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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/electrace:

What concept needs it's own word?

My vote goes toward "souring the positive social mood by becoming aggressive at a perceived insult."

u/alexanderwales:

I really want a word that means "striving to change for the better". There's obviously "progressive", but that now has way too many political overtones to it. And there's the Japanese "kaizen", but it's my understanding that this is more of a business term relating to standardization than a personal philosophy.

u/Faust91x:

I take Kaizen as being daily self improvement. In a course I took on industrial practices it was resumed as "Today better than yesterday, tomorrow better than today" which seems to be the theme for progress and continuous improvement.

u/alexanderwales:

Well crap, maybe the word I want really is kaizen. That's a problem, because I want to use it in a fantasy setting, and while I'm using translation convention, a Japanese loan word is probably a step too far.

u/Faust91x:

Agreed, I usually try translating or looking for synonyms when I'm operating on a setting where they don't have interaction with foreign words.

Or you could make your own with the reasoning that they created that word due to not having one already set.

u/blazinghand:

Do you mean "striving to change oneself for the better" or "striving to change the world/society/community for the better", or both?

u/alexanderwales:
```
Ideally both.
```

u/Polycephal_Lee:

Do you know about [arete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arete_\(moral_virtue\))?

u/artifex0:

We seriously need a word for "a purpose which isn't meant to achieve any higher purpose"- like the survival imperative, or love for another person, but also things like an aesthetic preference, or an addiction.

I feel like peoples' motivations are one of the most common and important topics of discussion, but the absence of a word like that can make those discussions very difficult.  For example, if a purpose is just a means to an end, it's possible to use reason to convince a person to abandon it, but not if it isn't.  That's a distinction that's important in everyday life, but unnecessarily difficult to communicate.

The lack of a word like that also prevents people from arguing over and forming consensuses about what are and aren't means to ends, which I think has contributed to us as a civilization having a very poor understanding of what we're all driven by.

Also, a word that describes when two things are correlated because they're caused by a third thing could be useful.

u/alexanderwales:

The rationalist community seems to use "terminal" and "instrumental" for those purposes. See [here](http://lesswrong.com/lw/l4/terminal_values_and_instrumental_values/).

u/electrace:

>Also, a word that describes when two things are correlated because they're caused by a third thing could be useful.

You mean a [common response?](http://www.ask.com/math/common-response-statistics-c561b598fa768429)

u/blazinghand:

I don't know if that one has a concept word, but there are a variety of creative ways to insult someone who is getting aggressive at a perceived insult. "U mad bro?" is one of them, but there are several that work well in person (for certain values of "well"). This isn't usually a good idea though, since it won't improve the social move, and will in fact be a real insult, probably making the situation worse.

This doesn't stop people from doing it though. Accusations of people being "butthurt" when someone responds to an insult are common amongst teenagers and young adults. Same with "don't get your panties in a bunch," which is both insulting *and* dismissive (and sexist!). I've definitely seen people laugh off perceived insults because of things like these, but yeah, probably not what you're looking for.

u/None:

I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING. I SHOULD BE WRITING.

u/alexanderwales:

Hey, me too! Also, if you're reading this you should be writing.

u/PeridexisErrant:

Hey, I finished last week!  (now the oral examination / defence)

GET BACK TO WRITING

u/None:

OH HEY YOU'RE FINISHING?  What's your thesis?

YOU KNOW WHAT THIS CALLS FOR?

u/PeridexisErrant:

~20Kwords on Indigenous calendars in Australia.  Basically it turns out that

- Temperate European seasons don't work for tropical Australia (duh)
- The locals had more relevant seasons; defined by weather (and plants) rather than date, because Australia has crazy inter-annual variability
- I can detect which season it is based on the weather, from interview descriptions.  I think; no budget for a second round of fieldwork :(
- Apparently nobody else has done this before

And you know, lots of writing Python and LaTeX etc.

I think this calls for a few weeks off, playing with my new Vive (arrived on submission day, best evening ever), and hacking the Matasano crypto challenges.

u/Anderkent:
```
YOU SHOULD BE EATING BRAINS
```
u/LiteralHeadCannon:
```
Ditto.
```

u/ToaKraka:

\- Which is more palatable--a story with unimpeachable English that revolves around a Mary Sue, or a story with a perfectly-rational plot that contains nauseating "English"? Which is more common?  
\- Which looks cooler--a [geodesic sphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome) or the corresponding [Goldberg polyhedron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldberg_polyhedron)?  
\- Which is tastier--an apple or an orange?

