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[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

Post:

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!

Comments:

u/raymestalez:

My [link about rational fiction](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977322) 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](http://i.imgur.com/yp32BcU.jpg) =)

u/alexanderwales:

Congratulations! You're doing a lot to help the genre grow, and that's much appreciated (from me, at least).

u/None:

...*Why* do people do this?

Seriously, is there a name for this bias? If it is a bias? It's one of the most frustrating things in the world. I mean, where does a statement like this *come* from?

> It seems like Eliezer has convinced a ton of nerds (I hate the word but let's roll with it) that they can succeed in writing fiction by applying this one weird trick. But you need much more than that.

wtf is this shit? There's not the faintest attempt at trying to support this claim. It's an impression based on the commenter's own inventions. And no one calls him out on *making shit up about other people that makes them sound worse than anyone actually has reason to believe.*

Then you have this wild and confusing generalization:

> A general failing of HPMOR and most 'rational' fiction is they suffer from the same plot railroading. Instead of starting with a world rules, characters, problem, and unbiased evaluation of what happens they generally try and fast talk their way into some predefined plot.

like he's read it all, and like that's some kind of problem of rational fiction instead of shitty amateur fiction i mean srsly wtf

And of course the coup de grace:

> I think it's tapping into a rich market, that of people who believe they are much more rational (read: smart) than the broader herd. The conviction is already there.

This kind of thing is all over the place in so many contexts, not just this one instance, which isn't particularly bad. It just baffles me how people think it's okay to make this stuff up, and why so many people go along with it.

It needs a name, like the Just Making Shit Up Phenomenon, or the Sure Would Be Nice If This Incredibly Convenient But Clearly Ridiculous Sweeping Generalization Were True Bias.

u/None:

>>I think it's tapping into a rich market, that of people who believe they are much more rational (read: smart) than the broader herd. The conviction is already there.
> 
> This kind of thing is all over the place in so many contexts, not just this one instance, which isn't particularly bad. It just baffles me how people think it's okay to make this stuff up, and why so many people go along with it.

Personally, I just find that *incredibly* ironic coming from motherfucking Hacker News, who are basically defined by their belief that working in Silicon Valley makes you smarter and more knowledgeable than the broader herd.

u/alexanderwales:

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).

u/None:

[deleted]

u/gabbalis:

Only the multiverse? Weak. See no matter how hige of a scope you threaten it is ultimately meaningless, because even if the very highest levels of reality of your cannon are erased by evil, other authors seem to think they are beyond the scope of evils afflicting your world. There are after all, always concievable stories in which the hero won.

That's why I've gone above and beyond. If the evil in my story wins it will literally escape into other fiction and kill all your favorite characters.

Books you already own will be retroactively edited and the very information in your brain regarding the heros' victories will turn to defeates.

Liturature itself will bow before my supervillian or face destruction! Mwahahahahahaha!

u/None:

Meh, that's been done.  That's basically the point of memetically mutating breakout characters.  You know, like Jesus, or Kamina.

u/None:
```
[deleted]
```

u/ulyssessword:

> 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.)

u/Escapement:

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.

u/None:
```
[deleted]
```

u/None:
```
[deleted]
```

u/ulyssessword:

I've started noticing how the tiniest differences in introductions can completely change how I read a story.  Recently, the link to [Muse](http://alicorn.elcenia.com/stories/muse.shtml) 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](http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cambist-and-lord-iron-a-fairy-tale-of-economics/?xcbv), "A Fairy Tale of Economics."  I started looking for fairy tale elements, which I found.

Comparing that to when I read [Truth](http://web.archive.org/web/20090414062819/http://www.asimovs.com/hugos_2009/Truth.shtml), 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.

u/None:
```
Priming is a thing, yeah.
```

u/Transfuturist:

> It's not which traits you have that determine your house, it's which traits you value

That would be a pretty interesting interpretation of Hogwarts Houses.

u/daydev:

I thought it was canon, in particular for Hermione being in Gryffindor. In the very first book, in the room with the potion riddle, she says that there are things more important than learning, namely bravery. So she's in Gryffindor. 

*Harry Potter and the Natural 20* gives the real explanation, though: there are a house for PCs, a house for villains, and two houses for NPCs to make up the numbers.

u/alexanderwales:

It depends on what the creator's intent was. Setting expectations with extra-textual information can be a really important part of creation. I listened to [this piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BENxxDZFPmI) last night, titled "Supermaximum", which is an exploration of incarceration. I *might* have been able to pick up on some of that, but knowing what it was about beforehand (via program notes) enhanced my enjoyment of it.

