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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1687 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 29, 2026

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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ACX book review competition

Maybe it's for the best. I've noticed, perhaps somewhat uncharitably, that the greater Scott-diaspora and larger rationalist community tend to treat writing as a sport, or even as a naked dominance exercise.

It's fascinating to read as a case study in rhetoric and status-jockeying, but it's also tiring after a while. We get it. You're smart. You're smarter than me. Your 160,000 word blog post on why mormons would have built superintelligent AI on the moon if it weren't for female empowerment and declining cultural notions of Asabiyyah has proven that you are a very smart and special boy. Good job. Now that you've scored your points, can we get back to the original goal of meeting in the middle and finding a truth that's greater than the ones we each hold?

If you've never read it, Neal Stephenson did an interview decades ago where he talked about the two classes of writer. It's worth a read.

Stephenson belongs to his own class. While I loved the former, there aren’t that many authors that produce works similar to Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon.

That interview reminds me of Ian Fleming's old article on writing:

I have a charming relative who is an angry young litterateur of renown. He is maddened by the fact that more people read my books than his. Not long ago we had semi-friendly words on the subject and I tried to cool his boiling ego by saying that his artistic purpose was far, far higher than mine. The target of his books was the head and, to some extent at least, the heart. The target of my books, I said, lay somewhere between the solar plexus and, well, the upper thigh. These self-deprecatory remarks did nothing to mollify him and finally, with some impatience and perhaps with something of an ironical glint in my eye, I asked him how he described himself on his passport.

“I bet you call yourself an ‘Author’,” I said. He agreed, with a shade of reluctance, perhaps because he scented sarcasm on the way. “Just so,” I said. “Well, I describe myself as a ‘Writer’. There are authors and artists, and then again there are writers and painters.”

This rather spiteful jibe, which forced him, most unwillingly, into the ranks of The Establishment, while stealing for myself the halo of a simple craftsman of the people, made the angry young man angrier than ever and I don’t now see him as often as I used to. But the point I wish to make is that if you decide to become a professional writer, you must, broadly speaking, decide whether you wish to write for fame, for pleasure or for money. I write, unashamedly, for pleasure and money.

+1 for the rec, it's a great essay.

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