
Ask HN: Favorite subreddit? - tmaly
I read &#x2F;r&#x2F;programming and &#x2F;r&#x2F;golang and have found some really nice gems over the years.<p>What are your favorite subreddits that you have gained some really valuable insights from?
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baccredited
[https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/)

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Mizza
[https://reddit.com/r/SyrianCivilWar](https://reddit.com/r/SyrianCivilWar)

Takes a lot of lurking to really be able to _really_ read what's happening,
but I honestly think that this sub is quite possibly the best war reporting of
all time.

The sub has even been publishing its own high-quality journal/magazine, "The
Week In Review", ex:
[http://imgur.com/gallery/SdsG2](http://imgur.com/gallery/SdsG2)

~~~
sputknick
I'll check it out, but can you give us a high level understanding of what you
have learned about the war?

~~~
s_baby
The whole truth is probably more fluid and multifaceted but these are some of
the interesting claims I've seen on there.

1\. Al Nusra a branch of Al Qaeda is embedded amongst the moderate rebels and
were the main fighting force in Aleppo.

2\. Allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been flooding Syria with weapons to
anyone who will take them including radical groups. SA sees situation as
opportunity to spread Wahhabism to the region.

3\. Early on the coalition had been using a funneling strategy that involved
bombing locations peripheral to ISIS with the goal of forcing them to move
into civilian regime territory.

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dfederschmidt
/r/memeeconomy

People giving and asking for "investment advice" for memes. It's the kind of
subculture where I was truly amazed how far the Internet has taken us in terms
of social interaction and humour.

Funny thing is, the verge even reported on it [1].

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/10/14223264/meme-economy-
redd...](http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/10/14223264/meme-economy-reddit-stock-
market)

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J-dawg
This is possibly controversial, but /r/TheRedPill has helped me a lot
recently.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill](https://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill)

~~~
nameless912
I'm attempting not to pass judgement. Can you explain why it's helped?

~~~
J-dawg
It has helped me understand why my marriage failed and made me realise how I
need to behave differently when I start dating again.

I must admit, a lot of the commenters there have extreme views and some of
them come across as misogynists.

However, for some reason I persevered and started reading some of the theory.
What I read aligned so accurately with my previous experiences and the way
I've been treated by women that I couldn't ignore it, and I've been hooked
since then.

Thank you for at least attempting not to pass judgement!

~~~
AznHisoka
what are some of those extreme views you disagree with?

any you agree with?

~~~
AznHisoka
Hello? Which ones do you disagree with?

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J-dawg
Because of the subject matter, there's a lot of anger and bitterness in that
subreddit, and people make a lot of sweeping generalisations. There's not much
point getting into my specific opinions, everyone has to make up their own
mind.

All I know is the theory discussed there, and links to "manosphere" blogs have
been useful to me. I mentioned it here in case it's useful to other people
too.

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rayalez
[http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/](http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/) \- a
community discussing rational fiction (sort of like hard SciFi). This is one
of the best communities (aside from HN) that I am aware of, a lot of extremely
intelligent people, I'm sure you guys will like it.

~~~
tmaly
would this include works like Sherlock Holmes?

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jswrenn
To quote rationalist fiction author Eliezer Yudkowsky: > But when you look at
what Sherlock Holmes does - you can't go out and do it at home. Sherlock
Holmes is not really operating by any sort of reproducible method. He is
operating by magically finding the right clues and carrying out magically
correct complicated chains of deduction. Maybe it's just me, but it seems to
me that reading Sherlock Holmes does not inspire you to go and do likewise.
Holmes is a mutant superhero. And even if you did try to imitate him, it would
never work in real life. [0]

A hallmark of rationalist fiction is that it invites the reader engage with
the story by thinking rationally. A tactic employed by Yudkowsky is to pause
just before the climax of the story and prompt online readers to use what they
know to get the protagonist out of their current bind, or else, Yudkowsky
promises, the protagonist will meet a less-than-ideal end.

Yudkowsky's stories [1] are a great introduction to the genre. I'm
particularly fond of "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality", which
makes a habit of preying on the reader's sentimentality.

[0]
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/3m/rationalist_fiction/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/3m/rationalist_fiction/)
[1] [http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/](http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/)

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mhink
Perhaps surprisingly, /r/dndbehindthescreen. They're one of the few subreddits
I've found that has a subscriber count in the tens of thousands, consistently
high-quality content, and an active community of people that actually
contribute.

/r/roguelikedev is a fun community, as well- I love the opportunity for cross-
pollination of ideas, since everyone's doing a rather similar thing, but with
different languages, libraries, and so forth.

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zumu
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/)

It's a curated list of in depth submissions(posts and replies) from many
subreddits.

~~~
dhfhduk
Not meaning to criticize your taste in subreddits, but I didn't have the
reaction I thought it would. I was looking forward to it, but a lot of the
posts seemed like links to megatrolling or something.

