Apparently there was a video where he discussed this idea more in-depth, though I did not see it and, full disclosure, still have not. This address of his is enough to point out his own inconsistencies.
The first thing I will mention, and most interesting thing, is that the vast majority of pieces explaining why Rationalia is a terrible idea bring up, as I did, the mass amount of attempted utopias that ended in dystopian nightmares that were predicated on this same idea. What's interesting about that is that Neil does not address this at all in his, what we will call, rebuttal. He even links to some of the articles discussing his idea negatively that mention this very important, glaring, and well observed issue with "rationality based government," without even attempting to explain why that tooootally wouldn't happen again.
The second most interesting thing to me is how Neil was "intrigued" by how many people hated the idea. His failure to even attempt to understand or see the problems people had with his idea is very telling. Tying this into his failure to even partially address the obvious, historical fact that his idea has been tried before and turned into an utter nightmare - multiple times - shows how out touch he is. This sort of mentality was actually mostly what I discussed before - the imagined "war" between logic and emotion.
We can skip over and ignore his failure to understand how morality can't exist without an unchanging, foundational standard upon which to base them. That is a very normal problem atheists and relativists have and entails quite the discussion. We can easily point out the inconsistencies without this explanation.
We will, however, briefly touch on his failed attempt to bring the bible into this. He discusses how morals have "evolved," and can be quoted saying:
The Bible, for example, is not a fertile place to find anti-slavery commentary, nor discussions of the equality of women.
It's interesting how much different issues all tie together sometimes. This goes back to my discussion on the realities of equality and fairness. Now, it is clear from what Neil believes and the context that he thinks the bible describes women and their role in life as being "less than" a man's, when the reality is that men and women are not, and never will be, equal - because men and women are different. The bible acknowledges the reality that men and women are different and fulfill different roles and the doctrine of Christianity does not insist that women are or should be treated less good than men.
Let me recap real quick if you are lost: men and women are not equal, but neither is better. Apples and oranges are not equal, but neither is inherently better. They are different, and ironically the denial of this evidence-based reality is rather illogical.
It is worth noting that the bible also does not condone slavery, but I don't want to get too carried away. Summarized, let me start with Exodus 21:16, "Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death." There are passages that discuss slavery, but slavery is not condoned - the bible discusses slavery and how slaves and their masters should behave because slavery was a reality of life. Interestingly enough, "slaves" in these times and in this context of history were more akin to indentured servants than what we think of when we imagine slaves. This is a common misunderstanding that because the bible says something like, "if you're a slave, be a good slave," that someone can twist this to mean, "the bible said slavery is ok!" No, the bible is discussing how to behave according to God's will regardless of your life situation. It says it's not okay to be a terrible person due to your circumstances in life - even if your life sucks and you're a slave, you're still supposed to do all things for the glory of God because ultimately that's all that really matters.
Moving on.
Neil attempts to "clarify" that when he said everything would be based on evidence and reason, he only meant government policies - and by this, somehow implies that anyone ever thought differently. Neil, we all knew exactly what you meant.
The rebuttal goes on to talk about how scientists deal with problems and how that would then be applied to policy making and governance. In collecting links and reading a bit more, I came across this interesting passage that covers that quite well. According to the twitter user who posted it, it's from 40 years ago, but that is irrelevant.
This passage even directly references the concept of policy that Neil is so intent on reminding everyone that "that's all I'm talking about!" Where to build a road has no clear and defined answer. What our children should learn to best prepare them for adulthood has no clear and defined answer. Most, if not all, social policies and social concerns not only have neither clear answers nor solutions, but are frequently unclear themselves. Sometimes, we don't even know what the problem is, or whether or not there even is a problem.
This rebuttal goes on to define how, exactly, Rationalia's citizens and government would look and behave. There are several interesting points to make here, but this one I will quote entirely because it's rather important:
In Rationalia, the sciences that study human behavior (psychology, sociology, neuroscience, anthropology, economics, etc) would be heavily funded since much of our understanding of how we interact with one another derives from research within subfields of these disciplines. Because their subjects involve humans, these fields are particularly susceptible to social & cultural bias. So the verifiability of evidence will be of highest concern.
