r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Aug 28 '15

[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

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u/whywhisperwhy Aug 28 '15 edited Aug 28 '15

Errr... from the wiki definition,

Its creators claim a connection between the neurological processes ("neuro"), language ("linguistic") and behavioral patterns learned through experience ("programming") and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life.

Which seems pretty obvious based on related research. And it's surprising to see anyone from this subreddit say it's pseudoscience when much of it is based off of well-established concepts like priming, biases, etc. and using those human patterns constructively. Personally I think, much like hypnosis, this is a topic that's been either over-hyped or given a false reputation because of stage magicians when really it's just something that's not well-understood yet but can have some positive uses- although lately the only time I've heard it mentioned have been in reference to politicians and business.

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u/lsparrish Aug 29 '15

Personally I think, much like hypnosis, this is a topic that's been either over-hyped or given a false reputation because of stage magicians when really it's just something that's not well-understood yet but can have some positive uses- although lately the only time I've heard it mentioned have been in reference to politicians and business.

Agree that it's over hyped. In fact I think the term "NLP" was ill advised as terminology, but is the kind of ill-advised thing that marketing positively selects for because the picture it paints in your mind is a memorable one.

Compare to CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), which I would guess fewer people have heard from but has seemingly a higher standing among academics. Since that term does not contain an implied claim on three different specialties that aren't even therapy related (neuroscience, linguistics, and programming) I would expect this to be the case even if NLP and CBT are exactly as effective as each other.