Be rational, be crazy

The complexity of life means that, except for the most basic functions (like breathing or blinking), we spend our days making decisions. In situations that are totally new, there is no way around making the effort of analyzing the options in as much detail as time permits; when the decision is repeated and becomes usual, we can rely on previous decisions to save ourselves the mental effort. But in the end, even these heuristics tie back to some evaluation that we did in the first place following our own personal values and world view. Of course, part of the problem is that the information is usually incomplete, and decisions have to be made anyway, which is why it is not unusual that, as new information arises, the trade-offs of previous judgements can be reversed and we just change our mind.

Being social animals, there are two additional elements in decision making, which I would call "vicarious judgement" and "replay judgement". From my point of view, we rely on vicarious judgment when, rather than building our own opinion, rely on the opinion of others and make it our own. There are several factor at play in this situation, because we might not be fully aware of what led the others to make that choice, and it is not a given that their decision is acceptable to us. Acting in unison has social benefits, but it might be unbearable on a personal level; acting on our own means that we have to make the extra effort of forming an opinion plus defending our position in front of the others, but it might be worth the effort in terms of intellectual consistency.

Photo: Dan

The second social element, the "replay judgement" happens when we contemplate someone else's decision even if, in principle, there is nothing in it for us. The first step is usually to see if we would have chosen the same: if we agree, we feel gratified, our bond with the other person is reinforced, and that is the end of the process. However, it is not unlikely that we would have chosen differently, and then the exercise begins to find out why they chose differently, what other circumstances have weighed in to change the decision from what we would pick to what they picked. Sometimes the obvious differences justify the divergence, but other times we are unable to understand their motives and their decision making, and that is where the term "crazy" or "irrational" starts to show its ugly face. And it is an ugly face because it is openly arrogant to assume that, because we cannot follow they reasoning, they must have chosen without a reason (the literal meaning of "irrationally").

I came to think about this the other day, listening to an old episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History, where he rode a self-driving car around Phoenix, Arizona, reveling on how wonderfully safe it was. In contrast with human drivers, who have both limited attention span and reflexes, self-driving cars are extremely aware of their surroundings, to the point that they could potentially change the way we live traffic in cities once they take over the roads. The limitations of human drivers means that vulnerable agents in traffic (pedestrians, cyclist, etc.) have to be careful not to put the drivers in a situation where they might be unable to avoid harm. With self-driving cars, however, their constant awareness means that they would be much more likely to foresee and avoid potentially harmful situations, so the pedestrians would not have to be careful if they know that the cars will stop before they harm them.

The way Gladwell put it, the lack of safety of human drivers acts as a deterrent for irresponsible behavior of pedestrians, because the potential harm to them is so big that the incentives to stay on the sidewalks are very high. When the roles are reverted and the self-driving car is asked to keep people safe, it will be forced to make predictions on the amount of risk that each object poses: inanimate object are not expected to move, adults normally move in predictable patterns, while children and dogs are highly unpredictable, so their avoidance zone should be much larger. But that means that, if you want to trick the cars into giving your more room, all you have to do is behave like a child and they will automatically rise your threat level. This would be what we usually call "acting crazy" but should in fact be termed "unpredictable".

Unpredictability has always been part of the history of confrontations. Already in the 5th century BCE Sun Tzu advised in his treaty "The Art of War" to remain "mysterious to the point of soundlessness", because if the enemy does not know how you will react they will have to prepare against all possible actions, thereby being less effective in each one of them. On the contrary, if they know how you will act, they can focus on countering that line of action and not the others. Famously crazy leaders where, for the most part, not crazy, just extremely committed to their goals, to the point that their reasons were incomprehensible for their enemies and that made them harder to defeat. But that does not mean that they did not have reasons, just different ones.

Back to present day, it is still surprising how we, as a society, encourage simultaneously rational and irrational behavior. Over the weekend I ran into a verse from the famous Spanish singer Joaquin Sabina, which reminded me precisely of that. The verse belongs to a song called "Noches de boda" ("Wedding Nights"), which is full of poetry and good wishes, among others the chorus which goes "May all nights be wedding nights, may all moons be honeymoons". But the verse in particular that caught my eye was the following:

I wish bravery were not so expensive and cowardice not worth it.

Admittedly, the wishes are commendable, but they are upside down: it is not that brave actions turn out to be hard, but because they are hard they require bravery to take up. The same applies to cowardice, which is by definition the short-term comfort and convenience. However, it we think about it, we are just praising irrational behavior here. Is it really the best option for a knight to try to kill the dragon and rescue the princess, particularly if the path is peppered with the corpses of others that tried and failed before? No, the rational decision would be precisely the opposite, trying to stay safe or at least within calculated risk. Going against all odds is simply unjustified... unless there are other reasons (implicit or explicit) that tip the scales. In the case of the knight, it is possible that the chivalry code punishes heftily the denial of assistance, so that running away from the dragon would be tantamount to a "social death", where the scorn and shame would befall the disgraced knight. In that case, the choice between a certain shameful "almost death" and a possible glorious "real death" becomes less obvious.

In practical terms, the invitation to "be crazy" is not so much to act irrationally, but just to stick to your own parameters even if they are non-conventional. The fact that many people do not share those values (and therefore call you crazy) does not intrinsically make them wrong, just different. And as we have discussed several times in the past, diversity can be the key to survival as a society, so it should be cherished. Have a nice week.