David Moscrop - Can we make good political decisions?

One of the stories we tell ourselves is that human beings are dispassionate, rational, calculating machines. We collect data, we weigh evidence, we discuss, we debate, we judge, we decide. Not quite. Evidence suggests that when it comes to decision making, we're often biased, emotional, and irrational -- and there are few better examples of this than how we do politics. I'll discuss emotional, irrational decision making in the context of the recent rise of of nationalist and xenophobic populism in North America and Europe. David Moscrop is a PhD candidate in political science at UBC researching political theory/decision making. He has also written and commented for Macleans and BC1. To learn more, you can read David's dissertation online: https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0343290 The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and many of our members are not on Meetup. We have a regular attendance of about 30 people at our Sunday meetings (rather than the small number who RSVP on Meetup).