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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   3156 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 18, 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.

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So, what are you reading?

Still on Coornhert's Synod on the Freedom of Conscience. So far "Gamaliel" has been winning the fictional debate with genuinely inspired words. Though it turns out that he's just Coornhert's stand-in. These words have reminded me of the value of reasonable expectations:

Thanks be the Lord who has allowed us to get this far in our debate.

Armor by C.B. Titus. It's fine, only really worth the time as I wait for much better stories to update.

Friend encouraged me to pick up Days of Rage but the library didn't have that so I got Public Enemies by Burrough instead to see what I thought of the writing style. I'm nearly done, and have really enjoyed seeing how easy it was to rob a bank in the 1920s/30s. The bank robbers all had better guns/cars/armor than the cops and the FBI was completely inept. I'm also amazed at the level of fingerprinting and other forensics that existed even back then, matching bullets and pulling prints from gas cans on the side of the road. I remember watching the Michael Mann movie of the same name but don't recall anything from it other than the cool digital photography and I think I remember the shootout at Little Bohemia (another incredible FBI bungle).

Finished The Darkness That Comes Before. Great first entry, especially considering it's mostly setup for the main event of the trilogy. I did correctly predict that Skeaos is in the Consult.

I always think of that series when I see people refer to non-men.

John Hopkins University was slammed by critics including “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling for switching up its definition of “lesbian” to instead refer to the group as “non-man attracted to non-men” in order to include non-binary people.

I wonder if this means that lesbians have magic powers, and only feel emotions when they betray their friends.

Well, they’ve got the difficulty in reproducing part down.

Heh. Yeah, I didn’t want to say anything.

R.L. Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. For some time I've been thinking of writing an effort-post on Stevenson's nonfiction, specifically his essays, as they're very good. I'm a fan of Pulvis et Umbra, though Crabbed Age and Youth for a while was my favorite.

Reverend Insanity, a very popular and widely recommended Xianxia novel with a villain protagonist.

I was very vexed at how slow the first 30 chapters were, but even as a noob to Cultivation novels, I know that's considered a lightning fast start. But what annoyed me was the fact that everyone had hyped up the protagonist as being fucking evil, and the worst thing he did for those 30 chapters was beat up his classmates for their lunch money.

Of course, I stuck with it, and the part where he boiled a kid alive as a handy magical ingredient certainly dispelled my doubts!

Alright, so RI is pretty much Grimdark Pokémon. You've got "Gu Masters", going around with the equivalent of a pokeball inside their body that they keep trying to make bigger and stronger. They try and catch Pokémon and use them to kill their opponents, with the low level stuff being akin to the shitty grass and poison types you find in the early level tall grass, and then progressing till you've got God (Arceus) in a tiny chinesium ball.

I mean, they mind rape the Pokémon into compliance instead of training them the old fashioned way, but let's split the difference. Everything else revolves around leveling and evolving them, and fighting other trainers for resources, with an added side of just outright killing them when convenient.

The protagonist is a reincarnator, who had lived for 500 years and struggled to a relatively high position in society until his newfound OP pokémon prompted jealous rivals to gang up and whoop his ass (he may or may not have murdered millions of people).

However, the Pokémon they were after was Time Travel-mon, so he went !YOLO and traveled back to his childhood, and did everything over again with the benefit of foreknowledge. Further atrocities ensue.

Anyway, the book is well written and the translation isn't even all that janky, but the main draw is the tight and intelligent writing, you can really tell that the author thought through the ramifications of his worldbuilding, and knew how to write intelligent and relatable characters yet intentionally made his MC a flaming asshole.

He's a likeable asshole though, highly competent, and monomaniacally driven to achieve true immortality no matter the cost. Cooking children isn't the least of the shit he gets up to, but he doesn't have an easy time.

I'd recommend it, the Cultivation system is certainly a nonstandard one, but nobody reads these things for that do they?

