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Learn why Star Trek's Mr. Spock is not very rational

Watch Julia Galef, president and cofounder of the Center for Applied Rationality, dismantle the myth that rationality and emotion are opposites. In the video, Galef uses the example of the character Mr. Spock from the television series Star Trek to explain and discredit several common misconceptions about logical decision making and rationality.

[VIDEO]

If you don't have 50 minutes to check out the video, you can read a quick summary of Galef's ideas from Luke Muehlhauser (executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute) in a chapter from his work "Facing the Intelligence Explosion."

To find out where the Straw Vulcan idea originated, take a look at TVTrope.org's article on this problematic and common tendency in media.

Julia Galef is the president and cofounder of the non-profit Center for Applied Rationality. She is a writer, blogger, and public speaker as well as the co-host of the popular podcast Rationally Speaking. She holds a degree in statistics from Columbia University.

Executive Director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), Luke Muehlhauser has written dozens of articles and papers on metaethics, intelligence explosion theory, and the cognitive science of rationality and human motivation. Read his work on the Intelligence Explosion and on the Neuroscience of Human Motivation. More of his writing is available on his website and you can read "Facing the Intelligence Explosion" in its entirety here.

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