So ... I don't know. I think it helps to know that you're reading a tragedy while you're in the middle of it, because otherwise the ending might leave a bad taste in your mouth. Sometimes the creator really wants to leave you in the dark (something I've often found can make horror in particular a lot more horrifying). It differs from piece to piece, mostly by creator intent.

u/IomKg:

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.

u/Transfuturist:

> 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.](http://gogoanime.tv/gakkou-gurashi--episode-1)

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*

u/IomKg:

[now](#s "try to get other people to watch the first ep with you, and this time watch for the signs :)")

u/Transfuturist:

Do you know of any other works that could make me shit out my heart like that?

u/None:

I managed to pull that on my roommate who actually likes moeshit.

When they run past the windows, the point of view changes *just for a second* and you can see it.

u/IomKg:

[yup](#s "There are so many signs, which is part of what makes the twist so good..  the broken windows, the barricade, the grave on the roof, the fact that miki barges into classes, how everyone gets tense when yuki says she almost went back home, when they zoom out to show the school you can see the zombies, etc.")

u/puesyomero:

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

u/alexanderwales:

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.)

u/STL:

My favorite is Race For The Galaxy, with either the first expansion arc (TGS+RVI+TBOW) or the second (Alien Artifacts). Excluding AA's optional Orb game, setup and teardown are medium-length (mostly shuffling the large deck, extracting start worlds, etc. - I roll dice to select worlds and goals quicker). But aside from that, the game has *extremely* little downtime, because all players take their turns simultaneously. This allows it to scale from 2 players, all the way up to 6, without decreasing each player's playtime proportionally as in almost all other turn-based games. (Near the maximum number of players, you may need to reshuffle the discards, which is about the only scaling time penalty.) Larger numbers of players are slightly less fun in that it's much harder to keep track of what everyone is doing, so there is less potential for interaction, but that's true for basically all games.

The other things that I love about Race are that it's near-infinitely replayable (the game throws a huge amount of randomness at you, and gives you the tools to deal with that randomness, so there's a vast number of choices you have to make in each game, almost all of them relevant; about the only irrelevant choices that ever come up are treating duplicate cards as money) and that there's a special rule for 2-player games. Even when games scale down to 2 players, they are often best with 3-4 for greater interaction, but Race's Advanced 2-player rules make it strongest, I think. They allow each player to perform 2 actions per turn, so you get to focus on the actions of your opponent and have more options to respond (since the number of combinations of 2 actions is greater).

Also, Race has a small box, which I dearly love. (Many games follow a trend of having large boxes even when the game pieces don't occupy nearly all of that space.) Sleeved, I can fit the first arc into Race's core box, and AA into the expansion box. It's very portable.

One of my fondest Race memories is when a couple of friends were talking about the game of AA we just played, and they agreed that Military strategies were basically dominant in AA; I disagreed, and proceeded to beat them with a Produce/Consume strategy in our very next game.

I *want* to like Eclipse, but despite multiple games I haven't been able to get into it. I haven't been able to see how to get any good at it. Usually when I'm terrible at a game, that motivates me to play it more, as long as I can see how to get better. Maybe it's just because I always play with a friend who is absolutely bonkers insane good at Eclipse (now I know what it feels like to play against That Guy).

For deckbuilders, Dominion's core set left a bad impression on me (I thought there wasn't a rich set of diverse strategies), but I played once with expansions and liked them, so I should probably acquire them. The deckbuilder I play is Ascension, which has had many new sets. Notably, its iOS implementation is astoundingly good (best of all boardgame implementations I've seen; Carcassonne and Waterdeep are close). In addition to a high level of polish, Ascension iOS moves *fast* when you crank up the animation speed to maximum. I wish all computerized board games would follow the same philosophy: provide an option to reduce animation times for experienced players.

u/TaoGaming:

One of my prouder gamer accomplishments is that I was involved with the demo game that 'pitched' *Race for the Galaxy* to the eventual publisher (Jay Tummelson). I desperately wanted that game published. Still play it, waiting for the Xeno expansion.

My favorite recent games (and one sentence pitches) are 

**Eclipse** -- Managable Space Opera

**Mage Knight** -- Start as a demi-god, conquer a land in 3 days. (Great solitaire, too!)

**Sentinels of the Multiverse** -- Co-op superheroes dripping with theme

**Coup** -- Bluffing game reminiscent of the old Eon game Hoax (but it works).

**Pandante** -- Poker + Coup: Your hole card's suits grant special powers. (Can be played for money or as a game)

**Baseball Highlights: 2045** -- A full game of BB in 6 cards. Manage a season in 60-90 min. I played a 28 player tournament of this (using 7 sets) and it was a blast. (Obviously that took longer).

