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[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread

Post:

Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps take a look at the wiki?

If you see someone making a top level post asking for recommendation, kindly direct them to the existence of these threads.

Previous automated recommendation threads
Other recommendation threads

Comments:

u/Dragfie [+19] (2 hours later)

So I've been having a blast with a bunch of Youjo Senki crosses, notably because our main character is hyper-competent.
So here to recommend a few more obscure ones that I enjoyed:

A Young woman's game of thrones

Probably one of my favourites, Tanya in westoros, as a new middle child of Cersi Lanister. Just gold.

By the same author:
A Young Woman's Inevitable Dance of the Dragons

Shorter and newer, earlier in the timeline but just as fun.

Then some more well-known:
The count of Serenno

Tanya as Duku's daughter. Just gold.

Then most famous but must-reads if have not read:

A Young Woman's Political Record - Continuation of cannon.

A Young Girl's Delinquency Record - Same as above but a little different I think? Can't remember but also brilliant.

The Cold War - Continuation of A Young Woman's Political Record.

There are a bunch of others, a few I dropped a few I didn't read. Any others you guys recommend?

I also want to mention, for those who like Boardgames, I currently running a Kickstarter campaign for a game I designed! It is a reprint and expansion of Cosmos: Empires.
It has a Print and Play pledge option, as well as a to-be-completed singleplayer mode (2-8 players otherwise).
Please check that out as well if it sounds interesting! It's really hard being an Indi developer and any support is incredible, and you guys have been so far :)

Enjoy!~

u/ahasuerus_isfdb [+10] (8 hours later)

A few more Tanya fics that I thought were decent-to-good:

And a couple of Tanya fics which I thought were well written but eventually abandoned for various reasons:

  • A Young Girl's Guerrilla War - Code Geas crossover. Tanya's character development was handled well, but at some point we started getting really long chapters from other characters’ perspective, which created significant pacing issues.
  • A Young Woman's Marvelous Adventure - Tanya into MCU; may work better for MCU fans.

u/aritalay [+7] (11 hours later)

A Young Girl's Quirky Retirement was a pretty good MHA crossover, dead now.

u/SpeakKindly [+4] (4 days later)

Another MHA crossover with (sort of) Tanya: The Heroic Chronicles of a Young Man.

In my head, I keep confusing it with My Hero School Adventure is Wrong, As Expected, which is an MHA crossover that does not involve Tanya at all, but the main characters feel like they have a lot in common. (It's a crossover with My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected, which I am otherwise unfamiliar with.)

u/thomas_m_k [+5] (2 days later)

A Young Woman's Inevitable Dance of the Dragons is very interesting in that it never shows the perspective of Tanya, the main character. We only get PoVs from the people around her. It works, but I think it only works because I have read so much Youjo Senki fiction that I can guess what Tanya is thinking all the time.

u/lillarty [+3] (4 days later)

I wonder if the author was inspired by High Tide, another Dance of Dragons fic which notably never gives us a PoV of the SI.

u/suddenly_lurkers [+4] (17 hours later)

Here's a few more:

u/Naitra [+7] (a day later)

Read Threefold. Doesn't really feel like a Tanya fic to be honest. You can replace "Tanya" with a random OC and nothing would change.

It's a decent read, but I feel like author just put the Youjo Senki cross to get readers from the already established fanbase.

u/Thatguy3367 [+2] (20 hours later)

Summon Perfect Warlady Instead of joining the army, Tanya is summoned to erfworld.

u/Child-Ren [+2] (7 days later)

I just tried reading and strongly disliked the count of Serenno, especially how OC Dooku's wife's Mary Sue traits like giving everyone around her to carry idiot balls so she looks good. Such as Dooku apparently needing to be convinced to get Tanya social interaction. Or knowing Dooku better in 9 months than Yoda could in however many years as Jedi. Or needing to remind Dooku, experienced Jedi diplomat, of basic etiquette.

u/hwc [+1] (3 days later)

I just read The Cold War. It was good, but maybe not as good as Political Record. I'm not sure if it is wrapping up the plot or will go on for a while more.

