Not all biases are irrational...in fact most biases are in rational predispositions based on knowledge and/or first hand experience. Basically its an attempt to apply logic/rationality to unknown situations.
Bias is always framed as a negative word/trait, and it certainly can be (like racial prejudice), but bias should also be looked at as an evolutionary tool humans can use to apply past learned experiences to similar situations in the future.
Just as an example, motorcycle riders may have a bias against certain types of vehicles because of their training/experience, and they apply this bias when making decisions that impact their safety on the road, even though the specific vehicle/situation may not pose a danger. In an evolutionary context, maybe you saw a fury 4 legged animal kill one of the members of your tribe, so you apply a bias against all 4 legged fury animals. Now you don't know if all fury 4 legged animals are dangerous, or pose a threat, but at the same time its no irrational to apply the bias because in potentially life/death situations it may be better safe than sorry. Obviously its good to keep and open mind, maybe you can train such an animal and it may even turn out to be your best friend, but nothing wrong with approaching the situation with your bias either.
Is it rational to believe the parallel postulate? In unchanging laws of physics? In using logic with creatures who tend not to share your axioms?
It comes down to a feeling. From a rational point of view, if rationality were always helpful it would be highly selected for, yet it is not.
Does it "feel right" to use the sketchy one, despite everything you know about sketchiness of neighborhoods and crime in general?
It's always good to balance things and aim for positivity (but not foolishness).
One can choose to be rational and logical, but to what end? How does that serve you, does it? If it doesn't serve you, perhaps consider abandoning rational thought and logic for as long as it might serve to do so. We are not static beings and can be simultaneously rational and irrational. That's our power: to choose how we react and adapt.
Lastly, one thing I've learned the power of as I've gotten older, is the power and benefit of holding beliefs you know to be false. I used to never understand how people could believe demonstrably false things, but I now understand that even something as absurd as that has useful applications. Use it wisely.
It's very similar, but rather than optimizing for happiness, I prefer Terence McKenna's advice to optimize for beauty...
The Good , The True and The Beautiful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-J09gk0mJk
To me this seems superior in that it seems to be more all-encompassing, and can be more easily applied to others and the greater world, for me. But then happiness could very well do the same for you - I think it's the style of thinking (the means by which one evaluates options when choosing a course of action) involved that is the main point.
Seems that way considering how you're being downvoted. A shame.
As engineers, we should be more concerned with what actually works, not with what works inside our heads.
This kinda blew my mind when I was reading up some philosophy. My key takeaway was that rationality and logic is not always helpful to make decisions, esp. when it comes to complex systems such as people (i.e. relationships). As an engineer, it's tough to get past this mindset. On a daily basis I am striving to disconnect everything as much as possible because of scale and performance, but the human brain is nothing like that.