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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2125 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 9, 2025

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?

Still on The End of Faith and The Menace of the Herd. I'm picking up Non-Computable You, a book about AI compared to human minds which takes the non-materialist perspective. It might already be outdated, but I find it interesting. Backlog is not moving at all.

Turns out I'm reading A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I know nothing about it, but last night a friend lent me a copy and said she really enjoyed it. I'll report back on how I like it (or don't).

Please do. I’ve got it on my shelf for once I finish the current crop.

About halfway through This Inevitable Ruin: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 7. It's been a ton of fun so far!

Last chapter of Castles of Steel, never thought I'd find WW1 naval warfare interesting enough to read a 900 page book about it. Never thought that so much naval warfare would involve two giant fleets hiding as far away from each other as possible either, or that when they did meet they could spend the whole day trading 12 inch shells and still sail home largely intact.

Thanks to @netstack for the recommendation. Definitely not a book I would have started without seeing his posts about it.

Finished The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress this week. I really enjoyed it. I would say that there were things about the lunar society that I didn't really care for (e.g. the whole polycule thing, which was weird), but they were well realized and I think sci-fi should depict societies that are strange from our perspective. Also thought the plot was well done, especially how he depicted the rebellion as doing morally questionable things in order to achieve their goals. It made me feel like there were no good guys there, just people who were flawed in different ways.

Not sure what will be up next, as I'm out of books in the queue. Might pick up the final Red Rising book from the library, might start rereading The Republic like I have been thinking of.

I would say that there were things about the lunar society that I didn't really care for (e.g. the whole polycule thing, which was weird), but they were well realized and I think sci-fi should depict societies that are strange from our perspective.

Agreed, but in practice this just boils down to "they don't have nuclear families! Isn't that weird?" It's always sex and sexual relationships, very rarely anything at all unique. Even the truly weird stuff is also usually just sex stuff, such as in Three Worlds Collide the acceptability of rape in future earth culture. Yudkowsky explicitly set out to create a world whose morality would be uncomfortable, and that was the best he could do. Better than most attempts (there were a few other good ideas in that story too) but still boring.

I want to see us really pump the gas on weird societies. I want families who grow fond enough of the family dog to uplift it to human intelligence, then compensate for their previous treatment of it by deliberately decreasing their own intelligence. I want attention-based currency, antimemetic math, a government division tasked with tracking down unlicensed simulations (man-made hells), IQ licenses, etc.

Above all I don't want another setting where wow everyone's really promiscuous, but also prudish about some other non-sex thing, isn't that so interesting?

You have to give some allowance to Heinlein for writing this during the sixties when this actually was novel to some extent. Sixty years down the line it seems stale and cringe (and I felt the same way about Stranger in a Strange Land) but that's at least partially a "Seinfeld isn't funny" phenomenon.

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