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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:
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u/traverseda:
The rationalist community has been pretty spread out lately, as far as I can tell. The death of lesswrong, most of the core being physically close enough that a lot of stuff happens IRL. The simple fact that the better known people have enough money to fly across the country for meetups and the like... How can we consolidate rationalists into a more useful block? We have a pretty clear agenda, "raise the sanity waterline", use evidence to decide what policies to implement, interact with other sane people more often, etc. But, most of the really competent rationalists end up doing their own stuff, and not spending a lot of time community-building. With a few notable exceptions, right now /u/daystareld as an example. What kind of institutions could we create to help budding rationalists? Are there any tools that you'd like it if they existed? Can we consolidate the communities strength into a sharp cutting point to accomplish some important goals?-
u/DaystarEld:
Growing a community like this one is hard, consolidating it is only slightly less hard. I wish I had the money or influence to do things like organize and attend meetups, maybe even set up an East Coast CFARS, but I don't see it happening in the foreseeable future. As for important goals that require coordination, rather than individual things like being an Effective Altruist, there is one thing I've been thinking about: raising the sanity waterline by introducing more people to rationalist ideas and principles and content. I've been working not just to produce content across different mediums (stories, podcasts, and now a board game) but also grow the community by recommending other rational fiction and podcasts to people I know in a variety of settings. But in that I'm only an individual of practically no influence, relatively speaking. There are a number of things people can do to that end, like maintaining TvTropes pages for rationalist stories, which helps add more potential inroads for people to find their way into the rationalist community through its media. But on an even bigger level, I've often thought of how useful it would be to encourage famous people who might be rationally inclined but not "uniform wearing" rationalists (thinking of people like CGP Grey or Derek from Veritasium) to make videos on some of the Sequences, or just generally become aware enough of the rational community and principles to mention them on occasion in podcasts or videos that they're relevant to. Other fanbases that would mutually benefit from exposure might be linked to specific works. For example, if Pokemon youtubers with wide fanbases or well known artists like /u/arvalis are also interested in reading realistic pokemon stories, there can be a cross-promotion between my [Origin of Species](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/1/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species) and his [Deviant Art](http://arvalis.deviantart.com/gallery/39915677/Realistic-Pokemon) following. I don't know how much of the above is possible by "coordination," but I think the chances of it happening improves dramatically the more people are aware of it as a goal and occasionally work on it. If there's someone in the rationalist community whose uncle's best friend is one of DC Comics producers, for example, they should totally try and make them aware of Metropolitan Man, just on the chance that they really enjoy it and contact /u/alexanderwales about adapting his story into its own issues. Things like that would be huge for making the rationalist community more mainstream, slowly and subtly but surely. And the wider the community becomes, the more in-person meetups can occur, and the more influential in the public sphere, the higher our ability to raise the sanity waterline and coordinate on the *truly* important things, like raising awareness of existential risks and dangerous societal issues. Just a thought.-
u/TennisMaster2:
> [...] raising the sanity waterline by introducing more people to rationalist ideas and principles and content. I think one of the best ways to do that on the micro-scale is to become so well versed in the most important take-aways that you can briefly teach someone a searchable term and its meaning in casual conversation. Not sure how effective it is. Small potential for life-changing impact over a diffuse population.- u/DaystarEld:
I do this with all my friends, with decent results. I don't know how viral it is, I know my girlfriend has taken the ideas and passed them along to others at her work and so on, but I don't think most of my friends have. It's still a good practice though, for multiple reasons.