Grit through the first 50 chapters, or ask me for a TLDR, and then it gets really good. If you're worried, his ability to time travel isn't used as a crutch, it's an unreliable ability, and the protagonist is competent enough to get by.

How do people find time and motivation to read novels hundreds of chapters long? A Dance with Dragons had 73 chapters and was already a doorstopper that felt more like a chore by the end.

My biggest gripe with most good novels is that they end far too soon. The one big draw of web serials, including the one I'm writing, is that you are far less constrained by word count and can wring the whole affair dry for all it's got. Million plus words? Fuck yeah

In fact, I'd turn it around on its head and ask why anyone would want a really good work of fiction to end at all, unless it had to. If you're becoming bored or it's a slog, that's a sign of a poor book more than anything else.

including the one I'm writing

Hey that's really cool! Out of curiosity, as someone who'd like to write one myself--

  • Do you enjoy writing? Do you like your own writing? I'm hopeful that my current distaste for writing is because I recognize my own lack of skill in it, which will hopefully improve with practice.

  • If not, how do you motivate yourself to write?

Agreed that the longer the book the better, so long as it's good.

I enjoy writing, but it's much more difficult for me to write cohesively, following the standard conventions of plot and narrative.

The way I get inspired is usually some cool idea or vignette, that I then want to incorporate into the story at large, instead of sitting and storyboarding or outlining and then following along.

Taken to it's natural conclusion, that would be a world building document, and very few people want to read those, so I've had to force myself to package them into a more reader friendly form and end up with a novel haha.

As for my own writing, I'm mostly proud of it, especially in the sheer breadth of the worldbuilding. Most authors, even in sci-fi, tend to only think of one or two novel concepts or themes, or perhaps extrapolate 2 or 3 speculative technologies while leaving the rest untouched.

Have advanced cybernetics? For some reason gene therapy isn't explored.

How much of that is intentional and how much is a failure of imagination, I can't say, but my favorite authors go for breadth as well as depth.

However, even if I enjoy that aspect, and am glad that multiple readers have noticed and appreciated the effort and plausibility of the setting, I've discovered several flaws in my own writing that are difficult or unpleasant for me to deal with. I don't like writing dialogue, or environmental description much. Sometimes I struggle to make characters other than the protagonist and make them feel fleshed out.

I haven't had anyone complain about the above yet, so I don't know how much is me being overly critical and what I do need to improve.

But what I'm proudest of is actually getting the damn thing ready for public consumption, for maybe a decade I've had interesting concepts, vignettes or abortive excerpts languishing in my head or a random Google docs file. It took courage to finally say fuck it, we're going live with this one.

And I'm at 78k words, so nobody can say I didn't stick with it either, though the initial enthusiasm has worn off.

You know the primary motivation for me choosing now of all times to publish? It's because of GPT-4. While still not as good a writer as me, I can see the cards on the table, if I don't prove to the world that I actually am a good writer, it'll be entirely moot sooner than later.

I've tried using it in my own work occasionally out of laziness or curiosity, and am usually disappointed. I still can do way better in fiction, and context windows makes it difficult for it to follow along well in such a large work. Ideally I'd get it to polish up some of the aspects I don't like doing, like descriptions etc.

But I was also care about feedback and recognition, and so far my writing has met all the modest goals I've set for it:

  1. Well reviewed? Check.

  2. Had people outright offer to pay for a Patreon to support me? Check.

  3. Get independently recommended to people on /r/rational? Check.

It would take a great deal of effort from me to improve further and become as good as my favorite authors, but I think that I can compete at least when it comes to sheer inventiveness and richness if nothing else.

And since I've spent so long talking about it, here's a link to the actual story:.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/65211/ex-nihilo-nihil-supernum-original-hard-scifi-with

Now I'm not you, so I can't say how much practise or effort you need to be feel happy about it, but I'd suggest getting one or two chapters out even if you're not 100% on them, just for the feedback. If it's surprisingly positive, that's good motivation to continue and if it's not, you've got concrete issues to work with. It's not hard to do, and if it flops just quietly drop it and pretend it never happened haha

Well, that's not the only draw. Another is that they're free and fairly portable, as they're anywhere you have an internet connection. But yes, I'd imagine people wouldn't like them if they didn't like long books.

