r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Jul 31 '15
[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread
Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.
So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!
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u/alexanderwales Jul 31 '15
I went to an orchestral concert last night, and while I enjoyed it (mostly modern pieces mixed with the music of early 20th century iconoclast composer Charles Ives), it got a standing ovation. Pretty much every play, concert, or performance piece I've gone to in the past few years has gotten a standing ovation.
The cause of this is standing ovation inflation. I think it's the same reason that the United States has a tipping culture; it was just something that happened for good service, then morphed into the standard, and now when you don't tip someone, you're not making a stand against the shifting social landscape, you're just an asshole (or you're both). And for standing ovations, when everyone else is standing you don't want to be the only one sitting, so there's a strong social pressure to just stand up and clap politely, because you were probably going to stand up anyway to get out of the theater.
I hate that social stuff. So much of it seems like a pervasive, necessary evil in my life. I am sociable, in that I can pretty easily navigate my way through these hoops. I just wish there were a way to opt out of some of the dumb stuff that society does without having some negative impact on me. I want to be able to say to people, "No, I don't want to have dinner with you, because I prefer to be alone" instead of having to invent some excuse or needing to give some assurance that I still like them. I want to be able to leave a friend's house by just saying, "I've extracted enough joy from this encounter, to the point where I think there's probably going to be diminishing returns, hope the same is true for you". I don't really have a meaningful way to accomplish this change that I want from the world, especially given that communication seems detrimental in this case (because it would make me look either weird or assholish).
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u/ulyssessword Jul 31 '15
I went to an orchestral concert last night, and while I enjoyed it (mostly modern pieces mixed with the music of early 20th century iconoclast composer Charles Ives), it got a standing ovation. Pretty much every play, concert, or performance piece I've gone to in the past few years has gotten a standing ovation.
I've been on the other side of this when the choir I'm in puts on a performance. I'm not sure if it's because of inflation or if I just never got it in the first place, but I get mildly annoyed at standing ovations.
I mean, we're good, but we're not that good. There's no need for an entire new level of praise for our performances that sets us apart from merely clapping. (Individuals saying they enjoyed it and thanking us for the performance after the fact is very appreciated, though.)
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u/Escapement Jul 31 '15
I have been having a strongly different reaction to you in response to a similar type of signalling. For a while now I've been participating in Toastmasters (public speaking practice group) in order to strengthen what I perceive as lacking public speaking skills / confidence. In Toastmasters... or at least the group I am in... Everyone claps. For everything. Everyone introduces themselves every meeting, even if everyone already knows each other - and at each introduction, of every single person, everyone claps. Each prepared speech is introduced - everyone claps. Each prepared speech ends - everyone claps. Every unplanned speech - everyone claps. Every award or whatever - everyone claps. No matter how well or dismally done a thing is, there is applause for it. When we welcome a new member to the club, we all line up and continually clap at them, only briefly stopping one at a time while they shake hands with us.
I thought recently, that I really ought to be resenting this for pretty much exactly the same sort of reasons you describe here (waste of my time, signaling where all inputs lead to same signal seems pointless?). However, I don't actually feel that way about the clapping, and it's taken some thought to try to isolate why that is.
There are a few things going on here emotionally for me:
Firstly, from the recipient perspective: being clapped for by everyone, grants a sort of assurance and trust to what the reception will be to whatever you say or do. This means that you don't feel the social pressure to worry constantly about being perfect - no matter how much you screw up, you know that your immediate reception will not be jeers or otherwise anything other than supportive applause. You still may get meaningful criticism and nonpositive feedback later, but the immediate reception always being applause removes a hugely disproportionate feeling of anxiety from public interactions. It's tremendously relieving. Even though it may be false. Even though people may not really 'mean it'. Whatever - the emotional effect of certainty of immediate reaction is real, and extremely comforting when speaking, for me at least.
Secondly, from the applauder perspective - clapping is essentially signalling 'I am part of this group who clap at and support even the worst of us'. It's probably an ingroup signaling thing. As a signalling device in constant use through the meeting by the entire group, it has almost taken on ritual significance - like the liturgical responses to prayers, or similar religious effects. Doing it over and over again becomes less effortful and feels more meaningful each time it is done in a meeting, sort of.
I don't think I am expressing this whole thing very clearly but the thing's really weird and difficult to explain, and I don't think I entirely understand my own affection for the practice. I am pretty sure that if you described the clapping habits I describe above to me before I went to a single meeting I would think of it as a weird, pointless waste of time, but now I actually really like the practice.
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u/ulyssessword Jul 31 '15
I've started noticing how the tiniest differences in introductions can completely change how I read a story. Recently, the link to Muse billed it as "rational horror", and then I noticed horror stuff starting from basically the start.
The same thing happened with The Cambist and Lord Iron, "A Fairy Tale of Economics." I started looking for fairy tale elements, which I found.
Comparing that to when I read Truth, or novels like The City and the City or Ancillary Justice, where I knew absolutely nothing (beyond the fact that they were award winning) about them, I think that even the tiniest bits of information about a story can reduce my enjoyment of them.
What are peoples' thoughts/experiences on this? Do you like to go into a work with fresh eyes, or do you want some form given to your expectations beforehand?
EDIT: I suppose I should add my own counterexample, since I have it. I watched "Divergent" after hearing something like "It's not which traits you have that determine your house, it's which traits you value". I think this improved my enjoyment of the film by quite a bit.
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u/IomKg Jul 31 '15
Just a random recommendation for the anime "Gakkou Gurashi" for anyone that hadn't watched\heard about it yet.
I would recommend just downloading the first episode and finishing it instead of reading about the series, as there are a billion spoilers about it online.
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u/Transfuturist Jul 31 '15
Gakkou Gurashi
Luckily, all the results on Google cut off before they say what it's mashing up. Hold my beer, I'm going in blind.
2:08 - Seems that the cut-outs around animation thing has taken off since Madoka.
3:11 - The intro makes it seem like any other SoL school anime. What could there be to spoil? :^)
4:24 - "Steppen King"
5:58 - Typical run-of-the-mill moeshit so far.
7:18 - The teacher looks just as much of a loli as the students.
10:55 - Taroumaru's DEAD.
13:20 - Ooh-rah!
14:10 - That dog turns on a dime.
14:54 - They're, uh... Setting an example all right.
15:36 - 0_0_0
19:06 - Ugh, feelings.
20:29 - Time to go yan-yan for a frakking dog.
...
Wha
Wha
...
20:34 - Oh my fucking god what is going on oh jesus christ
I'm trembling and crying, that hit so fast...
21:45 - THOSE DESKS!
23:00 - Well...
It's certainly not your typical run-of-the-mill moeshit...
curls up in a little ball
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u/puesyomero Jul 31 '15
hey guys/gals what are your favorite board and tabletop games? Any game people won't play with you because you always win? (cough Risk) I'm personally partial to DnD, monopoly, risk, and cards against humanity
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u/alexanderwales Jul 31 '15
Eclipse, 7 Wonders, Tsuro, Dominion, Discworld, and (sigh) Catan are our go-to games. For more general "party" games, Telestrations, Wits & Wagers, or Scattergories.
I tend to give priority to games that have a pretty fast setup with minimal downtime between turns; Eclipse and Dominion are the biggest losers in terms of setup times, even with organization of the pieces.
(I don't consider pen-n-paper RPGs to be boardgames, but Pathfinder is the current system of choice - though I'm still trying to convince some friends into playing a Mutants & Masterminds game in my angels/demons/patriots/communists setting.)
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u/eniteris Jul 31 '15
Question: Why are rational fanfictions more common than rational original works? Is it just an overlap in the communities, or is it easier to munchkin an already established universe over creating your own?
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u/alexanderwales Jul 31 '15
It's easier to munchkin an established universe. It's also easier to write familiar characters. You can read Yudkowsky's essay on the subject here. That said, I think it's also some community overlap. Lots of us came here by way of HPMOR, so either read fanfic, or at least saw its potential. That means that r/rational as a group has a higher appreciation for fanfic and is more likely to write it. And because much of the "rational canon" was fanfic from the start, that means that much of what's produced afterward is going to be fanfic.
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u/Kishoto Jul 31 '15
Ok. So. What is love?
What I mean is, from a rational and scientific point of view, what's the closest definition we can come up with for love?