- u/DaystarEld:
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u/traverseda:
Pokemon has a huge fan-base, but it's hard to get people interested. Including it as a recommendation next time he posts a realistic pokemon drawing to the pokemon sub is probably a good start. But I'd be hard pressed to post OoS to a pokemon related subreddit and say "here, read this". Or rather, it wouldn't get a lot of votes. How could we make it "catch" better? My first thought is a mini-comic. Maybe professor oak explaining what's going on? If you storyboarded a few pages, I know at least one guy I could pitch it to to try and get it arted in. There are probably better options then that even.-
u/DaystarEld:
Personally I try to recommend OoS in pokemon subreddits and forums if it's relevant, like if someone talks about how the science of the world is ridiculous or how they want more mature storylines, or even when they theorize about how something in the pokemon world works that I've already included in the story. >How could we make it "catch" better? My first thought is a mini-comic. Maybe professor oak explaining what's going on? >If you storyboarded a few pages, I know at least one guy I could pitch it to to try and get it arted in. There are probably better options then that even. A lot of the interludes work as good "entry points" to get people interested in the story without spoiling anything: specifically the Mewtwo interlude, or the one with Janine in Fuschia. And I'd totally be willing to storyboard some scenes. I'll see if I can get it done in the next couple weeks.-
u/traverseda:
I feel like ripping off wildbow and doing an endbringer fight as an interlude could work well, as a pure-text story hook. I'm sure you'll get to it eventually though. Still, could work well as a vignette. Still, you probably know how to appeal to that audience better then I do. But as it stands, I think I'd have a hard time doing any PR on that front.- u/DaystarEld:
Yeah, those are coming, but way later.
- u/DaystarEld:
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u/None:
[deleted]-
u/traverseda:
Nothing, it's exactly where we left it. It's just... very slow. -
u/Anderkent:
Pretty much everyone worth reading is no longer active there. -
u/None:
It got really, really boring. Very little is ever actually published there.
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u/gbear605:
A few simple things like a blog aggregator would be helpful. I've managed to get an rss reader to show all the different rationality blogs that I know of, but I'm missing some. And a lot of people haven't even gotten to the level that I'm at. Really, the current issue is that there is no central force behind the community directing activity, so even if everyone agrees that something needs to be done, it isn't actually being done, because most things require coordination and precommitment from multiple people or they won't be able to happen.
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u/GaBeRockKing:
"Gamer" stories are terrible and I hope they die out. From a rational perspective, they're built around "new powers as the plot demands" and therefore immune to the fair play whodunit, with regards to plot points. From a storytelling perspective, they spend so much time on pointless grinding and stats I get bored. It just goes to show that one, well used power is far superior to any number of new powers. Though I will make an exception for [Shinobi, the RPG](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/shinobi-the-rpg-naruto-si.380860/page-364#post-28220288) because the author was smart enough to make the primary conflict interpersonal.-
u/alexanderwales:
I wonder if there are ways to get around that. If you had a system with rigorously defined rules, you would move into more rational territory by default ... but it seems like "new powers" is a lot of the appeal, and if you're going down a skill tree the reader knows, it's a lot less thrilling.- u/ToaKraka:
> If you had a system with rigorously defined rules, you would move into more rational territory by default... How rigorously-defined can an open-ended RPG system *be,* though? Even [a *Naruto*-flavored version](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42443024/ToaKraka's%20old%20attempt%20at%20GURPS%20Naruto%20-%20General%20Notes.pdf) of [GURPS](http://www.sjgames.com/gurps), once "completed", would require extensive GM adjudication if played in real life.
- u/ToaKraka:
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u/ToaKraka:
> From a rational perspective, they're built around "new powers as the plot demands" and therefore immune to the fair play whodunit, with regards to plot points. So, is the solution to write a "the world is a video game" story *only* after you've created a framework game into whose progression paths *everything* portrayed in canon can be slotted rationally? (For example: The widely-varying attributes, equipment, and spells of *Dark Souls 2* would make a fairly-rational framework for a fantasy combat adventure, if all the enemies were hostile NPCs [rather than most enemies' being fantasy monsters]. Both the player and every DS2 NPC are playing by almost *exactly* the same rules. Even though the NPC was created whole-cloth by the developers, it's still operating with in-game statistics that the player *could achieve,* given enough time and skill.) -
u/PL_TOC:
I read the whole thing based on your recommendation. I like that the mc makes no attempt to preserve the canon timeline and that the story goes other places than the typical chunin exam and invasion storyline. I'm not really enjoying the social ineptitude thing. It's brought up in basically every scene. His excuses are pretty unsatisfactory to me.
