scrape_r_rational/data/cache/7sicm6.md

[D] What have been the best posts on the Weekly Discussion Threads?

Post:

/r/rational has, in my opinion, a very interesting dynamic where the bulk of subreddit discussion is concentrated across the four weekly discussion threads (monday rationality, wednesday worldbuilding, friday off-topic, saturday munchkinry). We also have plenty of discussion around posted chapters of rational works, but the weekly discussion threads work as sort of "big-tent" aggregators, where all sorts of interesting topics pop up.

So I'd like to ask: in your opinion, what have been the best comments on the weekly discussion threads? Of course, I expect to see comments that spawned interesting discussions, but in particular, I'd like to see comments that are valuable in-and-of themselves.

Below is a short list of comments I found particularly interesting. (All top-level, because they're easier to find, unfortunately.)

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For elves, there are two competing ideals; fäsh and shilaal. Fäsh is sometimes translated as "perfection", but a closer reading is "homeostasis", in other words, a thing remaining as it is. Shilall is sometimes translated as "improvement", but a better, more complex translation would be "integration of the positive".
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link

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I feel like Eliezer Yudkowsky and MoR have this unique property, that I would call incompressibility, for lack of a better word. That property would be: they are not perfect, and someone can do better than them, but the only way to do better than them is to be more complex... or more smart, in some abstract sense. ...snipped...

link

As the self-appointed Court Statistician of this subreddit, I took it upon myself to analyse the results of this little experiment. (tl;dr: default comment sorting for Friday Off-Topic threads was set to "new", to test whether this would encourage more discussion.) Ten weeks have passed since it began.
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link

Also, shoutout to /u/ketura for his updates to his programming project, although I wouldn't be able to pick any individual post for this thread.

Comments:

• u/MagicWeasel:

  Personally, my favourites are the long discussions me and /u/ccc_037 often end up in when I post in the worldbuilding thread. His input and encouragement was instrumental in me deciding to spend 2017 writing up a first draft of the first volume of my vampire romance novel, and I'm hoping to polish it off this year (I have a coauthor who is vital to the process but is unable to devote the time I do, so no guarantees). I am not exaggerating at all when I say that without him, the novel would never have happened. So, thanks!
  
  And I guess, more generally, I love the community the threads have built; whether it's trading ideas with /u/callmesalticidae or giving dating tips to /u/couteaubleu (how did that date go btw!?), there's always something interesting to read about.
  

  • u/CouteauBleu:

    > or giving dating tips to /u/couteaubleu (how did that date go btw!?),
    
    You know, I had a lot of "assumptions", like best case or worst case scenarios in mind, but it really didn't go the way I think.
    
    I dunno, I'm still mulling it over. I'm not really feeling the spark. It was a little boring, but not *too* boring. Like watching yet another Marvel movie: you appreciate the things, and you have some fun... buuuut... yeah.
    
    Maybe I need more time (it's only been one date, and I was tired). Hypothesis 2: I really am looking for the thrill or the chase, or a problem to solve, or a challenge, I dunno.
    

    • u/MagicWeasel:

      Personally, if there's no spark I don't bother. I had a date like that once; no spark, but we've been friends six years now and he's a good bloke, just not someone I'd date.
      
      Another guy we had a long interesting conversation with no spark, and then I found out he was a conspiracy theorist and we ghosted each other afterwards.
      
      Meanwhile my current partner of 5 years, our first date consisted of me completely fucking everything up, but there was a definite spark. It was meant to be coffee for an hour but we kept talking and it turned into dinner so what was meant to be a quick meeting to touch base ended up as a first date with him driving me home because the buses had stopped running for the evening. 
      
      So yeah... I'm not really sure what to say. My two hypotheses based on your information are 1) "it's just not meant to be" and 2) give it more time and see where it goes. I don't think it means that because you don't like one woman you date, that you're just in it for the chase!
      

      • u/CouteauBleu:

        > So yeah... I'm not really sure what to say. My two hypotheses based on your information are 1) "it's just not meant to be" and 2) give it more time and see where it goes.
        
        You're noooot really narrowing the search space for me there :P
        
        But yeah, I'll go on a few more dates and see what comes up, probably.
        
        > I don't think it means that because you don't like one woman you date, that you're just in it for the chase! 
        
        I'm seeing a pattern here, and I have more than one data point. But yeah, again, I won't jump to conclusions yet.
        

  • u/ShannonAlther:

    I must admit, I've spent a lot of time lurking here. Partly because my fiction folder is 80% bad ideas and 20% unfinished ones, and partly because it's directly above a homework folder that demands a lot more attention. I admire more than anything else the dedication that everyone here has to the task.
    

• u/CouteauBleu:

  Eeee, I'm getting best-off quoted!
  
  Alright, it just happens that I went through my posts and made a best off list a few weeks ago. Didn't expect to be reading it so soon. Most of these posts are mine, since I was going through my own history:
  
  * [My rant on Net Neutrality](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7k08ef/d_friday_offtopic_thread/drairu1/), and [more comments on Net Neutrality](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7lhyo4/d_friday_offtopic_thread/drmlngl/).
  
  * [Something about a cool Free Thinking course](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7j2qas/d_monday_general_rationality_thread/dr3l557/)? I dunno, didn't check it out yet.
  
  * [One of trekie140's last US politics posts before the ban](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7j2qas/d_monday_general_rationality_thread/dr3mk8b/). To be honest, I wasn't a fan of these threads, both because I disagreed with him and because we were pretty much going in circles. But I think maybe someone trying to get a pulse for US politics could find it useful, anecdotally.
  
  * [Some interesting discussion about n+1 models](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7j2qas/d_monday_general_rationality_thread/dr43bxt/?context=3).
  
  * [On trust, dating advice, and communication](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7ifirq/d_friday_offtopic_thread/dqzny4a/?context=10). This is something I'm still trying to figure it out at the moment.
  
  * [Incompressibility](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/7fvr80/d_monday_general_rationality_thread/dqfm7en/)? Maybe? I think it's an interesting concept, that just begging for a label or a philosophy to be put on it.
  
  * [On consequentialism](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/70vl9f/d_monday_general_rationality_thread/dnaxpta/?context=3), and the people to weak too pursue it (I'm kidding; but it *would* make for a pretty cool title for a SSC post).
  

• u/None:

  I feel like I've been missing a lot by not peeking into them. There are so many other threads on my front page
  

  • u/appropriate-username:

    This sub moves slowly enough that I throw it into a multi with a few others and check /new from it.
    

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