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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2723 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 15, 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 going through Plato's Protagoras. Have been reading about the sophists recently.

Paper I'm reading: Crombe and Nagl's A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force.

Code of the Woosters. I had somehow never gained any familiarity with the Jeeves and Wooster series. My girlfriend corrected this oversight, and now I get to enjoy some archetypal British humor. The prose is delightful…and also explains a few things about her approach to the English language.

Annals of a Fortress, Violette-le-duc. It’s a fictional history of a fortification in eastern France. The book was originally written after the Franco-Prussian War by a legendary architect and engineer. It would go on to influence a generation of military planners even as his other work inspired every architect from Gaudí to Le Corbusier. I have a translation from 110 years later, and I’m very excited to dig into it.

I really need to get around to reading some Jeeves and Wooster, I've been a fan of the tv series ever since I was a lad and my Dad has always gone to great lengths to impress upon me just how good the books are.

It's been absolute gold. Laugh-out-loud. We're alternating reading it to each other before bed just to experience the surprise and comedic timing.

Just started Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore. I don't know anything about Robinson other than that someone told me he was good and I don't know anything about the book other than it was on the library shelf and seemed like the kind of thing I'd like. After one chapter, I can say that I enjoy the setting and first-person storytelling.

Not to be snarky, but if you keep reading his work I can pretty much guarantee his politics will drive you up the wall. Red Mars and 2312 are sublime, I also enjoyed the gold coast quite a bit. You may get some mileage out of the years of rice and salt. The rest will probably not be enjoyable.

I just wrote yet another long comment pleading with the reader not to read Aurora by the same author, and a completely unnecessary refresh ate it.

I'll rehash the argument if anyone cares, but TLDR:

Moronic Author

Moronic depiction of AI or the challenges of interstellar travel

A literally moronic protagonist

Moronic characters who don't have the excuse of having a certified neurological deficit

Self flagellating environmentalism steadfastly refusing to accept that it's redundant given the tech level of the setting (itself barely better than today)

An authorial tract strictly devoted to showing "oh nos, instead of abandoning the cradle of civilization, it's turned out to be indispensable, we must stuff ourselves back in and turn on the lights, the night is cold and full of terrors"

Just read his other books, most of them are fine.

Seconded on every point. (I can't think of a way to make me hate a book and its protagonist any faster than the text spelling out that you're supposed to like the protagonist and that only bad people dislike them.) Red Mars + Green Mars (Blue Mars was not terrible, but felt a bit like an overgrown appendix of the former) and The Years of Rice and Salt are wonderful, though.

I think Aurora is the only book of his I read after enjoying the RGB Mars trilogy (+ The Martians short story collection in that universe). Those books go a bit off the deep end into the environmentalism and Marxism towards the end... but basically just I recommend skipping Blue Mars or noping out of when you've had enough. I also thought Aurora was overly preachy (and mind, this is coming from someone who literally goes by "token progressive" on this forum; I may disagree with him less you than you do, but it's still not fun to read), so it's good to hear most of his other books are good.

Err, it seems I was misremembering, I haven't actually read any other books by him, it was Aurora being so terrible that likely put me off the Mars trilogy, but if you think it's bearable I'll take a look! So far he's been batting 0/1 as far as I'm concerned.

KSR is a sort of utopian Marxist, and so he very much thinks that technological advancement is married inextricably with social and cultural change (similar to another sci-fi great, Iain Banks). This makes for some very interesting science fiction because his future societies are not merely the 21st century, but in spaaaaaaace. He's an interesting author to read through the decades because the futures he writes about shift as the technology and culture of his own time shifts. I might write a short thing in the culture war thread about one specific element of this

Turns out writing a book eats up the free time you had for reading them!

At least it's going well, I'm genuinely happy with progress made, especially tying up dangling plot threads in a satisfying manner without too much in the way of ass pulls as reverse dental floss.

A mark of success in rational fiction, or thrillers in general, is when the audience successfully predicts or theorizes about upcoming plot twists.* A good sign they're invested, and it makes it easier for the author when they spot something you didn't consider so you can write that in ;)

Then again, I'm not irony poisoned enough to "subvert expectations" just because people are smart enough to see things coming. It's heartening, it means your world building is internally consistent and you're expressing your intent correctly. Hard enough to do in a very hard scifi story, harder still when you have superheros, the latter genre certainly being tempting when it comes to explaining shit away or having something show up to break a convenient deadlock.

*Hell some readers have predicted all 25 of the 6 plot twists till date!

A mark of success in rational fiction ... is when the audience successfully predicts or theorizes about upcoming plot twists.

As a reader, the sweet spot is when I pick up on something a few pages before the protagonist. That's more luck than author's intent, since an equally smart person reading the same book but after lunch instead of before will be a few chapters behind the curve, but it's the most fun I have.

Maybe second most, after seeing a movie with a friend and whispering "are they really X?" but then the people on screen really do X—before my friend has time to reply.

Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. I had procrastinated on getting started with learning about investing for too long, and finally started reading a book on the subject. So far I like the commentaries more than the original chapters that were written in, I think 1949 and updated in 1972. The financial results of 1965-1970 feel distant and seem less relevant to me. But I like the sober, honest tone of the book and hope to take timeless wisdom from it.

I read this recently as well. I'd echo that the book feels like ancient history. Graham recommends a 50-50 stock bond split which would have been disastrous over the last 20 years. Zero interest rate policy has made bonds an extremely poor investment vehicle. The risk of holding 0 coupon bonds is huge, while the reward is tiny. People who bought that paper lost their shirts.

Graham would probably agree if he were alive today!

As an investment guide in 2023, I didn't find much value honestly. The good bits have already been distilled into common wisdom.

Were there any chapters in the book that you found worthwhile to read?

I've started on A Random Walk down Wall Street and I like it. Might go back to Intelligent Investor for a couple of chapters. I think 8 and 20 were praised by Warren Buffett.

I can't remember unfortunately.

There is a very important general point here, which is that if asset markets are telling you to adopt a particular investment strategy, and you do not have a good personal reason not to, then you should do what the markets are telling you.

Low interest rates (strictly speaking, low real interest rates) are asset markets telling you to invest in real assets (equity of non-financial companies, real estate, your own business) and avoid financial assets (bonds, cash, arguably bank equity, at the margin even paying down debt). The market is telling you to invest in real assets because not enough other people are, so if you follow the market's advice both you and society should benefit.

What I want to know is how you become a market-whisperer who can discern what they are saying. :D

This is a solid book. I also recommend Peter Lynch’s One Up on Wall Street if you’re interested in more investment books.

Thanks for the rec!

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