---

\- [You have been visited by Sudden Evidence Man!](https://i.imgur.com/pVo6sQa.png) ([Source](http://np.reddit.com/r/coaxedintoasnafu/comments/4g27cz))  
\- Don't forget to subscribe to r/changelog in order to get information about important upcoming changes to this site. [For example...](http://np.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/4ldk0r)  
\- [An interesting free program for the analysis of model airplanes](http://www.xflr5.com/xflr5.htm)

---

I was extremely surprised to find [this excellent story](http://fav.me/d9kqhqu) for [the Bionicle canon](http://biosector01.com/wiki/index.php/BIONICLE) while scrolling through the depths of [DeviantArt's "Literature" section (in "Undiscovered" mode)](http://www.deviantart.com/browse/undiscovered/literature), and added [its FanFiction.net version](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11762053) to my favorite and follow lists after reading several chapters. It reminds me of *[In the Blood](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6207715)* (my second-favorite *Naruto* story, after *[Time Braid](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644)*) in how it largely shuns the source material's focus on action in favor of drama while still managing to remain interesting.

---

It's always important that a person not get *too* caught-up in being a fan, while forgetting the reasons for which he's a fan in the first place. How valid is my self-identification as "*Time Braid* fanboy" when I haven't read the book in months? How valid is my ranking of five favorite anime series (in descending order: *[Death Note](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/DeathNote)*, *[Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/RockLeesSpringtimeOfYouth)*, *[Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/FullmetalAlchemist)*, *[Mobile Fighter G Gundam](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/MobileFighterGGundam)*, and *[Angel Beats!](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/AngelBeats)*) when I haven't watched any of them in over a year (and several of them in *multiple* years)?

An artwork's position as "favorite" must always be capable of challenge. *Time Braid*'s status as my favorite book has been challenged several times--*[Background Pony](http://www.fimfiction.net/story/19198)*, *[People Lie](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3745099)*, and *[In the Blood](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6207715)* come to mind. The ranking of my five favorite anime series is likewise by no means set in stone.

u/alexanderwales:

I guess if I have to choose, I would take good English and a Mary Sue over competent plotting and bad English, though it sort of depends on what we're talking about. Generally speaking, bad English will stop me every paragraph or two before I can move on to the next thing, while a flawed story will only stop me when something particularly egregious happens (or will make me dislike it when I'm done).

I guess in movie equivalents, it's like choosing between a well-oiled Hollywood wish fulfillment extravaganza, or a thoughtful low budget movie with bad audio mixing and cheap-looking special effects. The former is watchable but disappointing, while the latter probably makes me so uncomfortable that I won't finish it.

----

I don't really self-identify with fandoms, and don't really understand the people that do. There are books, movies, franchises, etc. that I have a lot of knowledge of, that I often recommend to people, and that I participate in discussion on ... but I've never had something that was important to my identity.

u/Cariyaga:

Hmm... I've never considered the fandoms I'm active in part of my identity, but I would still consider myself a part of them in the same way that I consider myself a member of this community, or of streams whose chats I frequent, etc. That's not the case for everyone, I know, but it might help you make sense of it for some people.

u/gabbalis:

> Which is tastier--an apple or an orange?

Hey. You know full well that we can't compare those.

u/Chronophilia:

>a story with a perfectly-rational plot that contains nauseating "English"

This can indicate that the story wasn't written in English to start with, or that the author's first language isn't English. Such a story is usually salvageable by a decent translator and/or editor.

>You have been visited by Sudden Evidence Man!

good bones and calcium will come to you  
but only if you update your priors

u/scruiser:

Depends how broadly you define "Mary Sue".  Some people would classify HJPEV as a Mary Sue.  For an even more clear cut example, Shinji and the Warhammer40k.  I liked both of these stories, so basic English/grammar skills really help a lot.

> Which is more common?

