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Comment by czbond | Hacker News Reader

One word - "Feelings". Kids invoke feelings, people are susceptible and ruled by them. Logic is then applied to the decision to justify.

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Feelings are part of what makes us human. We love our parents, enjoy the company of our friends, like listening to music and so much more.

Not everything in life is logical.

Way to tell on yourself. Most emotionally mature people understand when feelings are driving their decision making, and don't try to justify it with self-serving logic. Only weird nerds claim to be ruled by logic and are actually motivated mostly by their feelings (the most prominent one in my experience being inadequacy).

Nothing I stated is untrue. Humans are prone to err on the side of feelings, even if they are what make us human. They are also what make us generally illogical or at least non-strategic.

The difference is people who can segment feelings from impacting making logical decisions.

I think we agree except that I believe that most people who claim to have "segmented their feelings" have actually repressed their feelings, and are far more prone to motivated reasoning than people who are overtly emotional.

Edit: Or, you know what? I deny the entire individualistic framing. I think to actually make logical decisions about anything of substance, it takes more than one person. For things that don't matter, like what to eat for lunch or what book to buy, it's fine letting your emotions take the wheel.

I think the individual logical person is a myth. We're social animals. Logical reasoning is a collective enterprise.

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