V the Miniseries in 9 Minutes

Larry Kummer, Editor says:

Novaseeker nails it: “It’s rational behavior from the perspective of a woman because a woman can maximize her control over ‘her’ children while continuing to extract resources from their father.”

While irrational in many ways, people are usually good at calculating incentives — although it often takes a few generations for people to realize the rules or circumstances have changed.

The other thing mentioned above is the difference between behavior that is “rational for me” and “rationale for society.” They are often different. In economics, its the difference between microeconomics (more savings is better for me) and macroeconomics (if we all save more, the economy slows). The Prisoner’s Dilemma is another example of this.

The great philosopher Immanuel Kant resolved this with his “Categorical Imperative”: each of us should act in a way that will make society better if we all acted that way.” Since few of us are philosophers, that maxim never got much traction.