**Quartermaster General** -- Brilliant WWII game in an hour (6 players). Each player has 8-12 pieces and a deck of cards. 

**Too Many Cinderellas** -- Inspired Minimalistic Game from Japan. Remind the Hungover Prince who he met at the ball. (This one is literally 18 cards and 9 chits).

**Machi Koro** -- Settlers w/o the board (the expansion adds a dominion like element). (Good with children, but not to young).

May as well plug my gaming blog while I'm here: https://taogaming.wordpress.com/  Click on "Reviews" or search by game for more details.

u/SvalbardCaretaker:

Consider me much impressed for being responsible (however tiny and miniscule) for Race for the Galaxy. Still on my tier 1 list, still awesome even after hundreds of games.

u/Murska1FIN:

Resistance, Diplomacy, Werewolf, Bang, OSR D&D, Twilight Struggle. I mostly enjoy games that contain a large element of interaction with and against other human players, specifically ones that allow for a lot of diplomacy, dealing, lying and manipulation.

u/None:

[deleted]

u/alexanderwales:

Many Christians write off the Old Testament as a matter of their theology. Basically, when Christ came along, he changed all of the rules and Judaism was superseded by the Christian church with the New Covenant. So when they say that the Old Testament doesn't matter ... they're talking about one of the core assumptions of Christianity. The Old Testament *doesn't* matter. Christ was essentially a reformer, not to mention the son of God, and he fixed everything that was wrong with the Old Testament. The Old Testament is still important, since it documents a lot of good lessons, but *the rules it set out no longer apply*.

[This is in the New Testament itself:](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hebrews%208:7-8:13&version=ESV)

> In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

So if you say, "Old Testament says not to eat shrimp, whycome you guys eat shrimp?" and they say, "Old Testament bro, doesn't matter" ... that's them being entirely within the doctrines of their faith.

(Some Christian faiths care about the Old Testament more than others though; it's hard to generalize.)

Broadly speaking, I just don't argue with people about religion anymore. I don't think I've had a single productive conversation on the subject with any of my religious friends.

u/LiteralHeadCannon:

re: the abstinence and the abortions: The idea that these types of opinions, in an individual, indicate a worldview incompatible with an "overall message of love/forgiveness" demonstrates a colossal failure to even want to understand your opponents' positions.

I'm with you on the Heaven/Hell thing, though.

u/whywhisperwhy:

Actually, I don't know if they're being inconsistent with the message of love/forgiveness in that respect- for example, if you believe that at the moment of conception, a soul was born and is precious (and then applied typical Western beliefs), then it's a greater fulfillment of those ideals to save the life. Essentially if you start from that premise, and see it the same as if you straight up murdered another adult, then doesn't matter if you have a different opinion, that can't be allowed and it's their duty to stand up to it. 

Not saying all people think like this, but I know that at least my friends understand the "pro-choice" viewpoint, they just think it's irrelevant. Combine this with adoption/contraception as options and it's not too much of a stretch to think that people who want abortions are horribly wrong/short-sighted.

u/None:

[deleted]

u/gabbalis:

* Magic the Gathering

* Chess

* Pacing like a caged animal

* Bouncing off the walls

* Pretending I'm a velocioraptor

* Dreaming

* Tearing apart small mammals with my razor sharp teeth.

* Video Games

* Running

* Practicing opening doors with only three fingers just in case.

u/TaoGaming:

Since you love Pacing like a caged animal, chess, bouncing off the walls and running, Netflix Recommends *The Prisoner* (the original, not the remake).

u/Marthinwurer:
```
What formats do you play?
```

u/Xjalnoir:

Tabletop roleplaying games are my big hobby, personally, and I know at least one of the other players in my Pathfinder group frequents this subreddit. 

Shameless plug of my (somewhat outdated) 'gaming resume' (because matching playstyles and expectations among a potential gaming group is the most efficient ROI of hedons-to-effort-invested that I've observed in any game, and potentially finding new, quality people to play with is always worth the trouble.): https://i.imgur.com/5a2rH5b.png

u/None:

[deleted]

u/Escapement:

Everyone dislikes kender. Kender are sort of OK in single-author fiction, but are almost universally disruptive assholes in actual play. Their fluff encourages them to not understand other people owning things and stealing from party members, among other things. A player wanting to play a kender is a reliable barometer of being a dick.

