Friends, let us discuss this point by Rory Sutherland:
“If rationality were valuable in evolutionary terms, accountants would be really sexy.”
1) Is it that professions that are attractive to others and provide social rank satisfy a certain selection criterion, with hidden benefits to society that we can detect? I think so: courage is extremely attractive and heroes are worshipped for a reason, as they take risks for the collective. But is it universal?
2) The accountant definition of rationality is too narrow and not altruistic enough to qualify as useful for the collective. They are scribes, not high priests.
3) We can extend the discussion to other professions: mathematicians (I am told) aren’t interesting to others (except to math students); same with economists. If these professions don’t seem “sexy” is it because they aren’t that “fit”?

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