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EdenicFaithful

Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw

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joined 2022 September 04 18:50:58 UTC 

				
User ID: 78


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
EdenicFaithful


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 18:50:58 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 78


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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	 Hot Bump Top New Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 3, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm afraid not. I've wanted to learn Arabic for some time now but have never managed to persist in the required effort to learn the script and pronunciation.


I'm using M. A. S. Abdel Haleem's translation, as it seems suited to Western tastes and has useful introductions/footnotes for every Surah.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That was a mistake. Hobbit 2 was close to greatness, and 3 was tolerable. Both were considerably better than 1. It isn't the book, but it was worth it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think front-page submissions need to be manually approved by mods, or perhaps it needed manual approval because you're a new account. It's showing up now.


Submission statements are for link posts. You don't need one for something you wrote yourself. You would just put something which explains what the link is in the text field.


Welcome!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Still trying Historical Construction of National Consciousness, but it's putting me to sleep. Content is good but the style is dense.


Looking at Bernard Suits' The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. It starts with a Socratic dialogue where the grasshopper in the grasshopper-and-ant story is a leader of a philosophical school who leaves behind a puzzling dream for his followers when he dies. It is said to be both an influential and a sometimes overlooked book on game studies (not game theory, more like Homo Ludens).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is beautiful. I was only just wondering whether there was anything resembling a religious take on programming, and "holistic" is close enough. Thanks!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Again, my bad for cutting in. I'll freely admit that I posted without thinking. But you know, in a way this response sums up my initial intuitions about this whole thing.


If your anger stems from me being an idiot without grace or common sense, you would be right, but it also seems like you're prioritizing the fluff of conversation and not the meat. You might as well click a random page in the Library of Babel and learn how to use the I Ching on it. Sometimes you just have to say no, and you'll never find what you're looking for until you grasp what this feels like in practice.


I'm afraid I cannot put this into a more thoughtful form than this at present, so perhaps you would be right to declare victory and move on. But I doubt it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 18, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IMO Far Beyond The Stars is the pinnacle of all Star Trek.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Bugs, Suggestions, Small Comments, And Site News
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The front page feels disorderly because the stickies aren't bolded (at least for me?). I don't know about others but this frustrates me.


Also, please consider keeping all the regular threads of the week stickied. It has always been a little sad that threads tend to drop off in posters when they get unstickied by the next thread a few days after.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What twitter people are you all following? Any side welcome, I haven't been paying serious attention.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So, what are you reading?


I'm almost done Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar. It was alright, have a feeling I will remember it in a few years. Picking up Frank Meyer's In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays. I've heard Meyer's name as the father of fusionism, but I always had the impression that he was just a politically active figure and not the impressive writer and thinker which he appears to be.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So, what are you reading?


I'm still working through McGilchrist.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 3, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


What translation are you reading?




Harry Kurz. It's a remarkable and short work, one of the best I've read.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 18, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
EdenicFaithful laughs without comment.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 26, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I found that it picked up a lot around The Broadcast interlude.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I played 1 a few years ago. It was smart, consistent and focused, if too easy, and Byakuya was unforgettable. Definitely the better of the first two games by all objective measures.


However 2 was an insane rollercoaster of sublime highs and painful lows, and it managed to make me genuinely upset and exhausted at their suffering. It's main problems were that many things were too abrupt, the surviving cast wasn't nearly as compelling as in 1, and the ending needed much more fleshing out. But while it was all over the place, it was also a lot more articulate than 1, and Nagito...I'll have to play it again sometime. He was profound in a lot of ways.


3 looks a lot more gritty than usual, may not finish it for a while.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's on the list now, thanks.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No worries.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's probably a lot of confusions in my mind as to what historical greatness really is, so this will likely be a jumble. I apologize if none of this seems to cohere:


I suppose I've landed on the side of those who feel that suffering is in some sense an illusion, and that a state of health and wisdom is in some sense normal. It's the whole "people are fundamentally good" thing, where problems are said to be caused more by a poorly organized environment than by innate problems of the original sin variety. In other words, yes, you can suffer horribly, but when you're back into everyday life, there's probably a way to shake yourself off and carry on as if nothing truly debilitating happened.


The way I see it, the reason that "black box" solutions like AI are popping up is because we're on the cusp of more explicit solutions. I don't think the future is everyone augmenting themselves with ChatGPT, I think the future is us finding a way of spreading knowledge by human hands alone which can compete with ChatGPT in its ability to bring forward implicit knowledge to those who would otherwise take years to learn it. It's probably not even that complicated.


I've rejected the Jungian style of imagination-as-history, where our thoughts stretch back through the ages. It's something more immediate- the feelings of complexity which arise from stories often originate from (universal) structures already existing in the mind, rather than some evolutionary buildup seeking release. So I think what I'm looking for isn't so much an understanding of lost possibility, so much as the state of mind which generates possibility, in the hopes that the stories were intended to be read in such states of mind, and that the message can be heard once I attain it. And I feel as if it can be found in the idea of "character," or in its most reduced form, one's actions. I suppose in this sense I've been studying more the desire to do great works than the great works themselves. The stories seem to be dripping with motive force, and I need to know what that is. Maybe a structure of mind is waiting to be discovered.


I suppose it boils down to a pseudo-gnostic theory that, yes, the goal is to liberate oneself from one's fallen state, but it's probably unusually easy and even normal to do so. One just needs the right knowledge, and nothing will seem so difficult anymore. So the question becomes "what is discipline and thoughtfulness?" and I have a feeling that the price of wisdom is far lower than any of us realizes. The difficulty is in getting it exactly right.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 7, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So, what are you reading?


I'm still reading Sargant's Battle for the Mind. Can't say I find him very reliable, but I do wonder if I can find some similarity between the models of the mind which he has laid out and tropes about how humans behave.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In the end, it's a crime story. The jargon, infighting and dubious motives honestly makes it feel like a good novel to read on vacation to me. Trying to analyze it deeply would lose the momentum. Neuromancer only seemed different because it pulled you into Case's mindset so deeply that one only notices at the end that the story had little intrinsic drive beyond being a crime story. Of course, that was also where the greatness lay.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm happy to ignore Are You Smarter than a Large Language Model? Seems better to turn off the TV. Priorities, man.


As long as the world isn't exploding, I don't think I need that kind of pointless dialectic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
1D protagonist and generic isn't what I remember about it at all, so I'm sure you won't regret sticking with it for a little longer. However it was incredibly long and the author evidently didn't care about any pace other than her own, so I never actually finished it. It switches from intensely emotional stretches to lulls as if there's no difference between the two in the author's mind.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 11, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Munro's translation is highly regarded and I haven't had a reason to regret the choice. I tried a poem form and while it was striking it didn't keep me interested. There's just too many ideas in there, and the essay format is perfect.


I don't know what the best poem version is, but I do remember that Anthony Esolen's version was regarded well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				USA Election Day 2022 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I haven't seen Ukraine mentioned often. I think that people don't want fundamental change during a war. I don't believe the Republicans would have changed much, but the perception was there.


Also, despite all the problems, people haven't completely abandoned the experts, and the experts were very clear about their preferred outcome and the values it would represent. People have been re-educated by the expert apparatus since Trump's victory, and I don't think they're ready to give up on everything they've learned to respect and identify with even if the flaws have become evident to them.


Looks to me like a vote for order during uncertain times. I don't think this means that the anger isn't there and growing, just that people don't feel comfortable walking away in a highly public manner from what they have at the present time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Down with Zelda! Yes, this was an official ad.


Also, Zeldaaaa!