On at least two occasions - one only a year past - my life was at serious risk because I was not thinking clearly.  Both times, I was lucky (and once, the car even survived!).  As a gambler I don't like counting on luck, and I'd much rather be rational enough to avoid serious mistakes.  So when I checked the top-ranked posts here and saw Robin's Rational Me or We? arguing against rationality as a martial art I was dumbfounded.  To me, individual rationality is a matter of life and death[1].

In poker, much attention is given to the sexy art of reading your opponent, but the true veteran knows that far more important is the art of reading and controlling yourself.  It is very rare that a situation comes up where a "tell" matters, and each of my opponents is only in an occasional hand.  I and my irrationalities, however, are in every decision in every hand.  This is why self-knowledge and self-discipline are first-order concerns in poker, while opponent reading is second or perhaps even third.

And this is why Robin's post is so wrong[2].  Our minds and their irrationalities are part of every second of our lives, every moment we experience, and every decision that we make.  And contra to Robin's security metaphor, few of our decisions can be outsourced.  My two bad decisions regarding motor vehicles, for example, could not have easily been outsourced to a group rationality mechanism[3].  Only a tiny percentage of the choices I make every day can be punted to experts.