I'm also finally motivated to go seek out the original source material.

u/Nivirce [+1] (6 days later)

I'm aghast we're talking about Youjo Senki fics and no one mentioned A Young Ghoul's Unseen War, a Tokyo Ghoul crossover. To be fair, it is a very recent fic, with only 10 chapters, but it is very well written. I do think everyone should at least give it a shot.

u/gfe98 [+9] (3 hours later)

Have You Tried Dueling It Away - I like this Yugioh fic, plenty of dramatic moments and progression. The quest format makes things more interesting to me, since it adds some uncertainty.

Violent Solutions - The worldbuilding in this story is quite interesting. Reminds me of the Ellimist vs Crayak stuff in Animorphs: The Reckoning. A Robot designed to infiltrate a society of artificial bioweapons struggles to blend in with humans to achieve its mission from a godlike entity.

u/Raileyx [+2] (5 days later)

seconding violent solutions, that one is really fun

u/ViceroyChobani [+9] Reserve Pigeon Army (a day later)

Recommendations:

Been on a bit of a Gamer crossover binge, trying to find good ones, so I thought I would recommend the best one I've read (been recommended here before, but not for a while):

  • The Games We Play - by Ryuugi
    • A RWBY/Gamer fic, following Juane Arc. The world building is incredible and deep, and while some people have complained about power creep (fair), my personal opinion, without really going into spoilers, is that the nature of his powers is completely justified, and intrinsically tied to the premise of the story in a very interesting way.

Some other recs:

  • The Dire Saga - by Andrew Seiple
    • Campy, genre aware supervillain shenanigans, with shades of grey MC. Fantastic romp.
  • Dire/Worm
    • The origins of the Dire character, before the author turned it into it's own series. One of my favorite Worm crossovers.
    • Unfortunately incomplete, but there's a good amount of content. He stopped to write actual books.

Request:

  • Any really good Gamer fics. I've read a ton, and pretty sure I've read most of the Worm ones (Greg Vader Vs. The World, A Bad Name, etc), but if I've missed a good one or you have a different Gamer crossover you particularly liked, I'm open and eager. (...in a PG sort of way)
  • Any particularly good RR fic that may have flown under the radar.
  • Any good completed fics. I'm just looking to expand my reading list. Sorry I'm not being more specific.

u/ThePhrastusBombastus [+10] (2 days later)

My favorite gamer fic is A Gamer in South Blue, which is set in One Piece. It largely takes place far away from the canon storyline, so it basically ignores the stations of canon and does its own thing.

u/ViceroyChobani [+3] Reserve Pigeon Army (7 days later)

I binged this over a few days - it was pretty good, definitely enjoyable. A decent amount of the more nonsensical parts of the story were "saved" by saying "that's just the One Piece universe for ya", which...honestly, I don't mind.

The one thing I'd say is that - while it's possible to enjoy it without prior knowledge of One Piece, technically, you definitely can get lost a fair amount without it. I myself have no explicit knowledge of canon, so I kept the One Piece wiki open in another tab the whole time.

u/ViceroyChobani [+1] Reserve Pigeon Army (2 days later)

Sounds like I don't need that much familiarity with canon, then? Which is good, because I've never seen/read the show/manga, though I am generally aware of it.

u/happyfridays_ [+4] (5 days later)

It's well known so you've likely run into it, but if you haven't I'd give Kill Them All - ShayneT (worm+others) a look. It has a lot of really fun power scaling and clever power combos.