It's like fishmalks, but worse.

u/brandalizing:

Rea- Oh. Um. Wri- Wait. I'm sure I've got something else. Typing fiction! Listening to fiction! …I really like fiction.

The only video game I really play is Smash Bros., though it's hard to find people to play with in Israel. We have been building a bit of a scene recently though, and are starting to have weekly meet-ups.

I supremely enjoy reading about etymology/linguistics/neurolinguistics.

I spend a large portion of my time just thinking, usually. I'm sure once I've finished my army service I'll be "doing things" a lot more often, but the past couple years have only enforced my habit of sitting and thinking for hours on end. Motivation is incredibly hard to come by, and every scrap of it is put towards my writing. Productivity in other areas has basically flatlined.

Only nine more months to go…

u/ToaKraka:

Programming random dungeon/network generators: [1](http://i.imgur.com/NW8u8sW.png) [2](http://i.imgur.com/AWWcctK.png) [3](http://i.imgur.com/E5eREmH.png)

u/whywhisperwhy:

... Nice. What got you started on this / do you have any practical applications for it (i.e., I'm guessing gaming)?

u/ToaKraka:

No, it's just for fun, in [a language](https://processing.org/) that's essentially Baby's First Java. I started with random doodles on my TI-84 graphing calculator.

Posts in /r/proceduralgeneration: [1](http://np.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/2fnsve/10000intersection_street_map/) [2](http://np.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/2gm8vl/animated_generation_of_a_road_network/) [3](http://np.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/2phsvq/dungeons_generated_by_expanding_confined_circles/)

Relevant Wikipedia articles: [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_spanning_tree) [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_neighborhood_graph)

u/LiteralHeadCannon:

I play too many video games for a writer, to be quite honest.  Mostly HyperRogue, which is really great, a Roguelike unlike any other.  It only costs two bucks, too, and the developer updates it with new content often.  Hyperbolic geometry really is perfect for a Roguelike.

I acted in plays in high school, and even got a few lead roles; it'd be fun to continue that as a hobby in the future (I'm just entering college now).  It'd also be neat to get into tabletop roleplaying games; I've always kind of wanted to, but high school wasn't really conducive to it and I've been afraid it'd turn me into an even bigger nerd than I already am.  That's why I've avoided anime this long.

u/Transfuturist:

HR turned into a real game? For money?! I remember playing its first 7DRL release...

u/eniteris:

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?

u/alexanderwales:

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](http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing/other-universes). 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.

u/Kishoto:

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?

u/alexanderwales:

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).

u/TaoGaming:

> What is love?

Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more.

u/Sagebrysh:

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.

u/Magodo:

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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunil_Tripathi) 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.

u/alexanderwales:

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.

u/LiteralHeadCannon:

I firmly disagree with your stance on the issue, but I am also sympathetic for the Minnesotan hunter.  Maybe he's a dick, but he's not morally at fault for what happened, as far as I know.  Cecil's death was awful, for several reasons: he was private property of humans who wanted to keep him alive, he had sentimental value for them, the hunters should have known better, etc.  But the hunter being torn apart over this on social media is not responsible for it.  He was essentially a tourist with a gun.  He had gone on similar hunts many times before, legally and to no harm.  I am inclined to believe his statement that he had no way of knowing the crew he hired this time were shoddy and unethical.  They are the ones at fault here; they were the experts and they were competent enough to know how to do their jobs properly.

u/daydev:

I think, many "green"-inclined people view value of human life as negative, since every human breathing (and especially consuming) is a detriment to the Holy Nature. They would like us to somehow restore the planet as it was before agriculture (or possibly before organized megafauna hunting) and then cease to exist.

u/alexanderwales:

I think that's pretty close to being the ideal of a strawman. As a "green"-inclined person, I think that we should be creating a sustainable habitat for humanity (i.e. not one that's only temporary) and maintain what beautiful parts of nature we can for future generations. Killing off big game animals is stupid and short-sighted, *especially* given that you can make money off of them through ecotourism. Culling is one thing, killing a strong, healthy animal is another.

u/None:

>maintain what beautiful parts of nature we can for future generations. 