While I wasn't entirely sure why at first, reading this was actually very disconcerting. It was perhaps the most uncomfortable part to read in the entire piece. After considering what about it was so distressing, I was brought back to something else I discussed briefly in yet another post.
When psychology and psychiatry were new fields of study, the scientists who did many of these studies performed a great number of immoral and absolutely nightmarish studies on people. Some of these studies scarred them for life or even caused physical abnormalities along with plenty of other issues. Some studies were performed on animals, and as such were a little less outright terrifying to learn about, but some of the experiments and subsequently terrible things imposed onto human test subjects were chilling enough that you'd think it was the plot of a macabre torture movie. Devastatingly, a lot of scientific advancement was actually made during the holocaust, as Nazi scientists immorally performed excruciating experiments on living humans without their consent, like how long does it take a newborn baby to starve to death if deprived food starting immediately after birth.
These terrible practices were brought to an end due to our natural emotional reaction to how immoral they were. Neil talks about how morals "evolve" and are "shaped" by "rational analysis of the effects and consequences of a previously held moral." The problem with this line of thinking is there is no rational analysis of emotional morals. This brings us right back to the first and foremost important thing to note about this entire idea: there is no evidence-based, rational, scientific, or logical reason to not cause harm to humans, up to and including execution. The only reason these terrible practices were stopped was because of emotional, moral responses to the atrocities that were performed.
Now, I'm not saying that the first order of business of Rationalia's psychology program would be to ignore human rights and start subjecting people to these atrocities once again, no. No, I'm just saying that it would get there. It would definitely be a possibility. Any denial that a purely logic-based society that ignores emotional and non-logical things like dignity, the right to life, and compassion is entirely capable of getting to the point of nightmarish experimentation "in the name of progress" and euthanasia of the physically and mentally disabled is naive. It has literally happened before. I'm not sure why astrophysicists are such bad historians.
Another interesting clarification made in this rebuttal is that Rationalia would entail complete freedom to be irrational, if you desired. You'd simply not be able to propose policy or changes etc. without evidence and reasoning. He then states that "For this reason, Rationalia might just be the freest country in the world."
This is somewhat funny because there is no evidence anywhere in his proposal that this would be the case. It is simply something he has thrown into the pot to attempt to quell people's fears about the obvious and inevitable tyranny that would result from this sort of thing. What, exactly, is the reasoning that it would be okay for a common, every day citizen to have the freedom to be irrational? What, exactly, is the reasoning that it would be okay for a common, every day citizen to have the freedom to do literally anything? There is nothing logical about freedom. We know, understand, and cherish freedom because it is self-evident - we very obviously have the freedom to do anything, to think anything, and perform any action we want. There is no evidence for freedom, it is merely something we know. Without God, relativists, naturalists, atheists, and people like Neil do not understand why freedom is real, but they simply understand that it is. What restricts it is the possible consequence of the utilization of our freedom depending on your location and the government of the area you reside. You could run down the street naked if you wanted - you have the free choice to do this. But you may get arrested, as public nudity is illegal.
This example entails the problem. Yes, you have the freedom to do anything you want, but the policies and laws of a government will impose punishments upon people for doing things that said government has established is not okay to do. You have the free choice to murder, but it is illegal. You have the free choice to sell meth to children, but it is illegal. You have the free choice to eat a dead rat you found in your garage, but you might die. There are consequences for our free choices - some of them are natural, some of them are imposed by the governing body of the country where you perform these free actions.
How, exactly, does anything proposed about Rationalia necessarily entail that citizens would have the freedom to be irrational? We are currently living in a world where there are countries that will execute civilians for practicing religions - either be it any religion, or particular religions that are specifically deemed not okay. It's not like this is something that "couldn't happen." Why has Neil been able to establish this policy of "the freedom to be irrational" upon Rationalia without first providing evidence, reason, or rational for it? What qualities of a country founded upon the idea of pure logical reasoning would somehow preserve the freedom of a person to not abide by the founding principles of that country?
