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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1086 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 1, 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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Why do Redditors compulsively refer to weapons of war designed to maim and kill people as “toys”?

Could you provide additional context? Is this about drones?

Literally any kind of weapon. Small arms, artillery systems, cruise missiles, ships, heavy bombers. Every time there’s a new weapons system delivered to Ukraine it’s “Ukraine has some fun new toys to play with” or “Operation Spiderweb destroyed a lot of Russia’s toys”. Once you notice it, you notice that they do it constantly and it’s really started grinding my gears.

Reddit is to my gears as a big bag of unshelled peanuts and gravel would be if thrown, bag and all, into a fine clockwork. There is only grinding. Short extremely niche subs, I can't stand visiting the site.

What happened to SteveKirkland a.k.a. @SteveKirk a.k.a. SteveAgain a.k.a. @Gooofuckyourself?

Last I saw of him was getting banned for a month for snarling at the mods, but it's been over a month, his username's changed to that last one, and he has a "banned user" without an expiration date on his profile.

Did he go nuts in PMs or something?

Must have been. The problem with ankle-biting the mods here is that, unusually for mods, they appear to be mostly competent (which is the reason I don't use Discord any more- jannies there are all universally terrible).

It's unfortunate, but what can you do.

So, what are you reading?

Still on the Iliad, Dialectic of Enligthenment and McLuhan's Classical Trivium. Dipping into the Metalogicon.

Just read Chili and the Chocolate Factory, it was quite fun.

Now reading Findel's Embrace which is enjoyable but probably not quite as good as the author's other works.

Still on The Perfect Heresy.

I'm still on Journey to the End of Night. I liked it at first during the WWI bits, but it turned into a slog when he became a doctor, and honestly while I would have described it as razor sharp initially, by the time he gets to America I kinda lost the plot and don't really get what's going on at all anymore. I'll probably grind it out because it's so recommended, but I'm clearly missing something here. Also, is the African interlude just a Heart of Darkness parody?

In between I read American Sniper over Memorial Day weekend, for the holiday and whatnot, after seeing it referenced on here. I'm still really thinking about it, and trying to think about the entire Iraq disaster and how it reflects on the book and vice versa.

Did you watch the movie adaptation of American Sniper? I found myself surprised that Bradley Cooper accepted the role. A lot of hateful jingoism that is par for the course for these guys, but not very Hollywood.

If you have a long range shooting fetish anywhere near mine, a great follow up is the non-fictional Out of Nowhere

I plan on watching it this week if I can find the time. I remember reading about the workouts Chris Kyle had Cooper do for the role. I like Bradly Cooper in general (go Birds!) And I'm interested to see how the film came out.

iirc during the Africa/America section the narrator is also losing the plot somewhat

I guess he lost me too. Reading the book it feels like, looking at the date, it presages a lot of stuff I like that came later (Sartre, Camus, Kerouac) but I'm not actually enjoying most of the book.

I'm reading All Things are Full of Gods by David Bentley Hart.

How is it? He’s one of the writers who I like in short form, but get a bit lost in his longer works.

Eh I'm like 50 pages in and stalled. It's interesting and I like his arguments but yeah very dense.

Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death, And Survival In The Merchant Marine

Written by one of the journalists who covered the sinking of the Marine Electric back in 1983.

A bit like a dried-out nonfiction Grisham legal thriller once it gets back to shore.

The Wager by David Grann. A pretty compelling narrative of the events surrounding the shipwreck of the HMS Wager in Patagonia and the return of its crew to England. It's got a good smattering of woke nonsense (referring to Magellan's crew as conquistadores? Really?), but it almost seems like it was bolted on in a subsequent revision so it's easy to ignore. Those poor bastards really had a hard time of it.

I read the three volumes of Worth the Candle that have been published on Kindle. It’s interesting but somewhat flawed - the main storyline doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere, partly because every villain gets killed not long after their introduction. I’m also annoyed that in the third book they start trying to modernise Aerb with Earth technology just like every isekai ever.

Yeah, Worth the Candle falls off IMO. After a certain point they drop the modernization angle though (why would you not go for high explosives and machineguns given your situation). There are some great fights though.

The King in Yellow, sort of a pre Lovecraft, Lovecraftian set of weird short stories.

Is it any good?

Three stories in. It's interesting because Chambers (the author) took the Ambrose Bierce idea of Carcosa, and developed it into his story cycle, but then I think because of Chambers doing this then Carcosa was later used by other writers including Lovecraft, Gaiman, and even George RR Martin (as well as Nic Pizzolatto in True Detective season 1). The stories so far are not bad but more freaky and evocative than anything else.

The last three stories are probably the weakest, if you find The Street of the Four Winds too twee, you might want to skip to the last one. It wasn't really written as cosmic horror so if that's your hook you'll find them annoying. What I love about the king in yellow is because I see it as kind of an attempt to explain the philosophy that everything is narratives in narrative form.