I see a lot of fanfic that have an almost interesting premise but then fail in extremely basic ways, treating really bad fanon as canon, major OOC, awkward dialog being left unfinished etc.  A story with a Mary Sue but all the basic writing mechanics done correctly can be pretty enjoyable.

u/elevul:

Probably the poorly written rational story. I have read tons of fanfic in the last 2-3 years, and while grammatical mistakes bother me, they don't bother me as much as plotholes. 

Which, at the end of the day, is the whole reason I'm on this subreddit. 

To be fair, though, I do love Competence Porn/fix fics , and those very often have Mary Sue characters, so...

u/trekie140:

[Remember when EY presented a hypothetical scientist who believed in non-physical spirits, but was otherwise a competent scientist?](http://lesswrong.com/lw/gv/outside_the_laboratory/) I'm that guy...pretty much exactly. I am an undergraduate physics student who believes I know how to communicate with spirits that do not physically interact with the world and I have never come across any evidence to suggest I possess a mental disorder.

I'd rather not cease to believe in spirits due to a lack of objective evidence because that would mean losing the benefits I receive from communicating with them, but I'd also rather not be a bad rationalist because rationality is incredibly useful. My beliefs stem from New Age spiritualism, though in recent years I have abandoned the pseudoscience associated with that belief system after I learned the truth.

u/Rhamni:

Well, let's start with the basics. You believe you communicate with something. How does that work? I have an ex-fiancée who believes she can see ghosts, so if nothing else, please believe me when I say that I don't think ill of people just because their beliefs about reality differ from my own.

u/trekie140:

Basically, I think I'm astral projecting to the afterlife. It's a nice place filled with friendly people who are happy to talk to me and help me live a healthy live, despite my attempts at self sabotage. They don't like giving me objective information since they say it's better for me to figure it out for myself. Sorry for responding to these comments out of order.

u/Roxolan:

> They don't like giving me objective information since they say it's better for me to figure it out for myself.

[Ah, the big green bat problem.](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the-cactus-person/)

u/trekie140:

Yeah, when I first began talking to them that's basically the answer they gave when I asked that kind of question. They say it is vitally important that I choose to "get out of the car" without being influenced as to what that entails, otherwise my experience will be colored by their statements and therefore limited. 

Oddly enough, I think I've already done it. It's when I got back in the car and listened to some very intelligent people explain why it was impossible to know that anything exists outside the car because every scientific test of outside phenomena has failed to detect anything outside that I began to doubt whether I'd ever left the car at all.

Then suddenly, I couldn't get back out of the car. I couldn't feel the connection to the world beyond the windshield I had loved, or hear the ones I'd met outside anymore. I eventually convinced myself that my disbelief was doing more harm than good and was able to leave the car again, but my skepticism keeps trapping me in.

I started this conversation because I have been unable to reconcile my scientist side and spiritualist side. Each time I think they've arrived at an agreement they end up back in conflict because I cannot purge myself of doubt even though I believe both to be true. It may simply be overzealous self-criticism, but it won't stop.

u/MugaSofer:

Have you raised the point from that story, that objective verification they're real would be very valuable even if it doesn't impact your progress along the road to enlightenment?

u/electrace:

>I'd rather not cease to believe in spirits due to a lack of objective evidence because that would mean losing the benefits I receive from communicating with them

What benefits would you lose?

u/trekie140:

When I'm stressed and can focus enough to meditate, they tend to be very helpful for working through my anxiety. They're friendly like that. In general, I guess they make me feel...one with the universe. I'd be more specific but I'm more pressed for time today than I expected.

u/electrace:

And if those things, rather than being spirits, were patterns in your brain, why would you no longer be able to communicate with them?

If it isn't testable (say, if the spirits have no information that you don't have), there seems to be little effective difference between those two possibilities, and no real reason for you to prefer one or the other.

u/trekie140:

I don't know exactly why, but I can't talk to them when I don't believe they are separate from myself. I have no way of gauging whether it's more effective than talking to myself, but I have an expectation of greater effectiveness based on my experience. It also tends to be a more pleasant experience than talking to myself.

u/OutOfNiceUsernames:

*1. This is intended more as a discussion input than a possible advice. 2. I’ll try using an analogy from the same LW article you’ve linked to, but no other ideas from LW will be implied or referred to.*

>It isn't possible to produce an accurate map of a city while sitting in your living room with your eyes closed, thinking pleasant thoughts about what you wish the city was like.