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u/Rhamni:
Slowly, ever so slowly, I'm coming closer to having written something I can show. My inspiration/discipline for writing comes and goes, but for the last two weeks I've managed an average of about 1k words per day. So that feels nice.-
u/TaoGaming:
> slowly, ever so slowly Remember -- the reader does not care how long it took you to write[1], they care about how good it is. Slow and good > Fast and bad. So, don't lose hope. And 1k a day is fast! That's a rough draft of a novel in 3-4 months. [1] Readers of GRRM excepted, so I'm told.-
u/Rhamni:
I doubt I'll be able to keep the pace, but I'll ride this wave as long as it lasts. It's very gratifying to get scenes down on paper so you can turn your idle thoughts to the next bit. -
u/Cariyaga:
That's not *necessarily* the case with me in particular... but that's in large part because I'm a Homestuck. It's why I'm going to have at least half of my fanfic done before I post a chapter of it, anyway. Rather have a steady drip for anyone actually interested in it. -
u/Bowbreaker:
> [1] Readers of GRRM excepted, so I'm told. There's a difference there. Those readers actively worry that he might die before he's finished.
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u/DaystarEld:
Sounds great :) Keep it up!
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u/DataPacRat:
**Seeking better name for "Effective Egoism"** Aka, coming up with a better term for applying LW-style rationality techniques to 'rational self-interest'. Aka, in parallel with the current movement of 'Effective Altruism', which seeks the best available ways to fulfill one's values, when those values focus roughly on improving the well-being and reducing the suffering of people in general, seeking the best available ways to fulfill one's values, when those values focus roughly on improving the well-being and reducing the suffering of oneself. (I find that I may have use for this term both in reality and in my NaNoWriMo attempt.) -
u/ketura:
Weekly update on my rational pokemon game, including work on the data creation tool Bill's PC. [Handy discussion links and previous threads here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EUSMDHdRdbvQJii5uoSezbjtvJpxdF6Da8zqvuW42bg/edit?usp=sharing). ---- So a lot of my free time this week was absorbed by Thanksgiving and doing my best effort to insert “bah, humbug” into conversations whenever feasible. This update is thus mostly concerned with not breaking the combo and keeping things rolling. /u/Dwood15 and Xavion have both been helping create the prototype monster generator. It’s not yet at a sharable point, but stay tuned! I may come back and edit this post once I have caught up with the log archiving (I’m a week out of date). Tho it seems like there’s not a ton of things to show in these posts, we had a few tens of thousands of words to the log each week, and there’s always a lot of good discussion, even if it’s just coming to a consensus on how things should work. ---- Feel free to leave any comments or questions below. Also feel free to join us [on the #pokengineering channel of the /r/rational Discord server](https://discord.gg/sM99CF3) for brainstorming and discussion. It’s a great group, really, and I would highly recommend hanging out, even if you’re not in it for this project itself. There’s tabletop groups, Dota 2 partying, and [puns](http://i.imgur.com/j3jRmMZ.png) like you wouldn’t [believe](http://i.imgur.com/8cUkzoGl.jpg). Come join us! -
u/None:
[removed]-
u/callmebrotherg:
The subreddits that Ilm currently subscribed to are things like AskHistorians, Primitive Technology, and Science. I haven't noticed a drop in quality on these subreddits, so I see no reason to go. -
u/ketura:
The thing with spez doesn't bother me for one reason: he fessed up and reversed it. Now, if there were evil nefarious admins actually regularly controlling the narrative, do you think they would draw attention to the fact they were doing it? All this information we post here is hosted on machines we do not control. Therefore we cannot expect to ever truly be in control of it. This does not bother me. As for the reddit quality, to control the quality you have to seek out specific communities. In seeking out specific communities you inevitably end up with people searching for the same things as you, which leads to the echo chamber. I'm torn on this concept, as I would prefer to choose the company I keep and the content I peruse, but on the other hand this sort of self-segregation is a factor in our division as a nation. -
