History has been repeating itself for thousands of years. We keep killing the prophets, and putting the absolute worst of us on pedestals. What's rational about that?
Dolphins mucking about in the water - that's rational.
By pointing to rational or moral failures, you already imply that we are supposed to act in a certain way. If there are people who are the worst, it begs the question of what a good human is, and who or what we should actually follow. Clearly, we don't think that raw power is what makes someone good, because otherwise these worst people on the pedestals would be by default good people, through all the power they have over their followers.
If it is irrational that history repeats itself, do you think that it would be rational if history progressed towards some goal, and if yes, what is that goal?
> By pointing to rational or moral failures, you already imply that we are supposed to act in a certain way.
Don't keep such an open mind that your brain falls out.
> If it is irrational that history repeats itself, do you think that it would be rational if history progressed towards some goal
It has, often. For example, 50 years ago a bunch of fossil fuel executives decided it would be best to let the planet burn, so they can keep making money.
History progressed toward their goal, and now we're starting to really suffer. But they have their megayachts.
Rationality, and by extension rationalism, refuses to investigate the question of whether the axiomatic assumptions upon which the rational conclusions are based are valid.
So of course superyachts are perfectly rational. But of course they are far from reasonable.
This is a major question in philosophy, not just some random aside in an HN comment thread.
Most famously, Hegel believed that human history trends & tends towards the perfection of human nature and society. Many other philosophers and philosophies fundamentally disagree with Hegel, and assert that history has no teleological purpose built into it.
Perhaps acknowledge the depth and history of this question before throwing out some quick asides about it?
I'm not going to debate whether or not fossil fuel executives choosing to lie to us and burn the planet is moral or rational, "because teleology". Ugh.
You seem to feel fairly certain that humanity is "on a path", and that there's going with that flow and there's going against it. You're welcome to believe that, but it's far from a settled POV.
As for lying executives, they are immoral and only rational when viewed through the lens of their own selfishness.
> You seem to feel fairly certain that humanity is "on a path"
Look at a climate graph. That's the path I'm talking about. Look into the Anthropocene Extinction - that's us. We're walking that path; or more accurately, sleepwalking on it. It's not subjective whatsoever; there's mountains of hard data on this.
Extrapolating that into teleology / philosophy / my worldview was entirely your invention and interpretation.
Individuals are a completely different organism than groups, and groups than societies, and societies than...
You hopefully get the picture. We may get better at remembering history if united via a common cause under a common leadership. Otherwise it's just an organism looking for food and trying to survive.
History has been repeating itself for thousands of years. We keep killing the prophets, and putting the absolute worst of us on pedestals. What's rational about that?
Dolphins mucking about in the water - that's rational.