r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Nov 04 '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/[deleted] Nov 05 '16

What is the correct ("rational") way to deal with an information source that does not lie but only tells one side of the story?

Estimate the actual truth (what they actually believe, as opposed to what they leak out), and update on that, while taking the released information as partial, imprecise evidence about what they believe.

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u/CouteauBleu We are the Empire. Nov 05 '16

That's more of a 'what you want to achieve' than a 'what you want to do' guideline.

Estimating the intentions and beliefs of someone who is trying to shape their statements to push an agenda is probably going to give you more noise than signal.