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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   5177 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 19, 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 Fedorov's Common Task, which has been a pleasant surprise. It's delightfully eclectic, and something in its sharpness is compelling.

A truly moral being does not need compulsion and repeated orders to perceive what his duty is- he assigns to himself his task and prescribes what must be done for those from whom he has become separated, because separation (whether voluntary or not) cannot be irreversible.

The last book I read was: The Dictator's Handbook -- https://www.amazon.com.au/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

It was a really interesting take and an entirely different mental map of power than I am used to. The unfortunate side effect of this book is that if it's 'true' then it engenders a heck of a lot of cynicism in the reader about political power and government in general. The TLDR video by CGB Grey effectively covers 80% of the content in the book -- https://youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&t=3s&ab_channel=CGPGrey

Yesterday I finished The New Science of Narcissism. I was disappointed to find it no better than any other pop science book I've read in the last few years, and quite a bit worse in a couple of specific ways (the author rings the "DAE orang man bad???" bell a lot despite himself including a bar chart showing that Trump is no more narcissistic than many prior Presidents; and he completely lost me when he argued that the Goldwater rule ought to be abolished). I was expecting something a lot more useful and/or a lot more discomforting, but for the most part it told me a lot of things I already knew (everyone has narcissistic traits to some degree, narcissism can be an asset in certain contexts, you can be narcissistic without full-blown narcissistic personality disorder etc.). The book also includes an entire chapter about how geeks are narcissistic, which seemed a bit tangential. Probably the only thing I really got from it was a better understanding of "vulnerable narcissism" as distinct from the grandiose narcissism with which we're all familiar.

Yesterday evening I started Ted Chiang's short story "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", and finished it at lunchtime today. Readable and entertaining, but a fairly conventional time-travel story for the most part - it didn't get me thinking the way "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" did. Planning to read Bones and All next, having enjoyed Luca Guadagnino's film adaptation far more than I expected to, to the point that it's my favourite film released in 2022 aside from Tár. (The film of Bones and All incidentally represents a massive step-up in quality from Guadagnino's previous collaboration with Timothée Chalamet Call Me by Your Name, about which I still cannot understand the hype.)

Just finished The Everlasting Man by Chesterton, excellent book. Such beautiful prose.

Now I'm listening to Thinking Orthodox which is a great book on the Orthodox Christian mindset. Also reading The Last Superstition by Edward Feser, a rejection of the New Atheism. I'm.... somewhat impressed by Feser, but he takes the whole Catholic legalism and rules lawyering stereotype waaaay too far. Saying things like you can use Artistotilean logic to unfalsifiably say that homosexuality is evil and bad, same with contraception, etc.

I do find the metaphysical logic of Aristotle quite interesting, but these assertions that natural law theory can have absolutes strike me as hamfisted. Maybe I just don't understand it well enough, I'm sure @DuplexFields could explain better. Or someone.

Stalling out on the Count of Monte Cristo. I’m on page 640 out of 900 and I’m moving through it very slowly. It’s surprising to me. I’ve seen so many people recommend this as one of the greatest books of all time, and I just feel like…it isn’t? The first 180 pages of Dante’s false imprisonment and escape were enjoyable, but since then it’s been 500 pages of upper class French parlor room conversation and gossip. Now to be fair, the gossip, conversations, and side storylines are interesting, but I can’t help but feel that this book could have been half the length and double the entertainment.

Part of it is that it was released in chunks, something like 12 serialized releases. And it really reads that way. I’m going to finish it, but it’s been a bit of a slog.

Yeah, it gets sidetracked often in its unabridged form between the prison and the finale. If you cut out the pointless parts, it's a good mix of entertainment, villainy and moral posturing. It's a guilty pleasure which is high-minded enough that it stands out in the crowd.

I read "Back" by K.C. Green and Anthony Clark over the last few days. It was dumb and fun, and the art was cool. Would recommend.

Still finishing up Tolkien's The Two Towers.

It's still very comfy. I find myself liking how much he dwells on descriptions of landscape, weather, the passage of time...it evokes a sense of journeying. Intentionally and successfully so, I suppose.

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