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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3204 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 16, 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?

I'm still on Kendi's How to be an Antiracist. So far, mixed feelings. I have found his attempt to dissolve assumptions of racial difference very humanizing, and of practical merit. On the other hand, while he sounds perfectly innocent when discussing race with other minorities, when prodded far enough it always seems to come back to "whiteness" in the end. In fairness, Kendi's take on white individuals is fairly nuanced.

Paper I'm reading: Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

I've been reading a bunch of fiction on Royal Road, including Industrial Strength Mage, Tunnel Rat, Paranoid Mage, and A Practical Guide to Sorcery although each typically releases one chapter per week which is why I've been keeping up with all of them simultaneously. While none of them are exactly rat-fic, they scratch a similar itch with protagonists that win by thinking, planning, and outsmarting opponents, and trying to munchkin the magic system of their world in ways that other people don't.

When waiting for chapters on these I've been browsing other stuff on Royal Road, but have kind of been missing having an actual proper completed series to binge, so am probably going to find a new series from elsewhere to pick up.

If you haven't already read it, you should check out Worm, Set in Stone, HPMOR (of course) but also the unfinished (as far as I can tell) Project Lawful, and Unsong.

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