Let’s say you have a certain piece of map that is able to give certain benefits to you — namely, it is able to serve as a rather effective  coping mechanism and stress reliever. To keep this map in your possession, however, you have to restrict yourself from going into that area of real territory and comparing there how closely your special map-piece represents that landscape. 

Will the rational choice to make be checking the real territory no matter what, just for the sake of scepticism? Or scepticism itself serves a purpose for you, and the choice should be made after comparing pros and cons of all possible stances?

Right now, as I understand it, your potentially-inaccurate map has the following markings on it: 1. “there exists at least some afterlife”, 2. “there exist at least some intelligent and friendly sophonts in the afterlife”, 3. “at least in some cases communication between our world and afterlife is possible”.

So the comparison between not-checking and checking the map’s accuracy breaks down into at least the following PROs and CONs:

Not checking

* + powerful coping mechanism \ stress reliever
* - information about reality that has a high chance of being inaccurate
 * - risk of being manipulated by others through the beliefs you hold
 * - making important life choices based on high-importance (top-consideration) assumptions that are potentially inaccurate
 * - risk of gradually acquiring a blind-sided worldview which will hinder deep-level understanding of how reality works

Checking

* - coping mechanism likely diminishing in effectiveness or being lost altogether
* + ability to determine just how accurate the piece of map was
 * + *[opposite of the above-listed]*

Furthermore, the (+) coping mechanism could likely either be replaced with others (using CBT, as an example), or just preserved through some mental work.

>but I can't talk to them when I don't believe they are separate from myself

I don’t know how relevant it will be in your case, but I’ve discovered on myself, at least, that it is possible to enter a “make-belief belief” mode *while* having the hard-atheism as the top-tier world-view. In my case it’s not about afterlife, though, so I don’t know how relevant this could be for you.

u/trekie140:

Your reasoning is impeccable, but I've already tried that. When I realized that certain parts of my map were inaccurate (pseudoscience that supported my spiritual beliefs), I  reexamined the territory more closely only to find the implication that experiences important to my way of living had never occurred. The most logical course of action was to become an materialist atheist, but I have found that path impossible to follow and attempting to do so caused me nothing but depression.

In The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, the author theorizes and presents some compelling, though not conclusive, evidence that religious belief may have a genetic component. Given my utter failure at being happy while believing in materialist atheism I am inclined to believe as well that atheists lack the genetics for "religious experience". As a result, they gain no psychological benefit from religious practice and have difficulty comprehending why anyone would.

When I ceased to believe my map was accurate, I felt a void within myself that I had never felt before. The only way I could fill the void was by convincing myself that the really important parts of my map were still accurate, it was just the unimportant parts surrounding them that I'd been wrong about. The doubt returns from time to time however, and with it comes dread at the possibility that my memories related to spiritual experiences are false. I must find a new way.

u/OutOfNiceUsernames:

I almost touched the subject of possible genetic predisposition of humans towards religion in my original comment, actually. Eventually decided against it to not unnecessarily derail the discussion if that wasn’t what you were (partially) asking about.

>but I have found that path impossible to follow and attempting to do so caused me nothing but depression

Does this mean that it’s not only (merely) a powerful coping mechanism for you but also what feels either like a necessary barrier against existential crisis or like an instinct to fulfil (e.g. akin to building a family, having children, etc)?

>The doubt returns from time to time however, and with it comes dread at the possibility that my memories related to spiritual experiences are false. 

Well, if what you’re looking for is faith \ religion for their own sake, then shouldn’t it automatically become unnecessary trying to prove their validity? In other words, if in both cases — of your beliefs a) being true and b) not being true — you’d’ve to make yourself believe that they were true lest you became depressed, then shouldn’t finding out how true they really are be pointless? Your end-goal is preserving your beliefs in either case, so you can just decide for yourself to keep believing, with no proofs necessary \ required. 

>I must find a new way.

