Dead Jewish People

One of my teachers had brought up an interesting definition of what it means to be rational. He said,

"To be rational does not mean that you are always right, in fact more times than not you're wrong. But to be rational means that you are capable of recognizing and learning from your mistakes."

Me and my sister had a really good conversation a couple of weeks ago (I'm paraphrasing the main points). She's studying financing and is frustrated that despite her education, and supposed expertise in the subject, she statistically will do worse with investing as compared to some other random uneducated jerk offs. In her brief moment of despair she had wondered if it was largely up to "fate/destiny" to decide who will be successful. She wondered if she was destined for success. She had asked me what my beliefs were on destiny. My response was,

"I do not believe that there is any rational reason to believe that fate/destiny exist."

That statement should be of no surprise to anyone who actually knows me. I have a lot of issues with people drawing cosmic significance to anything, no matter the lifelong impact the event may or may not have. Believing in "fate" can lead to catastrophic consequences (manifest destiny/the Holocaust) because certain individuals are suddenly exempt from having to use and explain sound reasoning. It's safer, and arguably more rational, to assume that we're not really sure if either destiny or fate exist.

At this point in the conversation she said,

"Sometimes rationale leads to very catastrophic conclusions. Maybe the 'rational' thing to do is to embrace your intuition and trust that your choices will lead you to destined success."

At the time I couldn't really find the words to articulate my point, but I still felt that something wasn't right. If we could have the same conversation again I would tell her what my teacher had explained to me today.

Ultimately, by exercising rationality I can more frequently reach better conclusions. This process will allow the individual to better understand the variables and to manipulate them accordingly. I would be given the chance to reflect on my process so I can either improve or repeat it. Fate/Destiny are dangerous and can result in 2 million dead Jews for no apparent reason.