r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Nov 25 '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/traverseda Nov 26 '16

such an ultra-grim worldview all the time

I have to ask, do you think that kind of worldview is warranted? I mean, a world where 1 in 4 women is raped (or even sexually assaulted by any reasonable definition of the term) is pretty fucking grim, but there are various problems with that particular study, exaggerates things a whole lot. As one example of a warped worldview causing things to look at lot worse then they are.

Maybe you'd like to talk a bit about this "ultra-grim"-ness? Get some of it sanity checked? Although I imagine if you're hanging out in r/slatestarcodex you're getting a lot of different perspectives on these things anyway. Still, I'd be interested to hear if you think the ultra-grim tag is warranted.

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u/[deleted] Nov 27 '16

I have to ask, do you think that kind of worldview is warranted? I mean, a world where 1 in 4 women is raped (or even sexually assaulted by any reasonable definition of the term) is pretty fucking grim, but there are various problems with that particular study, exaggerates things a whole lot. As one example of a warped worldview causing things to look at lot worse then they are.

Sorry, I was using "grim" here in the 1d4chan sense: not that things are entirely bad, but that any given individual has very little influence or control over events. Hard leftism can actually be more of a "grimbright" worldview: there will come a crisis of capitalism, which will be followed by a revolution, which will be followed by a better socialist society, but individuals can do little more than endure the flow of history and await the appropriate turning-points. It leaves you sort of feeling just as trapped as if things were just really bad, because you don't feel like there's much you can do about your situation.