u/SvalbardCaretaker:
Well since reddit comments are not kryptographically secured/signed by my own key, I never had any expectation that the database would be unalterable. Frankly the thought that people dont know that admins have tremendous power in any IT environment boggles the mind and reinforces certain non-tech-savy stereotypes.-
u/LiteralHeadCannon:
I don't think the thing bothering people is that they *have* that power; I think it's seen as an *abuse* of the power they were assumed to have.- u/Anderkent:
Meh, I think it's reasonable to expect that if you spend your time writing insulting messages about the admins and moderators of the site you're going to have a bad time. Sure, I think it'd be better if he vented through just banning those accounts rather than a juvenile edit, but I really don't care much
- u/Anderkent:
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u/trekie140:
I highly recommend r/AskTrumpSupporters since those people are at least willing to talk to people they disagree with and its a forum that could always use more intelligent political discussion. It's not that I'm not still horrified by some of the beliefs espoused, but at least there is an attempt to have civil conversations between people of opposing political views and that's more than I've seen on a lot of other subreddits. -
u/Escapement:
Most of the default subreddits are really, really bad as far as I can tell. Less populated subreddits are often valuable and interesting forums, but anything with ridiculously large userbases tends to drift towards stupid memes and jokes and pun threads unless vigilant moderators with strict rules actively delete pretty much anything of that nature that gets posted - it's possible to moderate a really huge reddit community to be still worthwhile, but it requires an amount of effort from moderators proportional to the community size. There are a lot of interesting comment threads on reddit, but mostly they don't come up on /r/all. -
u/That2009WeirdEmoKid:
I've never really *trusted* any website to look out for me, so my opinion on reddit hasn't changed. And really, I think it's pretty much impossible to have a community without some sort of bubble. Any group that prides itself on not being in a bubble is a bubble in and of itself. People who share ideals, preferences, or opinions are bound to gravitate towards each other. It's human nature. And they're also bound to have some incorrect view points, because it's inconceivable to be right about literally everything. Even in a group where opinions vary in a spectrum, there has to be some common ground. Otherwise, why be a group at all?
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u/traverseda:
I have a startup idea. I want to use blockchains (well, ethereum smart contracts) to timestamp files. Proving that a file hasn't been edited after the date you submit it. I think that this could be useful for chain-of-custody for evidence, as an alternative to mailing yourself documents in proving prior-art on patents, etc. Right now it would need more/better javascript then I'm comfortable doing. I can hack away at things well enough, but I don't think I'm comfortable creating the build-environment of doing the system architecture. The smart-contract part looks entirely doable though. The nice thing about smart-contracts is that it has micro-payments built in, so it should be pretty easy to monetize, if I could convince any organizations to use it as part of their everyday workflow. Thoughts?- u/AugSphere:
[Well, you're not the first.](http://www.gwern.net/Timestamping)
- u/AugSphere:
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u/Rhamni:
Hey, magic people, someone give me a boy's name and a girl' name. Generic fantasy compatible, nothing with apostrophes or funny squiggles. It's for an important cause. Totally.-
u/ToaKraka:
> a boy's name and a girl'[s] name How about Leslie ~~and~~ *or* Hayden? ;-) -
u/GlueBoy:
Roderick, saxon for "rich in glory", and Caesura(pronounced say-jura), Latin for cutting or a break in a verse where one phrase ends and the following phrase begins. -
u/MagicWeasel:
Rolf and Caileigh ? -
u/None:
David and Shoshana.
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