Ymmv on the Taylor version portrayed in the fic who is >!callous and vicious towards anyone she considers a bad person!<. Although >!her character arc has her mellowing, somewhat, as the story progresses!<. I enjoyed the characterization personally, but it seems to polarize people (in both directions).

u/ViceroyChobani [+2] Reserve Pigeon Army (7 days later)

Yup, enjoyed it. Huge issue with power creep, but meh, who doesn't like a massive power fantasy every now and again?

u/LaziIy [+8] (5 hours later)

I read one of the Harry potter self inserts recommended last week , Precocious Witches and Where to Find Them, and found it to be an amusing enough read. Wouldn't mind taking suggestions for similarly pulled off SI reads if you all have any?

u/andor3333 [+8] (8 hours later)

What’s her name in hufflepuff is a great one. Sadly it is probably dead, but what is there is great. The author does a good job of coming up with whimsical Harry Potter style events and magical objects that fit the setting perfectly. It also was doing a great job of derailing the plot in strange and unexpected directions.

u/LaziIy [+1] (7 days later)

I've read this one before but I did like the world building done it. It was nice to read something not Harry centric that still was able to attract readers to the plot.

u/Ninjabattyshogun [+3] (3 days later)

Orange Lantern was good for a while, and I didn't have patience for multiverse stuff.

With This Ring is the name.

edit: I suppose you meant Harry Potter, so this is a bad recommendation 3 days late. Oops.

u/ThePhrastusBombastus [+1] (4 days later)

I enjoy Memoirs of a well-lived Death by bor902, where the SI is born as Harry Evans. In this story, Lily Evans died young and never married James Potter, so many things are a bit different from canon.

The same author also writes a Pokemon SI that I'd recommend called The hyper fang that shall pierce the heavens. The SI has an interesting philosophy where he values a Pokemon's attitude much more highly than the inherent strength of their species.

u/LaziIy [+1] (7 days later)

Thanks for the recommendation, while it does a bit cringy at times, I am kind of invested in the what happened to Lily evans plot.

u/Keevill93 [+1] (7 hours later)

There's The Traitor's Daughter. It's fem!Harry in Slytherin rather than an SI and it's very likely dead, but it has similar vibes.

u/Keevill93 [+16] (8 hours later)

Fallow Fields, a Naruto SI.

Blurb:

For every rising star that the shinobi world produces, a hundred other geniuses are chewed up and spit out. Seiko crawls out of that grinder, only to find that she still has the rest of her life to face head on.

Following an SI into the OC older sister of Kakashi as she navigates ninja life after a crippling injury, this fic delves into some interesting character dynamics and a look at Konoha from a fairly unique perspective: that of the ninja working desk duty where missions are handed out. The SI manages to have agency despite not ostensibly being a combatant, and makes initially minor but later much more major changes to canon despite her physical struggles. The relationship between her and Kakashi is fun to read about, and the dialogue is great, if a little opaque at times.

In the process of grabbing the link to that fic, I realised it's by the same author as another Naruto SI I'd give a rec to: The Scorpion and the Frog.

Blurb:

Maybe the fate of Uchiha Itachi and the Uchiha Clan could have been changed if Itachi had just had one more family member he could trust -- someone as powerful, invested in Konoha, and devoted to the clan as him. Someone with a little extra knowledge up her sleeve.

Unfortunately for Itachi, the Uchiha's abysmal luck with siblings has given him... Kaeru.

This fic follows the OC sister of Itachi and Sasuke as she makes her way through the ninja life and hates every moment of it, culminating in a twist where she takes the fall for Itachi for the Uchiha massacre and joins Akatsuki in his place. The protagonist is... your mileage may vary for her, but I found her great fun, abrasive in a way I found entertaining. The character interactions and dynamics are clearly this author's strength, and she shows them off to great effect again here. A bonus: this one is complete at 63k words and well worth an evening of reading.

Next is a Worm/Shadowrun fusion, Good People.

Blurb:

Taylor Hebert's no Shadowrunner, just a talented technomancer who spends her days doing petty Matrix jobs. Then a crew of runners in need of a tech expert reaches out to her with an offer too profitable to refuse, and she discovers that for someone with her gifts, there are much better - and riskier - ways to make a profit.

In which Taylor is a hacker working with the Undersiders... but there's more to it than that, of course, as you'd expect. Though I'm not familiar enough with Shadowrun to say how accurate it is, I can say the worldbuilding on its own is stellar, seemlessly translating the characters, their personalities and Worm-canon powers into the dystopic cyberpunk magic setting. This author writes the Undersiders' dynamic really well, with creative heists and action interspersed with moments of great character development.

