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Comment by Godel_unicode | Hacker News Reader

Wanting to eat things that are delicious because you enjoy the flavor sounds perfectly rational to me. I'll enjoy the anticipation while I'm getting it, I'll enjoy the experience when I'm eating it, and a piece of pie is not going to stop me from being healthy by itself.

Sure wanting to eat the whole pie might be irrational, but that's seldom the way people think about it. I can't eat a whole pie at once, but I can definitely eat the bite on my fork, add one more slice to my plate, etc.

This mistakes thinking long-term vs thinking marginally, which is the larger point being made.

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Nowadays though, as soon as I finish eating some crap that doesn't digest that well, I'm already regretting it.. since it makes me feel bad. And I still go back to eating it a few days later..

It's not rational when at the same time the fact that you're overweight with a heart condition and cholesterol problem that could kill you is a flashing through your brain.

"rationality" is about how your reason about your goals. Goals themselves cannot be rational or irrational, even if they are in conflict.

By that definition everything is rational as long as you have reasons for your goal. Logic has to enter it too, and reasons aren't always logical. Having a reason doesn't make it rational.

I’m not sure rational and logical have a 1:1 meaning as you assume. For example, if I look both ways before crossing a one-way street, I think I would call that rational but I’m not sure I would call that logical.

I could certainly be convinced otherwise but it’s interesting to think about.

Surely it depends on how the decision to look both ways was made?

If you do it out of instinct and immediately think "oh yeah, forgot I only need to look one way" then it wasn't logical.

But if you know it's one way, yet think "I've witnessed bikes and even cars going the wrong way before, better check both directions" that seems like it could be a perfectly logical action.

Having a reason you disagree with doesn't make it irrational.

Is short term satisfaction a rational choice over increased chances of death? That was the context here. It's also a fairly well recognized behavioral pattern of irrational decision making.

A reason alone doesn't make something rational. A paranoid thought that aliens are trying to abduct you may be backed up by the reason "because secret weather balloons are tacking me". It's a reason. It's not a rational one. Having a reason is not synonymous with being rational.

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