Rationality Is a Costume
Psychology tells us we can never truly be without bias. Every thought, every idea, every argument we have ever made is saturated with inherent bias. Towards something. About something. Every time we thought we were being objective. Every time we were playing devil's advocate. Every time we thought we were weighing options — we were operating from bias.
We are simply incapable of having a thought untainted by it. Unless we are wholly indifferent to the outcome. Or to the people involved. That is why reading world history feels objective. The events are in the past. They do not disturb you. Their effects have been diluted by time. You can therefore reason about them more clearly. That clarity comes from detachment. There is nothing at stake for you.
Geopolitics works the same way. The moment you care about the material causes or the outcome, rationality exits. You will weaponise your intellect to justify your position. You will dress up your bias in rational language. This is motivated reasoning. When you see someone going to extraordinary lengths to explain why they did what they did, you are watching motivated reasoning in action. You are watching a bias with sophisticated argumentation layered on top.
Knowing that we can never be truly neutral makes objectivity seem impossible. On the surface, that is correct. But there are ways to manage it. Since you cannot reason your way to pure rationality, you must build systems that compel you towards better decisions.
Take investing. Most people operate on instinct, emotion, hearsay, and the opinions of those they trust. That is their bias at work. They consider themselves sharper than the crowd. Even knowing that ninety percent of participants lose money, they still try. They place greater faith in their own judgment than in the collective record. The antidote is to stop trusting yourself and start following a system.
Study past winners. Understand what made those companies exceptional. Build frameworks to identify similar qualities in current ones. Then invest with discipline. When you delegate your decisions to a framework, you remove the most dangerous variable — yourself. That does not make you objective. It simply stops your subjectivity from corrupting your outcomes.
The same logic applies everywhere. Force yourself to define what makes something genuinely good for you. Establish the criteria that constitute your version of good. Then apply those frameworks wherever clarity matters. If you are arguing with a friend, the first question to ask yourself is: what would it take to convince me I am wrong? You need to know your threshold for retreat before you argue yourself into a corner.
Even when choosing a partner, begin with what you will not accept. Eliminate people who fail to meet that baseline. You will either find someone who genuinely fits, or you will discover that your criteria needed revision.
We cannot be free from bias. What we can do is acknowledge it — and instead of torturing the mind into false neutrality, use that same mind to design the guardrails. You cannot live under constant pressure to be rational. Build the frameworks. Let them decide for you.