Canucks is an interesting one.

Blurb

"What are you?" - Ygritte of the Free Folk

"Canadians."

"What the bugger's a Canadian?"

... not the best summary. A Game of Thrones fanfiction where a small group of OC Canadian soldiers find themselves beyond the wall in mysterious circumstances with a bunch of equipment including a tank thingie(?) and a lot of guns and ammunition, and somehow it doesn't devolve into wanky uplift! They immediately encounter the white walkers and retreat, thereafter forced to ally with the Free Folk to prevent further disaster North of the Wall. The characters are interesting and surprisingly fleshed out, the plot moves at a good pace with interesting developments, and the world reacts to the appearance of some dudes with guns in ways that feel appropriate. There are a couple of stumbles plotwise, but overall I think it's worth a read.

... and I'll self shill again.

Late to the Party, a fantasy isekai story with a little twist I've been writing for Royal Road's writeathon challenge:

The desperate people of a world assailed by chaos demons are forced to turn to their last resort: summoning the five prophesied heroes to save them. Unfortunately, even after all their careful preparations, something goes wrong. Only four heroes arrive.

One hundred years later, Lucas Brown wakes up in a ruined, decrepit castle with no idea how he got there. With rapidly-growing abilities, magic or otherwise, foisted on him, Lucas is forced to survive in a dying world where everyone knows his name, and many have strong opinions on his long absence.

And far in the North, in the Blighted Lands, the Demon Lord awaits.

Check it out if you feel like it.

We're nearing the end of the first arc with about 70k words published so far, and most feedback has been generally positive. My intent is to have the protagonist explore the magic system with a rational approach and display his intelligence in doing so, and I'd like to think the worldbuilding will make enough sense to pass muster. I want to build a cast of likeable, intelligent characters who make understandable decisions based on their circumstances and personalities. As I said, we're reaching the end of the first 'arc' and from here a lot more will be revealed about the world and the plot will kick into higher gear.

u/PancakeMenace [+2] (3 days later)

tried out your story and quite liked it, good work!

u/Aggravating-Error679 [+2] (4 days later)

I've really been enjoying late too the party so far! Definitely enjoying the jump straight to political considerations rather than "welcome saviour" response. A real shame that Lukas and Rena couldn't have a post reveal heart to heart

u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+4] fear of last pages (2 days later)

Your story title is great!

Other things that really stood out to me were the characters' reactions in the last chapter (especially the Skycloak's), and the idea behind the >!conspiracy!<.

✂ [rest of review snipped] ✂

u/Dragongeek [+15] Path to Victory (5 hours later)

This week I read:

Systema Delenda Est by InadvisablyCompelled

This is the same author who wrote Paranoid Mage and Blue Core which are both rather popular on RR, yet I had mixed-to-negative feelings about (Paranoid mage had a decent start, then got lost; Blue Core is too porny and just eugh).

Despite this, I decided to give this a shot, because the premise looked interesting (anti-System apocalypse), and after reading what's available, I'd rate it as "good/decent Royalroad fare" and I'll probably follow it and read the next couple chapters as they come out.

Basically, the premise is that Earth got "system apocalypsed" sometime in the future, but surprise, the fundamentals of the System (basically the Xianxia genre as a whole) are complete dogshit and all revolve around power, killing, exploitation, etc. The mostly post-biological human civilization didn't really jive well with the System's brand of mind control (euphoric level ups from killing things) along with all the other Xianxia bullshit like "young masters" portaling into the "new frontier" (Earth) and "dungeons" forming. In response, the humans and their AIs got their shit together and did a little technology vs physics-altering System-magic slugfest. The humans won, and were able to push the System out of Earth/Sol space.

After this victory, a traumatized survivor and combatant in this war (Cato) decides that this isn't enough, and launches a one-gestalt crusade against the System. Armed with all the tools of future humanity technology (think factorio, von-neumann, etc) he slips into a rapidly closing portal to a System-ruled world with the mission of liberating the world from the System using, among other methods, orbital railguns and god-killer antimatter shells.

