domain:nature.com
self_made_human
śāśvataṃ jīva athavā yudhyamāno mṛtyuṃ āpnuhi
7m ago
Having finished Reverend Insanity for the second time, I'm left with the same void in my soul.
Of course, the easiest solution was to seek out something by the same author, Gu Zhen Ren. He wrote two other novels since RI was banned, Infinite Bloodcore (points for the name, negative points for being left unfinished) and Mysteries of the Immortal Puppet Master.
I opted for the latter, initially, I felt lukewarm on it, but I know that in Xianxia, you don't judge books by their covers, or their first 50 chapters. Yup, sure enough, it became very clear that it's a Gu Zhen Ren novel after all. The protagonist is... callous, if not as ruthless as Fang Yuan. Maybe his little nephew. There are plots within plots, excellent attention to detail, and heart wrenching stories about seemingly insignificant characters. It has the majority of my attention, even if the edges are sanded down a tad bit to reduce the risk of another ban. GZR himself stated that it's a more "mass-market" novel, with a more standard Cultivation setting. It's still pretty solid so far.
Others on my reading shelf:
- The Simoqin Prophecy by Amit Basu. The first of a trilogy. It's my second go at them, I heartily enjoyed the first. The easiest way to describe it is Indian Discworld, with clear inspiration from Pratchett. It is often ridiculously funny, while being poignant, but I'm afraid that a significant amount of the charm is lost on Western audiences. I could swear that 70% of the character and place names are references outsiders won't get, be they incredibly dumb puns or allusions to wider Hindu mythology. You'd probably need ChatGPT to let you in on the joke.
- Kim Stanley Robinson's The Year of Rice and Salt. I fucking hated Aurora, and I'm the process of writing a full review, but while this novel is supposedly mid, it has an interesting premise with an AU setting where the Black Death absolutely rekt Europe (even more than it did in actual history, of course).
- I was supposed to read Claude Shannon's A Mathematical Model of Communication for an ACX book club meeting. I was too lazy to do so, went in, claimed I knew a little bit about Game Theory, was embarrassed to find out that an actual PhD in the topic was present, and then unembarrased myself by actually making (IMO) good points. I do actually know a reasonable amount, especially when it comes to practical applications such as in military history. I might have another essay in the oven on that particular topic.
vorpa-glavo
12m ago
Who on earth liked the Force witches or whatever the hell these things are supposed to be? (Just a hint here, if you're doing a sacred mystic ritual, try not to have it look like an am-dram society pretending to have epileptic seizures).
Didn't watch the Acolyte, but it is sad to see them botch the Force witches so bad. I like the concept of there being non-Jed/Sith force traditions out there, and I think with the right approach they could absolutely make them feel distinct and interesting. Too bad Disney doesn't know how to do that.
MadMonzer
Pedo! Pedo! Pedo! Out! Out! Out!
23m ago
They would have to do something really extreme, like declaring all the Disney content non-canon
If they flip to the Legends canon and make a Yuuzhan Vong trilogy I would return to the franchise.
Jiro
31m ago
I think if you're pro Trump doing this you also need to consider you're implicitly pro Kamala doing this, do you think that sounds good?
My rules > your rules, fairly > your rules, unfairly.
"My rules" would be no government control of companies. "Your rules, fairly" would be that all political sides get to have the government control companies. "Your rules, unfairly" means that only the left gets to do it.
The answer to this is the same as the answer to a lot of similar things: The left broke the norms so much that the only choices are to do so equally or to do so only for the left. And doing it equally is better. The option of not doing it at all would be the best, but the left has foreclosed that option.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
36m ago
This book should not resonate with 15 year olds, not this much. Which means that these girls are still getting sexist signals from somewhere, and, follow the trail, those signals came from the 40 year old women who like the story, i.e. "feminists." This is what I mean when I say the system no longer needs men to maintain the status quo: it has feminists doing the job for it. - TLP
In this, Dave Sim was prescient when he authored and drew Cerebus the Aardvark. Initially a Conan the Barbarian satire, it became one of the greatest long-form anti-feminist screeds in Western literature. The political and religious totalitarian sect known as the Cirinists do their best to demolish the patriarchy, but in the end, become a monstrous variation unrestrained by chivalry.
GBRK
41m ago
The thing is, regardless of whether the government buys specifically stocks, the government will allocate capital anyways. Currently that goes toward treasuries and direct subsidies. The government buying stocks instead is pretty much a direct improvement.
thejdizzler
48m ago
Drove my roommate to the airport and will be picking him up tonight. Wrote a training plan for a friend for the Baltimore marathon.
thejdizzler
51m ago
So what are you reading? I just finished The Children of Men by P.D. James, review below.
Didn't realize that the author of this was THE P.D. James, of thriller writing fame. I guess there is something about British authors who abbreviate there first and middle names and pulling surprisingly deep science fiction commentary that has stood the test of time (thinking of you E.M. Forster).
The Children of Men is a book about a world with ultra-low fertility, in other words, an extreme version of a world that we already live in. I had a friend's birthday party at the park a couple weeks ago (I'm getting close to 30 unfortunately), and I noticed that out of the 20 or so couples there, only one had a child. And I think this is becoming increasingly true over the whole entire world. Many of the downstream aspects of this fact also seem to be shared between James' novel and reality: the prevalence of pet parents, the lack of interest in the future of society (but a fixation on the past), and an obsession with health and safety at all costs.
Beyond the social commentary, the actual plot of the novel is a little lackluster. It centers on an Oxford Professor of History, Theo, who happens to be the cousin of the dictator of England. Theo lives a pretty unremarkable and utterly selfish life (even before the "Omega" where most men suddenly become infertile), until he becomes involved with a rebel group that wants to enact some minor changes in the governmental system, but more importantly, is sheltering a woman who happens to be pregnant. Theo's time with this group changes his inner and outer lives almost completely: it's amazing what hope for the future does to an individual, although I was left wondering at the end how much would really change in England after the birth of this child.
Having children is no basis for a moral system in of itself (this was Chesterton's critique of H.G. Wells), but it sure as hell makes constructing a society a hell of a lot easier. Unfortunately I think our world is headed to a future more similar to what James envisioned in the 1990s. People simply aren't having children: I'm guilty of this too: it's not like I'm close to being married even. And that, I think, means that this society isn't very long for this world.
Reading George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four for the third time.
My first time was in high school in the 90’s, where mostly it was Newspeak that impacted me. I’d just finished Rush Limbaugh’s two current affairs books, and the trickery of politicians changing words to “politically correct” variants was my takeaway.
My second read was during the first Trump administration, where the shock of the totalitarian state of IngSoc/Airstrip One/Oceania and the geopolitics of Goldstein’s book made me look at current affairs in a new light, especially during the Biden/Covid years.
This third time through, the small details of Winston’s life are hitting me hard. He’s 44 or 45, a few years younger than me, and his constant mentions of physical problems punctuate the existential misery of his life in the lower rungs of the Party.
He’s married but separated, a fact I’d forgotten. I haven’t yet reached the parts detailing his love affair. I also hadn’t remembered his furtive writing of a diary where he introduced the idea that freedom is the ability to say that two plus two equals four, giving [spoiler] the perfect tool to break him in the end.
Contrasted with the other big dystopias I’ve read (The Hunger Games’ Panem, Brave New World’s ultracivilization, Atlas Shrugged’s crippled Communist America, and Harry Potter’s Voldemort’s Magical Britain), the world system in 1984 feels the most hopeless, the most capable of keeping heroes from arising, the most terrible to live under — and yet somehow, the most realistic and likely, with certain aspects already showing up in America’s coastal capitals.
More options
Context Copy link