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Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 28, 2024

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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This past week I finished two books: Dark Age by Pierce Brown, and The Canceling Of The American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott.

Dark Age was better than Iron Gold (the previous in the series), but still wasn't up to the high standard set by the first trilogy. I didn't hate the book, but it still took a concerted effort to make myself finish it which isn't a good sign. I'm on the fence about getting the last book. On the one hand, if I didn't enjoy the new trilogy much thus far, I probably won't change my feelings on the third book. On the other hand, enough interesting stuff happened in this book that I do kind of want to know how it ends. We'll see.

Canceling was about what you might expect, especially if you read The Coddling Of The American Mind (which I have). In a lot of ways, Canceling is kind of like a part 2 to Coddling, showing how the problems of the previous book have grown even more in our society (mainly at universities). The picture it paints of things going on in America is not going to be news to anyone who frequents this forum, although there were specific events I hadn't heard of. Unfortunately, the authors' thoughts on what one can do to fix the problems (the main thing I was interested in with this book) weren't really anything that was actionable for me. Not that it's useless advice, but it's 95% focused on parents and people who work in education (both teachers and administrators), with the other 5% being "before you make a donation to your alma mater, ask them if they do XYZ to promote free speech, and decline to donate if they don't". But I already don't donate to my alma mater, so that's not really something I can apply. Overall it was a decent read, but not as useful as I was hoping.