It's fun because the two genres (posthumanity scifi and xianxia-system-cultivation etc) clash together well and in interesting ways. Cato is, as a postbiological gestalt, essentially immortal and playing what could almost be considered creative mode Factorio in space where he develops orbital and lunar infrastructure, and meanwhile high-powered "classers/cultivators" are mucking around on the planet and such. It's a very interesting fusion, and I'm interested to see where the author takes this.

Recommendations?

Anyone got some more recommendations in this genre (fighting back against system-apocalypses or the fundamentals of the xianxia setting)?

u/GlueBoy [+10] anti-skub (14 hours later)

Shadow Slave might match your criteria. There's a pervasive ambiguity over whether the system, referred to in world as the Nightmare Spell, is the savior of the world or its doom.

I really like the story, but I recognize that it's kind of a mixed bag. The worldbuilding and plot can be fantastic, it has that mystery box aspect present in all the best rat!fics like hpmor and WtC. The prose is clunky and the pacing is often abysmal.

u/DomesticatedDungeon [+6] (6 hours later)

recommendations in this genre (fighting back against system-apocalypses or the fundamentals of the xianxia setting)?

• Apocalypse: Generic System by Macronomicon

• Outer Sphere, The by Macronomicon

• Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

? Release That Witch by Er Mu – may also be of interest

• Forerunner Initiative, The by Draith – but it's non-rational and a fluff.

u/ansible [+5] The Culture (22 hours later)

How interesting. Cato has some resemblance to The Thing (from the movie of the same name). I'm also reminded of the bioweapon from the end of Banks' Look to Windward, and Blood Music. Neat.

u/BavarianBarbarian_ [+5] (7 hours later)

Anyone got some more recommendations in this genre (fighting back against system-apocalypses or the fundamentals of the xianxia setting)?

Under a certain PoV, Worm and Ward would fit under that umbrella ducks and runs for cover

u/GaBeRockKing [+1] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (5 days later)

Anyone got some more recommendations in this genre (fighting back against system-apocalypses or the fundamentals of the xianxia setting)?

Just in case, have you read The Salvation War? It has a similar sort of ethos.

Also, I would highly recommend the my little pony fanfic* The Conversion Bureau: Not Alone which has the premise of, "ponies invade earth, humans fight back. It's pretty high octane Humanity Fuck Yeah.

* you don't have to be an MLP fan to enjoy this fic. In fact, it's better if you aren't, because there's quite a bit of fandom bashing going on haha.

u/Zeitfor [+7] (14 hours later)

Omicron, the author of the excellent Now You Feel Like Number None recently started another story Asphodel in Mourning.

Firstly, go read Number None if you haven't already, you won't regret it! Secondly, although it's still very early on, I quite enjoy what's there of Asphodel. The Disco Elysium style really lends itself well to the anthropomorphism of the types, and the main character's viewpoint is an interesting non-standard one, which I tend to enjoy.

u/NTaya [+5] Tzeentch (3 days later)

I opened both links, and was immediately pleasantly surprised by the writing style. Something this readable is rare to come by. With that said, how much do I need to know from either Bleach or Pokemon (or Hollow Knight; well, at least I'm familiar with Disco Elysium!)? I read the first arc of Bleach (saving Rukia) about ten years ago, and I know general stuff about Pokemon through cultural osmosis.

u/Zeitfor [+2] (3 days later)

For Number None, not much of bleach. It's largely content to explore its own side of things. For Asphodel, I know almost nothing about Disco Elysium and it reads perfectly fine to me. Seems much more Pokemon based and merely using the Disco style as an alternative storytelling device.

u/NTaya [+2] Tzeentch (3 days later)

Hmm. I suppose I would start with Number None, then, since I don't really know much about Pokemon. Thanks!

u/netstack_ [+2] (a day later)

