Dan Ariely's books offer some good examples of organizations leaving metaphorical hundred dollar bills lying on the ground, and refusing to pick them up even when they're pointed out, apparently out of sheer inertia habit. I'd be more specific, but it's been more than a year since I read any of them, so I've forgotten most of the details. I'd suggest checking out Predictably Irrational and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty for some good examples.
Does anyone know of a good article that illustrates how society is generally irrational, and how making society more rational would have huge benefits, because it'd be a very high level action?
I'm writing an essay about how to improve education, and one of my proposals is that a core part of the curriculum should be rationality. I believe that doing this would have huge benefits to society, and want to explain why I think this, but I'm having trouble. Any thoughts?
Edit: Part of Raising the Sanity Waterline talks about common ways in which people are irrational. However, they're all links to longer Less Wrong articles. Preferably, I'd like to illustrate it in a few sentences/paragraphs.