group of people has managed to achieve anything even remotely similar using, not only rationality, but any skill involving deliberative thought, as opposed to skills such as yelling at huge crowds of people. However, it is a corollary to the statement that no one knows what science doesn't know that no one knows what history doesn't know, so it is entirely possible, perhaps likely, that there is something I am overlooking. To anyone who would assert that intelligence, science or rationality is the Ultimate Power, not just on the level of a species or civilization, but on the level of an individual or small group, let them show that their belief is based in reality.
Your argument seems to conclude that:
Agreed. Now what?
Ostensibly your post is about how to swing the ethos of a large group of people towards behaving differently. I would argue that has never been necessary and still is not.
A good hard look at any large political or social movement reveals a small group of very dedicated and motivated people, and a very large group of passive marginally interested people who agree with whatever sounds like it is in their best interest without them really doing too much work.
So can rationality work on a large scale? Arguably, it always does work. I rarely hear political or social arguments that are obviously (to everyone) pure hokum. If you look at how the last 4 U.S. presidents campaigned, it was always on "save you money" talking points and "less waste, more justice" platform. All rational things in the mind of the average person.
I think however your implication is that rationality is not always obviously rational. Well friend, that is why you have to completely understand the implications of rational decision making in terms that the majority can agree on in order to describe why they are better decisions. You often have to connect the dots for people so that they can see how to get from some contrarian or "non-intuitive" idea to their goal of raising a happy family.
This is the essence of "selling." Of course spinners and politicians sell lots of crap to people by telling half truths, overcomplicated arguments or simply outright lying. These are obviously disingenuous. If you need to lie to sell your ethos it is probably wrong. That or you just aren't wise enough to make it comprehensible.
Sure. What's not rational is to believe that politicians will deliver on the promise of reducing waste. All politicians say they will do it, and have done for a long time, but... (read more)