I'm currently reading A Practical Guide to Evil.

I like the length in that it's a lot of fun things to read, but also sometimes regret the "where did my life go" from bingeing.

A good 3 minute song wouldn't necessarily be better stretched to 10 minutes, and the same goes for stories.

time

Reading is one of many leisure activities that compete for your time. If, at any given moment, an activity other than reading offers to you a greater expectation of enjoyment, then obviously you should perform that activity rather than reading. But, in those moments where no option is better than reading, you should read.

motivation

If reading a particular book feels like a chore, then that book obviously isn't a good fit for you. You need to find a book where you look forward to seeing what will happen next.

I have to say that complaining that Fang Yuan wasn't evil enough is new, never heard that before! He absolutely is evil, as you say, yet it's really more of a sigma male kind of complete shamelessness rather than edge. Ally with your enemies for situational reasons? Of course! Undermine and betray them? Yes! Kill enormous numbers of people? Absolutely! Do another backflip and claim to be the paragon of righteousness and benevolence? Yes!

I also like how it messes with the tropes of the xianxia/shonen. Later on, we're introduced to the power of love (which causes our ruthless MC some problems). The power of love is very great, but it's not enough to win decisively. There's an element of tragedy to its use. The power of friendship is not a get out of jail free card, it has its limits and can be overpowered.

The story also tries very hard to navigate between the need to have a main character be exceptional and advance quickly without unfair advantages, while retaining agency and a world full of intelligent, selfish actors. There's an inherent contradiction there. Why aren't the first-rate elites, nurtured by the richest sects, capable of beating some orphan from a hick town? Are they all holding the idiot ball? Later on, you can sense that the author's been wracked with pains over the plausibility of the whole thing, trying to make it more reasonable.

I was only complaining during the first 30 chapters or so, and only half-heartedly. I've been in this rodeo long enough to know most Cultivation novels only really start 50+ chapters in!

The story also tries very hard to navigate between the need to have a main character be exceptional and advance quickly without unfair advantages, while retaining agency and a world full of intelligent, selfish actors. There's an inherent contradiction there. Why aren't the first-rate elites, nurtured by the richest sexts, capable of beating some orphan from a hick town? Are they all holding the idiot ball? Later on, you can sense that the author's been wracked with pains over the plausibility of the whole thing, trying to make it more reasonable.

I found Fang Yuan to be quite believable, he was significantly less sociopathic for most of his previous life, it was only after ages of suffering and suppression that he really ended up an amoral motherfucker. In the very beginning of his new life, he had a massive headstart in terms of knowledge, experience, and where to find hidden loot crates with rare Poke drops. At the point I am now, he's certainly fighting fiercer opponents, and I think that as the story progressed, the difficulty and intelligence of his enemies rose too. He has to work for it, and few things he does seem like complete ass-pulls, at least to the extent those aren't mandatory in Xianxia.

I'd also expect having access to 500 years of technological advances to be a big help, as it is in the story, though obviously not as much as in a more grounded and realistic setting.

Yeah, he does make good use of his time-travel advantage, even later on when it depletes a lot.

I personally think the author does a great job of making it seem plausible, yet a few people were unhappy about the balance between character agency and plausibility. Of those who aren't filtered by the bear scene, that's the only thing I've ever heard complaints about.

I'm one chapter away from finishing Alexander Wales' Worth the Candle, and have been for a couple weeks. I wish I could say that I enjoyed it, but the last half of it was a slog to get through as a reader, and kinda seemed like a slog for the writer too. It had some really neat pieces scattered throughout, but mainly just made me want to write an effortpost psychoanalyzing rat fiction and what it says about the mindset.