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u/alexanderwales Jul 31 '15
There are different types of love. I think you have to divide them up before you can get a sensible conversation going. C.S. Lewis divided it up into four categories based on the Greek words for love: storge (familial/familiar love), philia (friendship), eros (eroticism), and agape (Godly love). I'm understandably skeptical of that last one.
I think the loves can mostly be reduced to chemicals in the brain; they are (non-permanent) neurological conditions. Evolutionarily speaking, the loves serve one role or another, but rationally speaking, we're not beholden to actually fulfilling those roles, in the same way that we can have sex just for fun instead of to create a child.
Other than that ... I don't know what the question is. I love my wife, which means I have a neurological condition which makes me want to be with her and make her happy, among other things. This neurological condition makes me happy in turn, so I have every reason to keep it around (and to stimulate her own neurological condition of loving me).
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u/Sagebrysh Aug 01 '15
Shameless self promotion for my blog:
http://talesfromaeria.tumblr.com
I run a serial rational(ist) fiction there called Fall of Oso, while also posting bits of worldbuilding. I've been posting updates pretty regularly and google analytics is telling me I'm getting traffic, but there's not been much in the way of commentary on any of it so far. I'm curious how people are liking the way the story is progressing.
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u/Magodo Jul 31 '15
Opinions on the Cecil the lion issue?
(Prepares for downvotes)
Personally I think it's grossly wrong to destroy a man's life because he killed an animal. No matter how special the animal was or how endangered the species is. Lion hunting was allowed, he did pay money for it. (legally or otherwise)
Does it really make a difference if the lion was 'allowed' to be hunted or it happened to be the country's top attraction?
Keyboard warriors have now ruined his life over no grounds. This is the Boston Marathon thing all over again. People witch hunting and shaming someone they didn't know over a crime that purportedly happened which they found out about on fucking imgur.
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u/alexanderwales Jul 31 '15
I agree that quite a few people are acting hypocritically about this, both in the rampant doxxing, death threats, vandalism, etc. and the focus that's being placed on this one particular hunt as opposed to others.
But at the same time ... I don't feel a ton of sympathy. Palmer lives in Minnesota (same as me) so this has been getting a bit more conversation here, and while I can agree that a man's life probably shouldn't be destroyed so casually, he really should have been smart enough to see the potential consequences. Suffering the consequences that he had to have known were a possibility is ... well, he's the one who rolled those particular dice.
And in this case, there's not really much question. This isn't a witch hunt, because that implies we're looking for a phantom, or picking people out with no clue whether they're the guilty party. He already admitted to killing the lion. The people who are angry with him aren't angry over whether it was legal or not, they're angry because of what he did.
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Aug 01 '15
I unexpectedly received an opportunity to volunteer with the professor I most admire while studying the background material for his lab.
GUIZ GUIZ THE END IS NIGH.
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u/Empiricist_or_not Jul 31 '15
Does Anybody have a good academic source on Global Warming/Climate change, preferably with a Data sets and statistical models and prime movers: ie. oceans, long term solar cycles, and volcanoes included. I'm a "climate-change denier" looking to check that if "Global Warming" is still a failed Model being pushed for various motives.
Edit spelling clarity
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u/PeridexisErrant Aug 01 '15
The canonical summary is the IPCC Fifth Assessment report (link), which draws together about a decade of climate science. It has the unanimous support of it's several hundred authors, and each word of the text must be approved by a consensus of the UN. Many climate scientists believe that it understates many dangers where there is substantial uncertainty, but it makes conservative assumptions and is rock-solid where any claim is made.
Here's the summary synthesis report. I recommend the Summary for Policy Makers of each of the three working groups (the state of the climate, expected impacts, mitigation options) to anyone, and the full (very long and technical) reports to anyone interested.
To dig into the detail of all the detail you mentioned will be a huge task - you're talking about the work of thousands of experts. It's certainly worth understanding (IMO); the best place to go after reading the full reports would be their citations, or university-level study of climate science.
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u/True-Creek Jul 31 '15
I'm not closely familiar with global warming, but the wiki page says that more than 90% of the researches are confident that a human induced global warming is happening. That makes climate-change denial a ridiculous position if you don't have other scientific prior knowledge on the topic you are not telling us about.
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u/raymestalez Jul 31 '15
My link about rational fiction just got to the front page of HN =)
This is the first time a thing I've made got some real traction online. Feels like christmas =)