Sep 5
I wish more textbook examples were so colorful.
We need to be careful to distinguish between rationality and omniscience. An omniscient agent knows the actual outcome of its actions and can act accordingly; but omniscience is impossible in reality. Consider the following example: I am walking along the Champs-Elysées one day and I see an old friend across the street. There is no traffic nearby and I'm not otherwise engaged, so, being rational, I start to cross the street. Meanwhile, at 33,000 feet, a cargo door falls off a passing airliner, and before I make it to the other side of the street I am flattened. Was I irrational to cross the street? It is unlikely my obituary would read "Idiot attempts to cross street."
As if the example wasn't already sadistic enough, the footnotes go on to reference a 1989 Washington Post article about how nine passengers flew to their death when a cargo door blew open and flew away on the way to New Zealand.
See N. Henderson, “New door latches urged for Boeing 747 jumbo jets,” Washington Post, 8/24/89.
I wish more textbooks could keep me so entertained.
