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

An almost textbook definition of cognitive bias right there.

> How can we avoid perceptual errors which influence our judgement?

You have to work incredibly hard to achieve that. Perceptual and bias errors are the most common and difficult to find in ourselves.

My personal take is to become really good at two things: understanding when and how it is appropriate to trust in someone else's domain authority/expertise, and whatever it is you'd like to be an expert on.

Don't expect this behavior out of your fellow citizens, or even yourself, most of the time. It requires battling with some pretty strong evolutionary drives.

Frankly, cultivating humility is probably easier (which is saying something, as that's pretty difficult for most humans as well).

Education: We should educate for core thinking process as in the old days like logic and rhetoric topics. E.g. Logic can be taught and is undervalued as a trait these days. I'd prefer to work with someone that had great logic than rote learnt job requirements.

Experience: By balancing society and encouraging broad experience and social mixing you will get a more rational society. In my experience 90% of society is trying to be good citizens, but often they have a blinked view on the world. Mixing widly for greater experiences will reduce the tribal tendency people have e.g wealthy people to assume unemployed are lazy or the poor to think the wealthy have it all roses. This would cross to other areas like religion, guns, race if people can see the perspective where people are coming from. And those with opposing views more likely dont feel they have to push to the extreme to be understood. And simply seeing things in action opens your eyes. Like people that claim single payer healthcare will never work. Go spend some time in Canada, UK and Australia and you will see it works fairly well. Likewise you'll see bad things that reinforce what you need to protect.

Think about how hard you mentally push yourself on a day to day. It isn't a stretch to think that cognition can be trained stronger.

Do you ever wonder what an Eagle's vision would be like if they lived inside of a 10x15 room their whole life?

> At birth, the number of synapses per neuron is 2,500, but by age two or three, it’s about 15,000 per neuron. The brain eliminates connections that are seldom or never used, which is a normal part of brain development. [0]

How much do you think the average kid, or their adult counterpart, would need to use their brain for sitting in front of the tv or working a menial job / boring school?

I believe we set our own cognitive limits and I hope that we can learn to reset them.

[0]: https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/4356e/