You could also try experimenting with this “religious instinct”, trying to find which patterns of thought activate \ satisfy it, etc. This could potentially help you devise your own toolset for achieving that “religious experience”. Simple, yet working religious system that is intentionally maximally isolated from aspects of the material world could maybe help keeping the positive effects of both bullet-lists.

p.s. If your standing assumption is that:

>atheists lack the genetics for "religious experience". As a result, they gain no psychological benefit from religious practice and have difficulty comprehending why anyone would.

then perhaps you could ask for additional advice from places like /r/exchristian *(just as an example — I don’t know how good that particular sub-comunity actually is)*. If there are people who were non-forced believers before who managed to become atheists without sacrificing their happiness, then your worsened psychological state should’ve had other explanations than you being intrinsically religious.

u/Chronophilia:

Could you describe your experiences with these spirits?

u/buckykat:

> the benefits I receive from communicating with [spirits]

If you receive benefits, the spirits can't be nonphysical. Because you are made of matter.

u/trekie140:

The benefits are psychological. If I had any evidence for the spirits' existence I would've posted in the Monday thread.

u/buckykat:

If the psychological benefits are real, they're measurable. Are you saner when you talk to the spirits? Does the population of people who say they talk to spirits have a statistically significant benefit in psychological health?

Do you have enough bits of evidence to outweigh the null hypothesis that it's all just your regular meatbrain tricking itself as per usual?

Gah, nevermind. You opened with the article on this. But it also sounds like [Belief in belief](http://lesswrong.com/lw/i4/belief_in_belief/) is coming into play.

>My beliefs stem from New Age spiritualism, though in recent years I have abandoned the pseudoscience associated with that belief system after I learned the truth.

Have you? Really? I like the [Litany of Tarski](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Tarski). It's phrased amusingly liturgically:

If spirits exist, I desire to believe that spirits exist.

If Spirits do not exist, I desire to believe that spirits do not exist.

Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.

u/elevul:

>If the psychological benefits are real, they're measurable. Are you saner when you talk to the spirits? Does the population of people who say they talk to spirits have a statistically significant benefit in psychological health?

You know, that's a very interesting question. I wonder if there are statistics on it.

u/gabbalis:

Are you a dualist of some sort then? I mean It seems that your 'self' would have to be non-physical for it to be possible for the spirits to interact with you via communication and still not be doing anything physical by doing so.

u/trekie140:

I am a dualist, though from what I've heard such a theory is irrational. I acknowledge that its possible that I'm just talking to projections of my own mind, but it becomes impossible to talk to them if I stop believing they're separate entities from me.

u/Polycephal_Lee:

Sounds like a [Tulpa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa) maybe?

Some people develop them purposefully, /r/Tulpas

u/trekie140:
```
No, this is distinctly different.
```

u/Faust91x:

> I'm that guy...pretty much exactly. I am an undergraduate physics student who believes I know how to communicate with spirits that do not physically interact with the world and I have never come across any evidence to suggest I possess a mental disorder.

What does the process entail and is it possible to reproduce it? I come from a family of practicing black magicians on my father's side but so far I haven't found any evidence that any of their methods work.

I already tried to reproduce the experiments on the Quabbalah when I was younger and got no result from it so my stance on magic and spiritual realms is that it doesn't work but I'd love to be proved wrong.

u/trekie140:

It's basically just meditation. I read about the practice of astral projection and managed to do it myself. I've also practiced a very abstract magic system in the past, but when I discovered I was justifying my belief in it with pseudoscience I stopped and now when I try again it doesn't always work. I can't be sure if any of my magic had physical effects, but it certainly helped me psychologically and I miss that.

I'm in the opposite position as you. My Mom is reiki practitioner, though she doesn't charge for it and never recommends it over medicine, but I've had trouble doing it myself lately or even feeling when she does it on me. I especially miss that, it always helped me calm down and think, which is especially useful when I'm stressed. Whatever this is I've come to the conclusion faith is what makes it work, which runs rather contrary to science doesn't it?

u/Faust91x:

> faith is what makes it work, which runs rather contrary to science doesn't it?

Yeah particularly because it may lead to falling for the placebo effect or similar mistakes. Maybe there's a way to set an experiment so it can be measured, like having a rational researcher measure the effects on the brain of the practicioner while he projects or meditates.