Interesting, I actually preferred the last few stories over the first few ones, which is a bit like the opposite of most people. Perhaps I'm too much of a softie but the more romantic and human theme of them left more more fulfilled at the end of the story compared to, for example, In the Court of the Dragon.

I do feel like it's self consciousness that made me flinch from those stories when I first read the book, although it was also the fact that I was going in thinking it was the precursor to Lovecraft and assuming that meant tentacles. They've grown on me since, I connect particularly strongly with Hastings in Our Lady of the Fields, but they do feel out of place in the modern context of the King in Yellow. Maybe it's the non-western elements of your upbringing? I still think back fondly on one of my best friends from primary school - a Bangladeshi guy named Raymond - for convincing me that romance is an important part of stories, I would have missed out on a lot of excellent poems and great stories, and a lot of flirting with ladies, if I hadn't listened.

Wow, someone has read it! Thanks. I'm a completist and they're pretty short so I'll probably read the lot, but thank you.

Do you have any Lovecraft recommendations? I've only read one (The Dunwich Horror) but I think I could probably get into his writing. Of course Chambers isn't Lovecraft but there's a thread there.

To add to what has been said, the Color out of Space, Pickman's Model, The Statement of Randolph Carter, From Beyond, Herbert West - Re-animator, The Nameless City, Nyarlathotep and The Whisperer in the Darkness are all a lot of fun too, and it's usually a good idea to start with his short stories, because the quality of his prose varies wildly in his longer works. If I had to be picky, the Color out of Space has a special place in my heart but The Rats in the Walls is an objectively better short story, Nyarlathotep is his best poem by a mile and At the Mountains of Madness is my favourite of his books, although Shadow over Innsmouth is a close second.

Great stuff, thanks.

"The Rats in the Walls" "Shadow over Innsmouth", "The Shadow Out of Time" and "At the Mountains of Madness" are probably among the most widely acclaimed. I own & really enjoyed the Necronomicon, nice hardcover and quite comprehensive collection of tales, so as a completionist that might be your thing.

Edit: Also, dunno how much you already know that, but the SCP Foundation is in many ways the modern equivalent of part-weird part-(eldritch)-horror of lovecraftian stories. Also definitely worth checking out.

Thank you for that!

Seconded "The Rats in the Walls". Scared the shit out of me.

SCP Foundation

I've read the anti-memetics division series and mostly enjoyed it, and a few others that were a lot of fun like the vhs tape of the Celtics game where the crowd became aware they were in the video. What are other great SCP stories?

I definitely agree with the idea that SCP is the modern repository of Cosmic Horror, in that Lovecraft relied on a kind of Satan-of-the-Gaps theory of the supernatural. Cults in foreign colonial ports, ruins in the remaining unexplored regions on the map, demon worship in the non-Anglo population of New England that the "respectable" parts of the world never touched.

But today most of those gaps have been closed, so to write in the same style and not just write a period piece, you need to move to new gaps. You have to write for today. Where do Demons hide in a world where I have satellite photos of the whole planet on my laptop, and people in the Congo have smartphones?

What are other great SCP stories?

Revenants is just a few pages but quite good.

Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb - whom I somehow never read while devouring hundreds of fantasy novels in my teens and twenties, and whom I had no idea was a woman until recently.

It really is a big world out there.

Read first 100 pages today - really pretty good.

I like Hobb! What are your favorite fantasy series out of the many you've read?

I’m be read The Malazan Book of the Fallen 3x now and am just waiting it out a few more years until my next read through. I’ll include his other books set in the universe next time as well. It’s my favorite series, and really my favorite piece of entertainment.

I started with Stephen King at 10/11 or so but didn’t read the Gunslinger saga until my late 20’s and still haven’t read the last 50 or so pages. I stopped one day and wanted to savor the ending … and then just never went back? I love all of the standard King novels but especially Insomnia.

Then quickly moved on the Sword of Truth and then Wheel of Time. I’ve read both twice. For WoT I didn’t read the ending written by Sanderson yet, and for SoT I stopped reading after book ten I think. I want to re-read both again but I think maybe I’ll let it lay until retirement. They both have many slug filled … hundreds of pages at a time.

All of The Black Company books. I would rank these second to Malazan for me. They’re Malazan light even I would say. I love how fast and readable they are and love all of the various crews and hijinks they get up to.

Tad Williams has two fanatic trilogies in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn books that’s more fantasy typical and Otherland which is more sci fi and is 4 books. I’ve never read this one again but it’s stuck with me for going on 25 years now.

The Black Jewels Trilogy really had an impact on my sexual thoughts as a youngster, for better or worse.

That’s off the top of my head. There’s like 12-15 trilogies I’ve read and can’t recall tbh. I’ll have to walk through a 90’s B&N and rekindle my thoughts.

Hah I have read almost all of these except for the Black Jewel. And never finished WoT rip. Thanks for answering though. Malazan is the bomb.

Have you read the preceding assassin series?

I have not but after taking a fantasy break, I’m ready to jump back in the large and now massively back logged ocean.

