Yeah, Biden himself recently said that Putin is a rational actor who grossly miscalculated, because he was basically fed very bad and flawed intel. He may be blustering about nukes now, but the only way he would do that is if Ukraine turns the tables and invades Russia, or something similar.
"Rational" has somehow become synonymous with "good" or "agrees with me" - rationality doesn't have anything to do with those, it just means "not insane".
And tyrants can be exceedingly rational; they just have their own goals that they're working towards, not the goals of some theoretical "perfect democracy".
> Would a rational actor enslave an entire ethnic minority in work camps, allow harvesting of organs, crush their financial world hub (Hong Kong), and so on?
There is nothing irrational about the first two! Crushing HK is a rational necessity if there is a danger of such disobedience spreading to other regions.
Yeah, Biden himself recently said that Putin is a rational actor who grossly miscalculated, because he was basically fed very bad and flawed intel. He may be blustering about nukes now, but the only way he would do that is if Ukraine turns the tables and invades Russia, or something similar.