I think it'd be a cool experiment.

u/buckykat:

If faith is what makes it work, then the reika may as well be a magic feather for all the involvement it has in the effect.

u/Rhamni:

I have been reading the Berserk manga this week, and am about halfway through it. It's not rationalist, and the MC's main advantages appear to be the power to fight on with pulverized organs and the ability to wield a 600 pound 'sword' that is bigger than he is. Even so, it's one of my favourite pieces of fiction ever, and I recommend it to anyone who has ever enjoyed dark fiction. The world is grim dark, humanity's place in the food chain sucks, and despite that there is a lot of room left for humans being human. At least for the 80 chapter long 'flashback' or whatever that is. It's looking like there will be a lot fewer main characters and a lot more monsters from now on though.

But. I have learned something very important for my own writing from it. And it's not something awesome to be replicated. It's something a very skilled author did that turned out to be a major mistake which I will work to avoid in my own writing. There is a 'controversial' 'lost' chapter that the author retconned and banned from being reprinted. The scans I'm reading included it, so I didn't realize it was retconned until later. The reason the author doesn't want people to read it is because it sort of pulls the curtain away and reveals the wizard. Or more precisely, [All the biggest spoilers of Berserk all in one place](#s " it reveals the nature of God and Evil, destiny, the origin of the mysterious race of demons, and how things conspired to make the main villain the main villain"). I'm still enjoying this story very, very much, but I've been pondering for years how much of the hidden 'true' plot to reveal in my own world, and after reading Berserk, I think it's convinced me to leave a lot of things unsaid and uncertain until as late as possible. It's one thing to *think* [HPMOR example because everyone here has already read it](#s " Voldemort is Quirrel is behind everything"), it's another thing entirely to have it spelled out explicitly less than halfway through the story.

u/alexanderwales:

I think in general it's better to be flirtatious than forthright when writing fiction. Raise your skirt and show some leg, but don't flash anyone. But if you *are* going to state important things outright, then you need to change the focus of the story. Like, you could totally do HPMOR with the reveal in the early chapters, you'd just be shifting some from "what will happen" to "how will it happen" and using dramatic irony more than mystery.

u/Chronophilia:

On the other hand, if you're not stating something explicitly, you need to imply it really really hard. A mystery is always more obvious to the author than to the readers.

When you're dropping hints, do so liberally. For every ten clues you leave the readers will find one, misinterpret a second, dismiss a third as a red herring, and then find twelve more things that weren't meant to be clues at all and go on to weave an intricate and completely wrong web of conspiracy when the real answer was all-but-explicitly stated a hundred times.

u/Rhamni:

This is what I'm hoping to accomplish. I've seen people on here and on /r/HPMOR make waaay too accurate predictions on shaky evidence to feel confident about it though.

u/Chronophilia:

I stand by "make it as obvious as you can get away with". Even setting aside hindsight bias, most "accurate predictions" are just one candidate theory among many. And your Shocking Twist is probably complex enough that people can be partially correct about it - they may suspect that so-and-so and such-and-such are the same person, while being wrong about that person's real allegiance.

And even if somebody does guess the twist in advance... so what? They'll feel clever. They'll probably enjoy the story more, if it flatters their intelligence briefly and doesn't take five pages to explain the patently obvious (YES *DA VINCI CODE* I AM LOOKING AT YOU). It's not a competition; if the reader wants to "win" the "game", let them.

u/Roxolan:

The HPMOR experience showed that there is a vast gulf between the intelligence of an individual reader and that of a community with a voting system. (Even the facebook group, with less memory and no voting, trailed far behind.) 

You can make your mystery a fair challenge for one of these, but not for both.

u/Chronophilia:

Excellent choice of example. HPMoR once had a section from the villain's point-of-view which revealed that spoiler hundreds of thousands of words before it should have been. The author quickly retconned it when he realised his mistake.

u/whywhisperwhy:

To be fair, I think by that point everyone already had assumed that particular spoiler.

u/Roxolan:

Everyone actively involved in the HPMOR community, *maybe*.

I hadn't. I admit I'm not very good at this type of challenge, but I doubt I'm alone.

u/Rhamni:

I was on /r/HPMOR before the last arc, and I was still assigning it a ~50% chance until the Quidditch game.

u/whywhisperwhy:

That's fair. Also, what I really meant by "assumed" was "highly suspicious," I definitely didn't know until the big reveal either and I would agree that having it laid out like that would have ruined some of the excitement.

u/None:

For fans of time loop stories, like *Time Braid* and *Mother of Learning*, may I suggest a currently airing anime, Re:Zero?
The premise is that the MC is suddenly transported to an alternate fantasy world, and then through the natural consequence of being a baseline human in such a world, dies shortly after. He than loops back the beginning, and, well, shit happens. 

