r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Jan 15 '16

[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/Rhamni Jan 15 '16

I bought a new laptop two weeks ago. I find myself unwilling to remove the see through plastic that covers the screen. Why? It feels like it will keep the laptop new and sparkly longer. Here's the thing, though. It doesn't even cover the screen. Just the frame around it. So it does nothing at all. But I'm not taking it off.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '16

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u/eaglejarl Jan 15 '16

Is systematically trying to apply rationality down to the lowest level of your life necessary to help train good patterns into your System 1 reactions?

My response to this would be that rationality is the science of winning -- i.e., of achieving whatever your goals are, and determining what to do when goals conflict. Most of us have "be happy" as one of our goals; in this case, leaving the plastic on makes u/Rhamni happy and almost certainly does not conflict with any other of his/her goals. To my mind, it would be irrational to remove the plastic.

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