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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2310 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 11, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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So I read Blindsight in about 4 days ish. That was a ride. Waaaaaay less comfortable of a first contact story that Mote in God's Eye, which was the last novel I talked about which brought recommendations of Blindsight. Here, and also a buddy of mine who just lent me his copy.

I liked it... but I didn't enjoy it. Like, it was rich in concepts and took the story in directions I never saw coming. But I felt like it spent more time trying to fuck with me thanks to the layers of unreliable narrators than it did advancing a story. And then of course it's just a total downer from a humanist perspective. I feel like Blindsight is a better recommendation to go along with something from HP Lovecraft than an almost Star Trekkish "Rah Rah Humanity!" first contact story like The Mote in God's Eye.

I guess if you love hearing about how much we suck and are doomed and the universe will trample us with it's indifference, Blindsight is pretty good. But something in me says Lovecraft did it better. Probably a matter of taste.

Peter Watts is, in my opinion, a very original writer, but not a very good one. He introduces interesting concepts or combines concepts in interesting ways, but his misanthropy is downright monotonous, his characters are pretty much just "what if someone were extremely fucked up in this particular way", and the plots are always "everything's fucked and then it gets worse". Garnish with more or less novel scientific ideas, interesting to read, but not really good books as such.

My favorite flourish of his was in Echopraxia, where he casually dropped the non-bomb that reality in that book was proven to be a simulation, but it never comes up again and has no impact on anything.

I'll probably read anything he writes, if only to hear about his latest inventions.

but it never comes up again and has no impact on anything.

Isn't the whole point of the novel that God is a virus, infecting our simulation?

I'd say that's pretty plot relevant.

In fact, from a realism perspective, it is entirely believable that we might discover clear evidence that the universe is a sim, while simultaneously not being able to do anything about it. I assume the people with the capability to simulate an entire universe would have better sandboxing and intrusion hardening than AWS.

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