What do you think about the argument that [maintaining nature as it is causes *vast* amounts of suffering?](http://foundational-research.org/publications/importance-of-wild-animal-suffering/)

>The number of wild animals vastly exceeds that of animals on factory farms, in laboratories, or kept as pets. -- The massive amount of suffering occurring now in nature is indeed tragic, but it pales by comparison to the scale of good or harm that our descendants — with advanced technological capability — might effect. I fear, for instance, that future humans may undertake terraforming, directed panspermia, or sentient simulations without giving much thought to the consequences for wild animals. Our #1 priority should be to ensure that future human intelligence is used to prevent wild-animal suffering, rather than to multiply it.

u/alexanderwales:

I don't really care about animal suffering.

That is, I acknowledge that animals have some capacity for suffering, given that some of them are sentient (if not sapient). And all else being equal, I would want to reduce suffering.

But with that said, it's low on the optimization totem pole for me. I eat meat. I mostly eat free-range, cruelty-free meat, but I *do* eat meat, and my choice of which meat to eat is far more about feeling good about myself (or just improved meat quality) than it is about reduction of suffering.

So I don't care about the suffering of animals I have no connection to. Even among those animals that I *do* have some connection to, I don't care about the suffering of all of them, only the ones that I like. (There's a deer that comes and eats stuff out of our garden. There are birds that wake me up in the morning. There's a white cat that harasses our cat. There are mice that my cat brings in, sometimes still alive. None of these animals do I care for.)

So without that emotional connection towards all animals, all I'm left with are strictly logical arguments in favor of caring about them in some sense other than their utility towards humans (whether that's research, aesthetics, their role in the biome, meat, companionship, etc.). The problem is that none of the strictly logical non-utility arguments in favor of animals really compel me, in part because of the lack of wide-scale emotion.

I don't think this is an ethically satisfying answer, which is why I'm hesitant to give it. And it's a conversation I've had with my grandfather-in-law (an ethical vegan) a few too many times.

u/None:

Thank you.

Even though you said it's not an ethically satisfying answer, I think it sounds pretty satisfying to me. Everyone has a "cut-off point" in regards to caring about other subjects. I've lately been reading essays about [insect suffering](http://reducing-suffering.org/the-importance-of-insect-suffering/), [bacteria suffering, and plant suffering](http://reducing-suffering.org/bacteria-plants-and-graded-sentience/) and even though I understand that these lower-level creatures *might* suffer in some way (though I'm still a bit skeptical about that), I can't get myself to care about insects, and even less about bacteria or plants. Your cut-off point is somewhere between animals and humans, my cut-off point is somewhere between mammals and insects, and that's perfectly okay, I think.

u/leplen:

I'm not so sure. The [VHEMT](http://www.vhemt.org/) people seem to have almost exactly that viewpoint.

u/alexanderwales:

Taking a fringe position and pretending that it's the majority opinion of your opposition is a classic strawman. Technically, the term for this is "nutpicking", but it's still a form of straw man. I would have less of a problem if the quantity was "a few" instead of "many".

u/daydev:

Well, *you're* not participating in abusing that hunter, and in attacking research labs, and the like. But there are people who do that sort of thing, and I'm pretty sure that the attitude "humanity is a parasite" is real, and has a significant number of followers. 

I'm not saying "burn the planet" either, just pointing out that there are people on the "green" side, who view humanity as a bad thing on the general presumption.

u/alexanderwales:

I think characterizing a group of people by its extremists is insulting.

While I *do* think that the "humanity is a parasite" crowd exists, I also think that they're very, very small. I say that as someone who spent some years working at a local Food Co-op in a very liberal city. I've had exposure to all sorts of kooky activists who believe all sorts of kooky things, not one of which has wished for the destruction of humanity.

u/daydev:

OK, you're right, instead of "many 'green'-inclined people", I should've said "some 'green' fanatics". I didn't mean to insult anyone who *doesn't* hold views that human life has negative value (or value comparable to an animal life).

u/None:

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.

u/Empiricist_or_not:

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

u/PeridexisErrant:

The canonical summary is the IPCC Fifth Assessment report ([link](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/)), 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](https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf) 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.

u/True-Creek:

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.

u/ToaKraka:

[Any opinions on this exchange?](http://i.imgur.com/VCZSnwZ.png)

u/Meneth32:

"weird" -> "wtf" -> [spoiler](#s "every post is written by the same guy") -> "lol".

u/ToaKraka:

No, only the posts marked with "Arcanine *(You)*" are definitely written by the same person (me). "Arcanine" with no "*(You)*" appended is the *nom de plume* given by default to every anonymous poster on the board (which is named "r9k"). That's how anonymous imageboards like 2chan, 4chan, ∞chan, etc. work.

u/IomKg:

I couldn't quite figure out what was the purpose of the game described.. 

Anyhow the questions are not readable from the picture..

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