I read Number None up through >!beating Yammy!<. Great prose, heartstrings tugged, plenty of clever little moments in the characterization and setting. I paused because >!if that was victory!<, our bug was due for a looooooooot more angst. How much longer would you say it continues? Was I anywhere close to an ending?

u/Anderkent [+2] (15 days later)

I just finished the story and I think that was close to the angstiest it gets, it does not keep escalating the angst for that much longer the way some stories do

u/Zeitfor [+1] (a day later)

Ah sorry, I don't recall where exactly that was in the story. I do remember there were some pretty great scenes after that point though that are worth the read.

u/Anderkent [+2] (15 days later)

Number None was really good. Time to dig into the new thing!

u/Zeitfor [+1] (15 days later)

Glad you enjoyed it :)

u/mi1dintelligence [+3] (2 days later)

If you are interested in biology, or just appreciate detailed speculations on fantasy elements, this is the fic for you. 

Characters The main character's main trait is a passion for biology and teaching it. It comes through as really genuine and is highly contagious(to the reader and the other characters). The cast is full of fun characters, enough so that even if the worldbuilding goes over your head the character's shenanigans might carry you through. 

Worldbuilding The magical biology worldbuilding is amazing. The story explains how turgor pressure applies to slimes, teases dragons through an eel with vestigial glands that produce flammable oil and so on. 

Overall, a fic I absolutely adore for its fun characters and fascinating worldbuilding(+links to interesting further reads). Only downside is that the story hasn't had a chance to go far yet( though the plot isn't the main draw) and is on indefinite hiatus.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33378/i-became-a-biologist-in-a-fantasy-world

u/Blade_of_Boniface [+6] Imperium of Man (5 hours later)

It's been recommended a couple of times on this sub in the past, it's relatively well-known in webfiction circles, but if you're looking for a web serial with excellent horror worldbuilding based on the magical girl genre, I recommend Nowhere Stars by Anemone. If you're expecting something along the lines of Worm by Wildbow then you won't be too disappointed since both blend cosmic and psychoanalytic horror into a nobledark world with a lonely, pessimistic teenage girl protagonist with a grotesque, tragic ability who gradually build up their power.

u/Naitra [+10] (20 hours later)

Nowhere Stars has great potential, but it's 50% angst by weight which really slows down the plot. Worldbuilding is also very interesting, but it is under explored due to aforementioned focus on angst. Author needs to either move the plot, or increase his release schedule.

u/Blade_of_Boniface [+2] Imperium of Man (2 days later)

That's fair, I like a lot of angst but I understand that others might feel it's superfluous.

u/thomas_m_k [+6] (4 days later)

Eliezer Yudkowsky (of HPMOR fame) has opened a prediction market for getting fiction recommendations. I'm pretty sure he has read the four highest trading ones though. (At the time of writing, that's Unsong, Antimemetics division, Practical Guide to Evil, Cordyceps.)

He also lists fiction he enjoyed. I knew most of it, but not all, so I have some new things to try now!

u/lsparrish [+6] (4 hours later)

Non-fiction, but a strong recommendation: HealthyGamerGG on youtube. I've seen other therapist youtube channels, but what seems to set this one apart is how tailored it is for systematic thinkers. The target audience is gamers, but the consequence of making therapy that works for gamers is making therapy that works for people who are highly analytical/systematizing.

Caveat: In addition to being a trained therapist, Dr. K. is a Buddhist monk, and some of the ideas he brings from there come across a bit deathist. He doesn't come across as particularly dogmatic about it, just thought I'd mention it. (Potentially a good resource for steelmanning that POV.)

u/everything_is_rigged [+19] (2 days later)

I don't like his Eastern vs Western medicine rhetoric. I would have expected someone like him to not fall prey to the 'It has existed for thousands of years so it must be right' fallacy.

u/Raileyx [+9] (5 days later)

throwback to the time when someone called in because they were having problems with anger, and his number one advice to that dude was unironically to eat more yoghurt, because gut biomes and [some indian terms I've forgotten about, something something spiritual balance]. No I'm not making this up.

