Ask HN: How can rational thinking increase in individuals and societies?

Agreed. It's also helpful for us to find the reasons that others do what they do. It's more insightful than treating them with condescension.

stop 3rd world immigration to "Western Countries"

The usual context for a question like this is actually finding out that someone has different beliefs from you.

First thing is for people to realize the prevalence of belief systems and how they are not derived or supported rationally.

Next thing is for people to realize that everyone has a belief system, no matter how non-religious or empirical they think their worldview is.

By competition and selection. Evolution is the main algorithm that can scale up and improve a complex system. How that is practically accomplished is a separate topic but the theoretical answer is clear. I think one day the same will become true in computation once a certain complexity threshold is reached.

There is little point in educating and refining individuals (although they may benefit) unless the whole network of society can be improved net.

P.J O'Rourke points out that a great many ignorant people exist in America, especially in certain zip codes.

He says the average Russian is far more well read and educated, not just in theory but in spirit too, and a great many of them have superior intelligence that makes their population natural adepts in science and literature.

Despite all of this; Russia is poorer and considerably worse off than the USA today.

It is good that you ask the question in the context of individuals and groups. There is something of a microeconomics/macroeconomics divide here! The aid of one does not help the other. It is a most strange and counter intuitive paradox.

I say a good heuristic for our 'algorithm' for improving society and individuals is a diversity of options. Then we allow society and individuals to make the value judgments of what to choose independently. That is the classic position of a Westerner such as myself.

The caveat then is to what extent does informing a judgment control that outcome. That is a wicked problem. As computer scientists say, Garbage in, Garbage out. I suspect if you solve for that then you have your answer.

Most of the time I believe we act instinctively. This implies there is also a cost to rationality. I also believe rationality is a distant cousin to education and raw intelligence. There are too many examples of educated quick witted people who believe things that cannot be true.

To make a stab at a practical endeavour which would answer your question, I would guess that directing attention productively could increase rationality. I think in some way having a pencil and a piece of paper increases your powers of reason, or at least the possible scope. Putting somebody into a room with a cool temperature, good lighting, some paper and writing materials, no distractions and perhaps preliminary meditation is very likely to increase your powers of reason.

no