This is perhaps the most ironic part of his entire rebuttal. It is entirely unsubstantiated, it does not follow necessarily from the established doctrine, and is directly opposed to the entire foundation of the country in the first place. What Neil is attempting to insist is that Rationalia would have the one line consitution of "All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence," and that, somehow, this entails freedom for the citizens. There is a very good reason why not only the Constitution is very many lines long, but that the Bill of Rights was passed shortly thereafter. The Bill of Rights, if you'll recall, also containing very many lines.
This is not the only line of his rebuttal that is unsubstantiated and does not follow necessarily from the established doctrine. He even attempts to say that practicing religion would be entirely allowed in Rationalia, as well. This is quite interesting. How did he extrapolate all this from "All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence," anyway? How does Rationalia's basis disallow the government from proposing the idea that "religion is harmful," and then providing "evidence" such that, as far as the governing people are concerned, religion is "directly attributing to the irrationality of citizens," who then vote for or grow up to be irrational government workers, then subsequently creating policies that disallow people from practicing their religions? Is it because "Neil said so," or is there actual evidence or reasoning for this?
The vast majority of his "clarifications" can be analyzed this way. There's one more fun point to make, however.
He discusses the idea that Rationalia would have an "Office of Morality" where morality was discussed. He concedes that Rationalia may (read: will, definitely) get their morals wrong, but then he throws in this fun tidbit:
Is slavery moral? The USA's Constitution thought so for 76 years. Should women vote? The USA’s Constitution said no for 131 years.
This is fun for me, because, taken quite literally, the USA's Constitution in fact did not think slavery was moral. Slavery was made illegal literally, quite specifically, and exactly because of the USA's Constitution, or more specifically the Declaration of Independence. You can argue that these are "two separate documents," but it was understood and established that the Declaration of Independence was "the promise," and the Constitution "the fulfillment." It was an oversight, or possibly a "misunderstanding," for 76 years that allowed slavery to exist. The reason slavery was made illegal was specifically because it was found to be irreconcilable with the Constitution/Declaration of Independence, seen here:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
To treat blacks as less than whites and keep them as slaves was inconsistent with the established doctrine of the United States as a country - the founding principle that started the whole thing, that all men are created equal. You'll also note the handy "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," which actually establishes that morality is not dictated by the government, but by a higher power. But we've already made it quite clear that Neil is not a historian.
So, no, the USA's Constitution did not legislate the morality of slavery. It in fact did the opposite, and it was - wait for it - fallible, finite, biased, and flawed people that caused the self-evident moral law to be ignored. Please explain to me again how Rationalia's one line constitution will do anything to preserve freedom or human rights? Literally the reason slavery was made illegal was because it conflicted with the self-evident truths bestowed upon us by our Creator, not "bestowed upon us by our super rational government."
And, briefly, the Constitution also didn't "say no" to women voting - it was the interpretation of the document, once again, by the governing bodies. Nowhere in the Constitution did it say "oh btw chicks can't vote." Allowing women to vote was due to the fact that new amendments could be added to the Bill of Rights because the Constitution allowed for it if it was voted in by a majority of the people and the government. This brings further light onto the reality that Rationalia's "one line constitution" does not allow for the ratification of new amendments. Neil literally is just taking the Constitution and applying parts of it to his idea of this virtual country without realizing that's not how countries or constitutions work.
So, not only does Neil's attempt at rebutting the evidence-based rational behind the massive dislike of Rationalia fail to actually address anyone's concerns (like dystopian murder societies), but it in itself was not based on the weight of evidence. He just said some things that sounded nice to ensure people that his imaginary virtual country would totally be great because he didn't want to be wrong.
I've said this before: if a "smart person" doesn't understand why they're wrong, they might not be all that smart.
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