I question the use of "rationality" in your post.

In the Advanced Microeconomics for the Critical Mind MOOC, they went through the standard, establishment economic definition of "rationality": rationality is defined over the real numbers. Thus rationality, by definition, seeks to maximize a utility function. The utility function must be continuous, twice-differentiable, and quasi-concave. (See http://subbot.org/canvas/microeconomics/utility.png and http://subbot.org/canvas/microeconomics/bundles.png.)

Such a formal, rigorous definition of rationality is necessary for mathematical convenience. Utility functions must only represent preference choices that are complete and transitive; utility functions must monotonically increase; otherwise the steps in the mathematical proofs of the Welfare Theorems break down. (The First Welfare Theorem upholds the efficiency of market allocations and market prices.)

I challenge the definition of rationality used by conventional economics.

In your post, it is more rational to fence off land and declare exclusive use over it. I disagree. The land can be used simultaneously, or consecutively, or as needed, by anyone. Such is the practice of usufruct which prevails in nature andwas the default practice among humans for tens of thousands of years.

In your rational world, open source should not exist. Intellectual property should be for exclusive use only. It is most rational to want to control usage of your intellectual property.

Under such a definition, I am not rational. I do not want to control anything I write. I do not want to sell anything. I do not want to enforce exclusivity over any land.

One conventional economic theory says that the crass, mathematical, economic definition of rationality described above is more evolutionary fit and will thus outcompete my irrational attitude.

But I think the political idea of unalienable rights trumps that mean-spirited view of evolution.

I think my rationality, which wants to give away things and which does not conform to transitivity and completeness of preference relations, has survival fitness; the continued survival of the Jain religion shows that a seemingly irrational adoption of nonviolence can persist through recorded history despite the many uses of violence against it.

The weird thing is how economically successful the Jains are, despite their preference for sadhus whose behavior violates all the economic assumptions of rationality.

Standard economics teaches that Jain sadhus should have been eliminated many centuries ago. But I learn more about how to live from Jain sadhus than from orthodox economists.