site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5400 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So, what are you reading? (Also, see another good book thread here in the Fun Thread)

I'm picking up Alan Watts' The Way of Zen. Watts has often been in the back of my mind, but I never read him deeply. Extremely vague links to Korzybski has stirred my interest.

I just finished Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner.

I was randomly downloading books that I thought were from the golden age of sci-fi off the gutenburg project, and accidentally downloaded a Treasure Island contemporary.

It was pretty good. Young adult caught up with smugglers, pirate treasure, the law, jail, and final return to his home after completing his Hero's Journey. Not bad. I like this sort of escapism when I'm dealing with the stress of the modern world.

Watts is great! I love that book.

Back with Albion's Seed, and it's really just making me want to dive deep into every aspect of American history. I'd love any book recommendations!

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by HP Lovecraft. About halfway through it, and so far it seems like one of his better stories.

The Three Musketeers in spurts. Right now I’m reading as much as I can to my baby at bedtime before they get fussy. I don’t read it every day, and the average is less than a chapter at once, so it’s slow going. On good nights my baby is cooing and laughing at me the whole time, and I get to teach them that French is a nonsense language I have no idea how to pronounce. On bad nights I get a couple of paragraphs in before I have to put the baby to sleep. It’s a fun read. I was worried it might be one of those older books that feels old, but once it got going it’s been pretty easy. Many chuckles to be had.

Finished Anathem by Neal Stephenson, my first Stephenson read since dropping out halfway through the Baroque cycle. Set in another world suspiciously analogous to our own except that most intellectuals live in cloistered atheist monasteries, with a gimmick where different subgroups only communicate with the outside world every 1/10/100/1000 years. Conceptually it's basically (concept spoilers) Asimov's Foundation meets Egan's Quarantine, but with actual character development.

The book combines fun world-building at the start with gripping thriller action towards the end, enough that I got through the 900+ pages in a week despite a sagging middle devoted to lectures on a tired mix of real and fake/pop science (quantum computers don't work like that!).

Published in 2008 it already feels a bit dated, especially the parts expressing a Bush-era fear and disdain of ~Protestant fundamentalists. Still I really enjoyed it overall and unlike Stephenson's earlier works it even features a proper denouement.

The Zombie Knight, a fun web serial that picked up again recently after a 2 year hiatus. About a guy who gets revived by a grim reaper and given super powers, and is thrust into the world of fight/politics between all the super powered factions. It's pretty obvious at times the author changed his mind or didn't properly plan out certain world building aspects, which is natural in a serial running 10 years, but it's still really funny and exciting.

I remember reading the first chunk of that. I can definitely see the appeal, though in the end I didn't find the power theming to be right enough. My impression was its built-in zenkai boost mechanic was a way for the author to add new toys regularly, and coming off Worm, it wasn't what I was looking for.

What did you think of some other serials from that era? Like that one with the narrative powers in an evil empire. Can't remember the name.

My impression was its built-in zenkai boost mechanic was a way for the author to add new toys regularly

It's definitely a bit of a cheap narrative device, but personally the excitement it adds outweighs its cheapness for me. And it's still better imo than series that in practice do basically the same thing of characters inventing new powers on the fly but just asspulling an idea or using the "I need to win for me friends!" boost.

What did you think of some other serials from that era? Like that one with the narrative powers in an evil empire. Can't remember the name.

You're thinking of A Practical Guide to Evil. I've dropped it then gone back to it a few times, usually just not bothering to keep up with the updates when I drop it, but most recently I got a good chunk through to the Dead Kingdom arc when I gave up on it. To me it just had the MC whining too much about morality. Imo she should've either decided morals matter and just become a hero, because she was basically a hero in all but name, or if the author had the balls to really make a villain protagonist, decide to screw morals and work cold heartedly towards her goals. The in between state where she'd spend half of any given arc feeling guilty about tough but necessary decisions, and Heroes who wanted to kill her solely because she was nominally but not really aligned with evil, annoyed me.

I read a number of other serials from that era too but didn't finish any of them I think. The Gods are Bastards made some world building choices I found dissatisfying. Twisted Cogs I never picked up again after one of its hiatus' but I might get around to it, I remember liking it a lot.

What did you think of some other serials from that era? Like that one with the narrative powers in an evil empire. Can't remember the name.

That is probably The Practical Guide to Evil, which is fantastic, finished, and really stuck the landing. Unfortunately, the author signed a publishing deal with some asinine company called Yonder that has an absurd microtransaction business plan. I believe it is still available for free on the WordPress site, but that will be ending at some point.

Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success - by a couple of economists who assembled data on hundreds of thousands of immigrants and traced them through census and tax records to examine social mobility of immigrants and their children over the past 100 years or so.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats