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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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Luck to you, too.

What's wrong with the Wednesday threads?

Do you play an instrument?

I would say that I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but it's possible that an AI could possible attain true agency, and upon hearing my attempts at music, decide the human species was irredeemable.

For that I can only suggest fanfiction. I'd shill /r/rational, but I'm pretty sure I've seen you around there before.

Yeah, though that place lost a lot of my attention naturally. Anything worth checking out in the last couple years?

Looking into the Wednesday threads was basically providing only anxiety. I’m enough of a hypochondriac on my own.

As for rationalfic…where to start? Alexander Wales has consistently put out amazing work. You may have seen early Worth the Candle, which I highly endorse to a certain type of reader, but his next big project, This Used to Be About Dungeons, is a completely different and much fluffier work.

Mother of Learning remains more or less unsurpassed in its niche. Not for lack of trying, either; the roadside is littered with mage progression fantasies and the occasional timeloop. There’s also been quite a lot of LitRPG/SystemApocalypse, which I feel share some of the ethos, but I’m not really qualified to give recommendations on that front.

On the fanfiction side, the long-running r!Animorphs story finished in spectacular fashion. Pokémon: OoS is ongoing, and most every chapter continues to be packed with detail. Both stories lean into the LW-rationalist-sphere a good deal, which may be a pro or con. So does Chili and the Chocolate Factory, a shorter story which I can only describe as completely deranged. I don’t know whether it would actually be enjoyable to read in hindsight. As each chapter released, the sub really came alive trying to figure out what the fuck the author was calling out.

If I threw in more normal fanfiction, I’d be here all day. I can put something together if you give me genres or settings you liked. Or you can browse a few of the monthly rec threads and bookmark/epub stuff you find interesting.