[komali2]

> Sure, I'm emotionally immature. I'll admit that, I'm not proud of it, and I'm actively working on improving it.

Good, I'm happy to hear that, there's no shame in that journey, I went through it as well. I imagine many people on this site have, too.

> You should think about the fact that civilization came about, and is sustained, by people capable of using their brains over their feelings (even if they're emotionally immature, like me), and is destroyed by people acting like you.

This is a mischacterization of history and I'm confident on your journey you'll discover this for yourself.

I wouldn't be so confident that you're demonstrating anything other than the fact that you think things you disagree with are "emotional outbursts." Ironically, you jumping immediately to patronizing me is far more likely to be an emotional outburst than me correctly pointing out the racist nature of a racist tweet.

But, you said you're on a journey about this. How you talk reminds me of me a decade ago. It took me a really long time to grow out of the Less Wrong ultra-rationalist phase of my life and understand the critical nature of things like empathy in rational analysis. Like you I keep my email in my bio, I welcome you to email me any time about it.

[throw10920]

Please explain the role of empathy in being rational.

[throw10920]

No answer. As I thought, because that's a lie, and you know it's a lie. If you look up the definition of "rational" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rational), you'll notice that it's the opposite of being emotional.

> This is a mischacterization of history and I'm confident on your journey you'll discover this for yourself.

Also a lie. Zero evidence provided, because none exists.

> I wouldn't be so confident that you're demonstrating anything

I'm demonstrating logic. You're demonstrating not only a complete lack of ability to use logic, but also an inability to read. You need to go to high school.

[komali2]

Nah no answer because I took a break when I realized this website is infested with people who believe in white genocide / great replacement and I got a comment flagged for pointing this out, I got cynical and decided a break was in order.

I see nothing in your link that indicates rational is the opposition of emotional, or that rational presupposes a lack of emotion, or that rationality is incompatible with emotion, or that rationality is inversely proportional to emotionality. Which part of the definition leads you to believe this link supports your argument?

> Please explain the role of empathy in being rational.

Empathy is key to making rational decisions and having rational solutions to problems involving humans. I recommend reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie as a great introduction to this.

Example from the book: You have a customer coming in yelling at you that you overbilled him. You are 100% sure he's wrong. Your goal is to maintain the customer and lose the least amount of possible in this situation. What do you do?

How can you know without applying empathy? There are a couple options: You could say "well sir you're wrong, here's very clear accounting tables indicating why. I hope this convinces you that you indeed owe us what we billed you and that this shouldn't be surprising information to you." That sounds like a ridiculous tact, right? If so, you instinctively applied empathy. If not, well, I'll tell you, the best solution is to apply empathy: You see that the man is angry, you understand that you'd also be angry if you thought as he did, and so you talk in an effective manner to an angry person. "I'm sorry about the mistake, we have a lot of customers and these things happen. Of course we'll lower this bill to what you expected and give you a discount next month for your trouble, again I apologize." This is the tact Carnegie took in the book, and apparently the man calmed down, went home, realized his mistake, and a check arrived the next day with the full payment and a note of apology.

Who knows if the story is true, but it's quite obvious that the most rational thing to do in that moment was apply empathy to understand the man's emotions and choose a good tact that takes them into consideration.

This is true for everything involving humans: you must apply empathy to achieve the best, most rational outcome. If you're a politician, you must apply empathy not only when writing law but also when directing police in how strictly law must be enforced - if you want a new bike lane, you need to find a way to get it installed without infuriating drivers that got used to parking on the side of that road for example. There's literally no way of determining that without applying empathy - any attempt you make to apply purely rational analysis will at some point be taking into consideration how other people might feel about a given change.

> You should think about the fact that civilization came about, and is sustained, by people capable of using their brains over their feelings (even if they're emotionally immature, like me), and is destroyed by people acting like you.

I say this is a mischaracterization, you say I'm thus lying. Well, then, I say you've made an astounding claim, and astounding claims require a preponderance of evidence to support. Can you support your claim? Can you define civilization? Which civilization? What does it mean to use brains? How are empathetic people destroying "civilization" (all of it? Some of it? which parts? Which ones?)

The greatest leaders in world history were extraordinarily empathetic. Please go read some of Abraham Lincoln's letters, or read Marcus Aurelius (don't tell me you're surprised the stoics were empathetic!). How did Napolean turn an entire army to his side with nothing more than words and opening his coat without applying incredible empathy? Or take Eisenhower's and his legendary EQ.

Throughout history, no Spocks, no mythological benevolent sociopaths, those seem more a modern invention made for "literally me" youtube compilations.

[throw10920]

> I see nothing in your link that indicates rational is the opposition of emotional, or that rational presupposes a lack of emotion, or that rationality is incompatible with emotion, or that rationality is inversely proportional to emotionality.

I guess I have to spell it out for you:

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng...

> (of behaviour, ideas, etc.) based on reason rather than emotions

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/english-language-learni...

> 1. Rational decisions and thoughts are based on reason rather than on emotion.

> 2. A rational person is someone who is sensible and is able to make decisions based on intelligent thinking rather than on emotion.

Meanwhile, this incorrectly conflates emotional responses with using empathy to predict how people would respond:

> the most rational thing to do in that moment was apply empathy to understand the man's emotions and choose a good tact that takes them into consideration.

By separating them, you correctly stated that rational thinking is not the same as empathy. Using empathy to understand someone's feelings and how they'll respond to an action is a good thing, but it is factually (see above definitions) and categorically not the same as using your brain and being rational.

It's hard to understand how you read that story above and didn't realize that what's going on is that the observer uses empathy to obtain information to use as inputs to a rational decision process. The empathy is NOT part of rational thinking or analysis, any more than learning some information from a textbook and applying that logically makes textbooks part of rational thinking.

Above, you said:

> understand the critical nature of things like empathy in rational analysis

...stating that empathy and emotions are part of rational analysis. They're not, as proved by both my statements, and by the dictionary definitions I was able to find rather easily.

At this point, it'd be better for you to admit that you're wrong and do some self-reflection than continue to argue with the dictionary, because it's clear that either you're not speaking the English that the rest of the world is, or that you're using the words correctly but literally don't comprehend what they mean.