Yeah the last third to half of it was a big step down in quality. First half was super fun though.

I greatly enjoyed WTC, and my primary gripe is that there wasn't more of it (200+ chapters didn't suffice).

I'm curious as to what flaws you found in it, and I'll be waiting for your post if you do.

Found a copy of McCullough's John Adams at the local used bookstore yesterday, excited to read it. My knowledge of Adams is exclusively from the show that I think was loosely based on it.

Read it a while ago. Recommend. I've been working my way through presidential biographies, and McCullough is one of the better ones.

Main takeaway was that Adams was a good man but a mediocre president, but he should have gotten more than a few off-handed disses in Hamilton.

Let me know how it is if you start it. There's a copy of it on my bookshelf that I've never cracked open.

Finished The Big Short today. Remarkable how much it all resembled a game of musical chairs - no one wanted to be the one left holding the bag at the end. Also a great example of "people won't understand something if their job depends on not understanding it." I didn't see much in there to make me think that something similar couldn't easily happen again.

That’s a great book and really kicked off an interest in financial non-fiction for me. If you’re looking for more stories, Liars Poker by Michael Lewis is good. I also really liked Billion Dollar Whale and The Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital Management. And if you haven’t seen Enron:The Smartest Guys in the Room, might be my favorite financial documentary.

What I find interesting about the financial crisis, is it seems that the federal government learned their lesson from the extreme backlash in non bailing out the general public. The banks were all bailed out in 2009, but millions of people lost their houses and jobs and were not given much additional money. When COVID shut down the world economy, the federal government was much more generous in cash handouts, unemployment, and loans. The federal government didn’t want another Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movement on their hands, so they actually sent money straight to peoples pockets.

But they sent way more money to businesses and the donor class. The theme of COVID money was: we're going to let the little guys steal a little (stim checks, unemployment, small PPP loans) so they won't notice the big guys stealing a lot (big PPP loans, asset bubbles, ARP money to municipal governments pissed away on corrupt contracts, corrupt contracts). By making the public complicit in looting the Treasury they protected themselves from criticism.

Is this actually true? Seems like at least 40% of all COVID payments went to individuals, and a much higher percentage to small businesses, healthcare, and state funds.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/11/us/how-covid-stimulus-money-was-spent.html

"Small businesses" included 9-figure net worth private companies receiving multi million dollar PPP loans, which were not just forgiven in almost every case, the resulting income wasn't treated as taxable.

So where the $1200 check individuals got was taxed back for anyone with above median income, reducing the actual cost, the loans to businesses paying employee's wages weren't taxed even if the business made a profit that year.

State and municipal governments mostly pissed the money away on boondoggles, many of them likely either related to bribing key constituents (public sector union stuff) or blatantly corrupt (hiring the Manager's brother to upgrade the town hall). I saw very little ARP money spent on things that made sense as COVID relief.

Right, but in the chart above from the NYT, individuals received approximately 40% of COVID relief. Even if the money was wasted by municipal governments, even if the business loans weren’t taxed, even if corporations were bailed out, at the end of the day, the little guy did get a large piece of the pie.

Finally got around to reading Battleground, the latest Dresden Files entry. It's not high-falutin' literature but it is a damn fine adventure yarn. More wizards with reckless disregard for property damage, please.

I checked out of Dresden Files after...Skin Game, I think. Couldn't get through the next book, and not even sure why. Is Battleground a big turnaround?

Without knowing what you didn't like about Skin Game, couldn't tell you.

I've been rereading the Cradle series now that the last book in the series, Waybound, has been released. I didn't time my reread quite right because I was distracted by some other books so I'll be a few weeks behind everyone else once I actually finish Waybound, but they're still good books

End Times by Peter Turchin. I'm about 30% of the way through, and so far it's just laying out the culture war of the past 50 years or so, with some theorizing and drawing parallels to other times and places. It has less statistics and graphs than his previous books, apparently. Not bad, but nothing much that's new yet, either.

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