The biggest thing I like about this story is how seriously it takes the mental trauma associated with looping. Zorian from MoL doesn't really have that many bad deaths, the only really bad one I can remember is right after the Aranea massacre, where he took a restart off to get his head back in the game.  On the other hand, one of the first deaths the MC from Re;Zero experiences  is a slow, painful death from disembowelment that lasted hours. The anime does a great job showing the mental trauma that will accumulate from these types of painful deaths.

As to whether the show is rational or not, is up for debate. The MC isn't a genius, which can be said for most anime MCs, but he's in way over his head and under a great deal of mental strain so I think he can be forgiven. He does display a fair amount of insight and level-headiness when the situation demands for it. There hasn't been that much worldbuilding to declare if the world is coherent or not. 

The animation, music, voice acting, everything is top notch. There's going to be 25 episodes so far, but I won't be surprised if the studio decides to adapt the rest of the story, given how popular it's been lately.

u/alexanderwales:

I agree that the animation, music, etc. is really well done. The first two episodes really hooked me as well. But after that ... I don't know. I find the main character to be a little bit too inhuman in terms of his responses, even if you assume that he's suffering from some kind of psychological break, and there are times when the whole thing just falls into this pit of generic anime-ness without any redeeming self-awareness or meta commentary. I think those first two episodes led me to expect that it was going to be some kind of a deconstruction like *Madoka* was for magical girls, but it's really not that, it only has a few trappings of being a deconstruction. Overall, I'm fairly disappointed with it.

u/None:

How far have you gotten? Because the reason I am suggesting this is because I caught up a few days ago, and Ep 7+8 both have what you were asking. That is, with as little of a spoiler as possible, the mental strain starts catching upto him then and we start seeing him breakdown. 

I actually wouldn't have recommended this if I hadn't see those two episodes.

u/alexanderwales:

I think episode 7 was the last one I watched, which I agree was a change for the better. I'm going to keep with it, I just want ... more of that, less of a typical slice-of-life anime.

u/None:

Someone mentioned in the discussion threads that the whole reason for the slice-of-life stuff was to get the viewers more attached to the characters, thus making subsequent episodes have a greater impact. Apparently the author, when he started writing this, set out to break a lot of anime tropes, so I think we'll be fine after this. If it makes you feel any better, I'm fairly certain the loop he's currently on (the one that started on Ep 8) will be the last one for this checkpoint.

The next arc is supposed to be a lot better than previous ones and will also explain some stuff from the first arc, as well as being incredibly sadistic to Subaru (enough that sales actually decreased in Japan for the LN).

u/Roxolan:

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm enjoying it a lot so far. 

In no small part because of how seriously it treats violence and death - even though it's a time-loop story set in (what usually appears to be) a happy fun-time anime fantasy world. The dissonance works really, really well. 

I agree with /u/alexanderwales that the anime fun-time gets pretty old, but I'm willing to power past that.

u/Faust91x:

Neat, I've read that this and Kanbaru of the Iron Fortress are the top runners of this season.

About Re:Zero, I interpreted it as a mix between KonoSuba and Erased with the timeloop and fantasy world. Definitely will try it.

I started Joker Game which seemed to have a rather interesting premise and handle things seriously but left it for a bit and a friend said it went off the rails.

u/None:

Anyone here play Overwatch?

u/blazinghand:

I have spent a couple hours playing it. It seems like a fun and exciting multiplayer first person shooter game.  

That being said, It's hard to take seriously in the way I take Counter-Strike. Despite being well-designed, it's not a game that excites grand emotions in me. I don't find myself hiding behind a crate, listening desperately for footsteps as I guard an area. I don't find myself playing mind games as I change positions and try to outshoot my opponents. I don't have that feeling of triumph when me and one other guy coordinate the perfect 2v3 over voice chat and snap victory from the jaws of defeat.

Counter-strike is a plotting, desperate, paranoid game that sends the heart racing and the blood pumping. Overwatch is fun, competitive, and exciting, but it's not *thrilling*. I'll play it from time to time, but it will never have a place in my heart.

u/elevul:

So apparently it is possible to be so deep into fitness that you stop caring about the taste of food...

