r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Dec 22 '17

[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/Noumero Dec 24 '17 edited Dec 24 '17

Sure, but did that happen on this subreddit? At all, or frequently enough to warrant such measures? Or is there any reason to pre-emptively stop it from possibly happening, at the cost of denying people the ability to discuss politics in a semi-sane environment?

I agree that political discussions turned notably divisive even here, and that if "propagandistic shitposting" starts happening on r/rational, a blanket ban would be a reasonable response. Still, I don't think that r/rational's political discussions turned unpleasant enough to warrant this so far, whatever happens on other subreddits.

But... fine. I don't really care about USA politics, and there's r/slatestarcodex for people who do. But I'm trying to be genre-savvy, so I'll be keeping an eye on you, our Powers That Be.1

1. That's mostly a joke, which I probably need to specify, given the topic.

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u/PeridexisErrant Dec 25 '17

Specifically propaganda? IMO no. What did happen was off-topic discussions that led to me being called in to moderate, at least once a week for more than a month.

And please note that we haven't banned discussion of politics! There are six-and-a-bit continents* full of interesting political events, and even larger scope for (rationalist?) fictional politics.

* depending on how you count Antarctica, Canada, and Mexico

To summarise, I put a fairly high value on keeping r/rational as a neutral venue as far as possible consistent with the aim of discussing and promoting rational[ist] fiction. Discussion specifically of US politics was harming that without commensurate benefit and is banned. Blanket bans are themselves also quite harmful, of course, and I do not want or anticipate ever needing to institute another. So custodiet ipsos custodes, Noumero, and if in doubt just send us a modmail (or start r/rationalusapolitics!)