If you liked the magic ship series you should definetly go back. The assassins series is set in the same world (but a different location) and is arguably superior.

I'd recommend all her books except the soldier son series. She likes to challenge or torture her characters but I found that series too bleak for my tastes.

Far too many books, including Skin in the game by N Taleb. But I did finish one book (on investing) this week!

The Primal Hunter, by Zogarth.

How far along are you? I've considered picking that one back up

Almost 2/3 of the way through the first book. I'll probably continue the series, though the MC's build is reminiscent of the MC from He Who Fights Monsters, another LitRPG series that I've been reading.

Ah ok, I stopped way ahead of that for both stories. They are both pretty enjoyable for a while. Both characters have their quirks that can make it hard to read them on their own for extended time periods.

I can certainly relate to that! In fact, I'm a few books behind on He Who Fights Monsters because Jason can, at times, be insufferably eye-rolling. Right now I like Jake a little better but I don't find Zogarth's writing style to be quite as engaging as Shirtaloon's overall. Still, for me there's lots to like in both series and as I've said in last week's thread, I'm a cheap date for Kindle books!

I generally read stuff on Royal road but it is often a pipeline for kindle books.

Personal top tier: Mother of Learning, Discworld

Do you have any recommentations for sources that analyze current military conflicts in a relatively unbiased way? I know (alas on youtube) William Spaniel, Colonel Riesner (both mostly on Ukraine), and ATE Chuet (in French) on all matters related to aviation (but in French).

Is there any source on other conflicts (such as the Gaza war) with a low propaganda portion?

I would give a pretty strong endorsement to The War Zone (twz.com), although they’re more news than analysis, really, and so maybe not quite what you’re looking for. A lot of defense industry news and more technical articles as well. They do have their biases (in the current conflicts that’s fairly strongly pro-Ukraine and mildly pro-Israel, if memory serves) but they generally keep them in check and provide very detailed and thorough reporting. I’ve been reading them for a long while now and they rarely disappoint. In the early days of the Ukraine war they were probably the single best source for a picture of what was going on, even breaking some events first at times, and they have a decent level of access to officials and industry types to get interesting stories.

Suppose you were the de facto “leader” of a large progressive social network in real life. You have heard frightening accounts from other social networks, where members have damaged the health of the network through antisocial behavior. Sometimes this leads to its destruction. Maybe they redirected all the attention in the group toward their own plight or pet cause; maybe they mistook an occasional unkind word for deep prejudice and tried to alienate members; maybe they become a roommate and stop paying the rent; maybe they make unreasonable demands, ruining the dynamic of the network; maybe they constantly guilt and catastrophize, ruining the enjoyment and fluidity required to motivate social activity. What norms would you put in place to exclude these antisocial individuals from social events and social spaces?

Hard Difficulty:

  • Can’t use any ideological test

  • Can’t judge by appearance

Legendary Difficulty:

  • Can’t judge by speech pattern

  • Can’t use any explicit social hierarchy, but can only filter or weed out antisocial members through group habits and group norms

What norms? Basically the most common norms of all - the "cool" people run the group, and whoever they decide don't vibe with the group, goes. It's the oldest rule in the book.

Autistic legalism is a popular solution for running ideologically based-groups, for a simple reason- it works.

Now you’d have to convince people that your rules are fair, applies fairly, and important enough to merit shunning violators. But there is a reason it’s the historically tested solution.

Is there a general term for the sort of broad political position of 'secular/atheist individual who believes in Darwinian evolution so deeply that he is led to reject liberalism, high modernist utopianism, and much of the "Enlightenment" project'?

Are you talking about social Darwinism?

What does it mean to "believe" in Darwinian evolution?

I mean, there are plenty of people who don't, disproportionately on the right.

This is so easy a dunk as to not be worth posting, but do you honestly think people on the left believe that Darwinian evolution applies to the human brain? I'm not seeing any major political faction which meaningfully believes in evolution.

I think "believe in" is the proper breakdown, as from Pratchett:

It’s hard to believe in the gods, he thought, when certain people are never struck by lightning. Why doesn’t it happen? If the gods wanted people to believe in them, they’d show themselves occasionally. That’s the whole point.

After all, you never needed faith in the postman. You just knew the postman would come, rain or shine, and deliver the mail. You didn’t have to believe in him. He was just there.

It was the same with the gods. They were just there, too, and you didn’t have to believe in them any more than you had to believe in the sky. You just knew they were there.

And if you didn’t believe in something, then it couldn’t help you.

By that standard, most biologists don't "believe in" evolution, it's simply there. My guess would be that someone who "believes in" Darwinian evolution uses it as a guiding principle and might do things like driving increased competition or having a lot of children. Or maybe a completely different set of beliefs. It's not like social movements stick close to their namesakes.

Dark enlightenment / NrX / Moldbuggian Silicon Valley reactionary philosophy in general. More of a 2007-2017 thing though, even though Moldbug and Thiel are still somewhat influential.

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