Maybe I picked the wrong ones to take a look at or something, but I found it
disturbing more than anything else, sort of like "the best that reddit has to
offer, by those who think they are offering it."

I have sort of a love-hate relationship with Reddit, though, so I think it's
touching some deep buttons for me.

~~~
zumu
I generally agree with you.

To enjoy this subreddit, it's best to think of it more as a collection of in
"depth" posts, than it is of "quality" posts. That means it often offers some
really bad, but very long and detailed content. It's something I subscribe to
and occasionally find gems in.

Most importantly, I enjoy that the content is all original discussion as
opposed to articles I will probably find elsewhere.

------
ahoy
/r/askhistorians is always a delightful read

~~~
Daishiman
The most strictly moderated community I've seen, and thanks to that it has the
highest signal-to-noise ratio of any online forum.

You could _easily_ make a magazine out of the dozens of incredibly posts each
week.

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tscs37
/r/selfhosted - it contains several selfhosted gems of applications, a very
interesting sub.

/r/netsec - to feel a bit paranoid

/r/homelab - for the homelab needs

/r/golang - overall friendly community and lots to learn

/r/programming - good sub for all needs

/r/polandball - I cannot come up with a good justification why this subreddit
is one of my favorites.

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ljk
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/)

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networked
I like
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sixwordstories/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sixwordstories/).
A good place to start with it is
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sixwordstories/top/?sort=top&t=all](https://www.reddit.com/r/sixwordstories/top/?sort=top&t=all).

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mikeleeorg
For me, it's:

[https://reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews](https://reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews)

The media is too focused on sensationalized news nowadays, which often
translates to negative news. It's hard not to be jaded and cynical. This sub
helps give me perspective.

Also, as someone else already mentioned, /r/askhistorians is a truly
delightful and interesting read.

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aeikenberry
[https://reddit.com/r/unixporn](https://reddit.com/r/unixporn)

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Inconel
I mostly use reddit for more non serious discussion so my favorite subreddits
are primarily visual.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/cableporn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/cableporn/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Welding/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Welding/)

And a user from HN introduced me to
[https://www.reddit.com/r/conduitporn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/conduitporn/)

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mindcrime
A few of my favorites include:

/r/machinelearning

/r/artificial

/r/semanticweb

/r/electronics

~~~
Someone1234
Is semantic web just a branch of SEO? I don't really understand the point
aside from making your site nicer for e.g. Google/Bing.

~~~
Leynos
Semantic web is about making the meaning of your content easier for machines
to extract. The idea is to have a single HTML document that is readable by
people, but is also marked up with microformats or similar rich markup to
enable easy acquisition of data by machine (i.e., without being dependent upon
the structure of the HTML).

The BBC's Programmes web site was a good example of this for some time, but I
think this seems to have fallen by the wayside somewhat. Here's an instance
though, where the broadcast times are marked up with XSD datetime information
in addition to the human readable times:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016ljx7/broadcasts](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016ljx7/broadcasts)

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AznHisoka
/r/nofap - even if you don't believe in the "science", it's amusing to read
the experiences of people attempting this.

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miguelrochefort
/r/onebag

/r/minimalism

/r/ultralight

/r/frugal

/r/keto

/r/zerocarb

/r/personalfinancecanada

~~~
hackerboos
I love PersonalFinanceCanada but Canadian subreddits are very hostile to
newbies.

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jetti
/r/TIL

/r/programming

/r/woodworking

------
zxckvm
Haven't gained any insights from these subs, but love browsing them every once
in a while.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/](https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dogpictures](https://www.reddit.com/r/dogpictures)

------
Zikes
/r/skookum is a pretty great community of engineers & DIYers with a sense of
humor. I particularly like their subreddit rule #3:

> Users are strongly encouraged to submit posts for technical assistance.
> /u/datums personally guarantees that all possible resources will be
> mobilized to provide assistance if necessary.

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searine
/r/ArtefactPorn

/r/ArtisanVideos

/r/NYC

/r/SpaceX

/r/wikipedia

/r/DestructiveReaders

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khein11
[https://www.reddit.com/r/fitness](https://www.reddit.com/r/fitness)

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riffic
shameless plug for
[https://www.reddit.com/r/moldedplywood](https://www.reddit.com/r/moldedplywood)

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ohazi
/r/corgi

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aaronky
r/dataisbeautiful r/EDC

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richmt
/r/CadenMoranDiary

~~~
tmaly
I am not quite sure what that is about. Can you elaborate?

~~~
richmt
The useful links on the sidebar explain it best I guess. Just a lot of in
jokes between a handful of regular posters.

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ilaksh
rad_decentralization

permaculture

sustainability

ethereum

nim

futurology (quite a bit of spam though)

Not all of them are really insightful but still cool

foodporn

startups

conspiracy

shittykickstarters

proceduralgeneration

agi

mountaingoats

marshallbrain

DIY

simulate

