![]() Consider another example from Gerd Gigerenzer, about a man considering whom to marry: You have to weigh the cost of getting more information against the expected value of that information. Sometimes it’s rational to seek more information before acting, but sometimes you need to just act on what you think you know. It is beyond our experience, and the new information is not yet significant.” 3 ![]() The computers contain nothing on this phenomenon. Spock replies, “I have no analysis due to insufficient information. A giant space amoeba has appeared not far from the Enterprise, and Kirk asks Spock for his analysis. I stole this example from Julia Galef’s talk “ The Straw Vulcan.” 2 Her second example of “straw man rationality,” or Hollywood Rationality, is the idea that you shouldn’t make a decision until you have all the information you need. Spock had plenty of evidence that these aliens were emotional, so expecting them to behave rationally was downright irrational! Of course, there’s nothing logical about expecting non-logical beings to act logically. ![]() Spock: your precious logic brought them down on us! 1 M cC oy: They were perfectly predictable, to anyone with feeling! You might as well admit it, Mr. S pock: Doctor, I’m not responsible for their unpredictability. Did it ever occur to you that they might react emotionally, with anger? M cC oy: You mean they should have respected us? When we demonstrated our superior weapons, they should have fled. Spock, didn’t stay frightened very long, did they? Instead, he is a “straw man” of rationality used to show (incorrectly) that human emotion and irrationality are better than logic. Spock is not the exemplar of logic and rationality you might think him to be.
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