We would like to be rational, but how do you do it, how especially do you admit that you are not always rational and reorient your mindset in a way that helps you be more rational, whether it’s in sort of high level problem-solving for some scientific or technical job you have, or just in your daily life, who to date, what to have for dinner tonight.Ġ:00:40.4 SC: We would like to be rational about all of these different choices, and so today’s guest, Julia Galef, is a star in the rationality community, someone who has given a lot of thought into these real efforts that an individual can put into becoming more rational themselves. I know that a lot of you are thinking, Well, it’s about time, but we always try to be rational, right? As I make the point early in the podcast, there are very few people who actively brag about not being rational, but it’s easier said than done. I’m your host, Sean Carroll, and today here on the podcast, we are going to get rational. Her new book is The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t.Ĭlick above to close.Ġ:00:00.4 Sean Carroll: Hello, everybody, welcome to the Mindscape podcast. She was a co-founder and president of the Center for Applied Rationality. She is currently a writer and host of the Rationally Speaking podcast. Julia Galef received a BA in statistics from Columbia University. She makes a compelling case that all things considered, it’s better to be a scout.

She distinguishes between the “soldier mindset,” where we believe what we’re told about the world and march toward a goal, and the “scout mindset,” where we’re open-minded about what’s out there and always asking questions. Julia Galef is here to both stand up for the value of being rational, and to explain how we can better achieve it.

And there are more than a few hot takes on the market suggesting that we shouldn’t even want to be rational - that it’s inefficient or maladaptive. Mom, apple pie, and rationality - all things that are unquestionably good, right? But rationality, as much as we might value it, is easier to aspire to than to achieve.

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