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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1492 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 18, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

Still on the Iliad and Dialectic of Enlightenment. Picking up McLuhan's The Classical Trivium.

I finished The Man in the High Castle last week. Pretty good, although I still preferred A Scanner Darkly. It made me want to play Wolfenstein The New Order again.

A few months ago I was asking for recommendations for books about Catharism. A few weeks ago it came up in conversation with my aunt, who recommended The Perfect Heresy, which I'm now about 30 pages into. It's a fascinating reminder that there's nothing new under the sun. If I told you I was reading a book about a faction of elites who:

  • believe that there's no distinction between men and women, and the thing that defines us is an ineffable immaterial essence
  • don't have children, a decision they justify on utilitarian grounds
  • practise a plant-based diet

am I talking about French heretics in the 12th century, or woke Western PMCs today?

Is that the one where it started out as some kind of heresy and then it kind of solidified into almost an ethnic group long after no one could even remember what the original heresy was? Or am I thinking of something else?

I'm not sure, you may be thinking of something else.

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