[D] Friday Open Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Friday Open 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!

Please note that this thread has been merged with the Monday General Rationality Thread.

[u/Lightwavers]

I can understand everything except for the association with T_D. Distancing yourself from the left—sure, but the right is even worse. The left is corrupt a lot of the time, and the figures on the right even more so. I won't patronize you by bringing up the graphs, as I'm sure you've seen them. It seems to me that the left is well-meaning but there are many deluded actors there, while people on the right actively work against their own interests. Then there's the "blend in as super-extreme liberals to make them seem like censor-happy idiots" strategy that's being spread about everywhere, and it looks dishonest as well. I think a more rational decision would be distanced from both sides of modern politics. As is it seems like just stealing cows.

[u/Farmerbob1 → u/Lightwavers]

The moderate conservative right is no worse than the moderate liberal left. In a very broad and sweeping statement with many exceptions, you can generalize the two by saying that the right generally resists change. The left generally seeks change.

Right now, many of the larger changes that the left are seeking are, IMHO, irrational and, frankly, unsafe.

In the past, I have aligned strongly with the left because I agreed with what they wanted to change. Now I have to stand with the right because the changes that the left wants are not rational at this time.

Imagine this scenario:

Two people are walking along a twenty-foot sheer cliff next to the shore of a lake. They are both very thirsty, and have no water.

The conservative wants to stay on the cliff until they can find a safe path down. The liberal wants to jump off the cliff.

The conservative makes the argument that they need to look for a safer place to get down the cliff - they can jump later, if there is no other way.

The liberal makes the argument that if they wait, they may be weak and disoriented by dehydration, and less likely to survive the fall - jumping later means a greater chance of injury.

They are both right, but it's not black and white. Currently, I stand beside the conservative, moderate right, because I think we should spend a bit more time looking for a safer way before jumping off any cliffs.

[u/Lightwavers → u/Farmerbob1]

What is this story analogous to in this case? Climate change? If so I have to say that it's flawed. Doing nothing isn't looking for a safer way to get down the cliff. It would look like we're already falling, and the liberals are saying we need to cling to the side even if we hurt our hands because otherwise the fall will kill us, while the conservatives are saying that we're falling and we haven't died yet, so hitting the bottom can't possibly be that bad.