It’s Not Irrational to Party Like It’s 1999

[View this email in your browser]( [Nautilus logo]( Thursday, November 18, 2021 Chapter Three: Intersection Dear Nautilus Reader, Must we always be rational? Where’s the fun in that? But wait, says Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, those are the wrong questions to ask. Rationality is less about abandoning emotion than feeling how you truly want to feel. “It is in no way irrational to keep a garden, fall in love, care for stray dogs, party like it’s 1999, or dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,” Pinker writes this week in Nautilus. With reason as our guide, we also pepper Pinker with questions on other topics he’s touched, like societal progress and capitalism, billionaire wealth, and climate change. Also: We revisit C.P. Snow’s infamous lecture on the cultural divide between science and art. And a new podcast, Ignorance, hosted by neuroscientists Stuart Firestein and Leslie Vosshall, asks scientists what they don’t know and what they are dying to figure out. In the first episode, the hosts ask astronomer Jill Tarter, former director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, one of humanity’s biggest questions, “Is there anybody out there?” [READ ISSUE]( [Fly by Jing]( [It’s Not Irrational to Party Like It’s 1999]( [Contrary to what the philosopher said, passion can be a slave to reason.]( [Steven Pinker]( [Must we always follow reason? Do I need a rational argument for why I should fall in love, cherish my children, enjoy the pleasures of life?]( PAID ADVERTISEMENT [Better Than Takeout, Straight from Your Freezer]( [Fly by Jing dumplings]( Get savory and succulent dumplings whenever you want with [Fly by Jing](’s newly launched, ready-to-cook dumplings! 🥟 Available in three varieties (including soup dumplings!), packed with premium, all-natural ingredients and bursting with deep umami flavor. Boil, fry, steam, or toss into a soup for dinner in minutes. Get 15% off your first order with code NAUTILUS15. [GET 15% OFF]( [Steven Pinker Has His Reasons]( [The psychologist unpacks rationality and denies being a guru to the capitalist elite.]( [Brian Gallagher]( [A few years ago, at the Princeton Club in Manhattan, I chanced on a memorable chat with the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker.]( [Who Said Science and Art Were Two Cultures?]( [Revisiting C.P. Snow’s infamous thesis.]( [Kevin Berger]( [On a May evening in 1959, C.P. Snow, a popular novelist and former research scientist, gave a lecture before a gathering of dons and students at the University of Cambridge, his alma mater.]( BECOME A SUBSCRIBER Subscribe to Nautilus! How we might finally defeat COVID. The egregious ripoff in the race to discover DNA’s molecular structure. Aliens who may be watching us. There’s so much to discover in the latest issue of the Nautilus print edition. Subscribe by November 21st and get the latest issue delivered to your doorstep! [SUBSCRIBE TODAY]( [Ignorance: How It Drives Science, a New Podcast]( [In this premier episode, the hosts ask astronomer Jill Tarter who or what’s out there.]( [Stuart Firestein & Leslie Vosshall]( [Science is not the massive structure built of facts that you were taught in school—at least not to scientists.]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Twitter]( [Web Site]( Copyright © 2021 NautilusNext, All rights reserved. You were subscribed to the newsletter from [nautil.us](. Our mailing address is: NautilusNext 360 W 36th Street, 7S, New York, NY 10018 Don't want to hear from us anymore? [Click here to unsubscribe.](