After [Dom's video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn-KDTxTWqI) I started paying more attention to my eating habits and to my thinking process when I decide on foods. And I have realized that I had pushed it to such an extreme limit that taste completely stopped being a value I evaluate when deciding which food to eat...

It's impressive how fast the shift happened as well. Less than 6 years ago I was obese, had no knowledge of nutrition and loved good-tasting foods. Now, 6 years later, if a meal doesn't have protein I don't even pay attention to it.

Not sure if to be happy or worried about this change.

u/Epizestro:

I've recently been reading Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. It's about someone in poverty playing a video game to make money to send his sister to uni. It's about one of those virtual reality games, in the same vein as SAO, but without the 'you die here, you die for real' aspect. The main character, username Weed, spends a year training in swordplay, martial arts, and the like before entering into the game itself, so he's playing with a much better understanding of combat than most other players. Combine that with a complete willingness to grind all day every day and you get an overpowered character. The real bullshit comes in with his class. Not only does he obtain a secret class from an ancient emperor, but he also gets a bullshit sword style from the emperor's legacy. This class is sort of like a DnD mage, in that it starts off weak, lacking in the bonus to chosen weapon damage that other melee and archery classes would have and being unable to cast spells, but ends up growing to insane levels via it's ability to master all general skills such as cooking, smithing, tailoring, repairing and, in particular, sculpting. Sculpting is the main aspect, as his strongest skills depend on it for bonus damage, but reaching each milestone in any of the other general skills gives stat points that could only be obtained by levelling up or grinding for points a la The Gamer.

Anyway, I'm rambling here but the point is that it's a good read. It's not what I'd call rational, but it's well translated and a fun time. I'm under a third of the way into the amount of material that's currently been translated, though, so I'm expecting some major power ups to occur.

u/Faust91x:

This week I binge watched/read a really fucked up anime/manga called [Sankarea](http://myanimelist.net/manga/18597/Sankarea). It starts as an ecchi romcom that later develops into a really interesting romance-drama and that I'm thinking could be easily tweaked into a rational story with Transhuman elements.

Its about a zombie obsessed guy that finds a formula to create undead in his basement and in a fit of hubris decides to try it to bring his dead cat back to life. In his quest for undead creation he befriends Rea, a girl with a really fucked up family that in typical anime fashion doesn't find his "hobbies" weird and decides to help him with his little experiment.

After certain complications that include Rea stealing some of the apparently failed formula and her attempt at commiting suicide with it, they discover the last experiment was successful and ends up bringing the cat back to un-life and turning Rea into a zombie.

The story follows the protagonist's attempts to keep Rea and the cat from decomposing and finding a way to completely bring them back to life.

The zombies are really interesting as they retain their memories, personality and rationality unlike more traditional "rage zombies" but with time start losing sectors of their brain that make them confuse love and lust with huger. They are perfectly capable of planning and premeditated action in the first stages of the zombie state, just changing their goals towards eating those closest to them without even realizing it which makes them more dangerous than typical zombies.

I think it could make a great rational story about a protagonist attempting to perfect the cure for death. Ironically the grandfather with senile dementia that only acts as exposition and comic relief in the anime is closer to our rational protagonists and has a bigger role in the manga as he [Sankarea](#s "reveals  himself as the author of the reanimation formula and talks about his quest to end death after an epidemic destroyed his village and how the quest cost him his sanity due to over exposure to the chemicals required for the reanimation process").

I found it oddly inspiring and would like to expand on that premise once my schedule's more free.

The anime has nice music and animations, particularly the camera angles are really good in a SHAFT like fashion but the manga is way better with a bigger focus on the reanimation process, the state of zombies and going way waaay darker in later issues as Rea's condition worsens while the anime only covers the first arc and takes a more Slice of Life/Romance focus.

u/Roxolan:

[Link to the manga on an endless page](http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Sankarea/Sankarea-1?id=3097)

u/Rhamni:

Will have to give this a shot as soon as I'm done with Berserk. Thanks man!

u/Faust91x:

No probs! Would love to know your opinions on it if you read it as I thought it was a weird but really interesting series that I wish was more famous.

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