Guy alternates between extremely sharp and useful insight on the human condition, and falling into a bottomless pit of esoteric woo.

u/ianstlawrence [+4] (6 days later)

You might enjoy his discussion with Dr Mike, where Dr Mike kinda goes on the offensive against the Eastern Medicine stuff, and it allows you to get a deeper look at what Dr K thinks.

(Dr Mike is another youtube doctor that is very successful)

Link - https://youtu.be/zt6i6vVgiO4

u/NTaya [+2] Tzeentch (3 days later)

Hmm. I'm a Theravāda Buddhist, though obviously not a monk (I haven't even been to a silent retreat yet, though I plan to). My general vibe from various suttas, meditations, and just speaking to people was "yeah, nirvana is cool, but you definitely ain't getting it this time around, so just focus on living the best/least-dukkha life." If you were to die, most/all of your progress to enlightenment would get reset, which is obviously unproductive.

u/Audere_of_the_Grey [-3] Grey Collegium (4 hours later)

there's no point in steelmanning deathism, it's like steelmanning slavery or something. no need to be charitable to a position that advocates in favor of everyone dying.

u/sephirothrr [+14] (11 hours later)

If that's the way you feel, you might be on the wrong subreddit.

Or perhaps, more pithily, to steelman your own comment - I think you may misunderstand the meaning of the term. "Steelmanning" doesn't imply defending a concept, it simply means arguing against the most charitable version of a position you disagree with, in order to more robustly defeat it. If anything, that's all the more reason to do it for topics you may consider morally distasteful.

u/Audere_of_the_Grey [-4] Grey Collegium (11 hours later)

yes, i understand that steelmanning doesnt imply defending a concept. i'm saying that we should be past the point of deathism being a position we need to argue against charitably. do you also think we should steelman nazism? i would think not, because a position like "this ethnic group should die" is so obviously wrong and evil that there's no need to engage with it on that level. the position "everyone should die" is not any better.

u/JohnKeel [+9] (12 hours later)

Ironically, you’re missing the point by failing to steelman deathism. What most people think is not “everyone should die,” but rather “everyone should accept that they will die eventually,” because historically everyone has eventually died and making your peace with that has been a better choice than denial.

u/Audere_of_the_Grey [-3] Grey Collegium (12 hours later)

"making peace with" death is never correct. you can fight against it in any era. people who "make peace with" death are the reason for countless deaths every day due to people not being cryonically preserved.

u/JohnKeel [+11] (13 hours later)

What I'm saying is that you are in fact failing to understand the actual "deathist" position and arguing against the wrong thing - the average "deathist" isn't someone who likes death, but rather someone who believes death can't be avoided, and so chooses to live a life they enjoy instead of one of constant worry.

Also - cryonics itself is a massive long-shot, since it's expensive, complicated, and unproven. It's very reasonable to focus on something else, even if you're really trying to avoid death.

u/lsparrish [+5] (15 hours later)

You're both right. One thing that makes me absolutely angry is that cryonics hasn't been adopted by most of the population and the medical providers they trust to try to keep them alive. Long shot? Of course it is now but it wouldn't be such a long shot if everyone were doing it, if science as a whole took the project seriously, if it were the standard of care at every hospital.

I think the real issue is that basically everyone treats death like a trauma victim. Because it's traumatic. We are trauma victims, it's just not as visible as such because it's such a shared trauma.

We all have this thought as a kid that death is terrifying, we don't want to die. Then we typically believe a story of an afterlife, come to accept/rationalize death somehow, or carry a burden of terror that we just try not to think about.

The hard path is to accept that it's terrifying, and still be able to do something about it. To at least try. That's a tightrope because the mind is really, predictably bad at thinking about it rationally.

u/Amonwilde [+3] (11 hours later)

I mean, yes, you should, because then your arguments against it will be better.

u/Audere_of_the_Grey [-6] Grey Collegium (11 hours later)

if you're making elaborate, masterful arguments using all of your guile and wit against "the sky is green", you've pranked yourself and lost the plot.

u/Amonwilde [+3] (11 hours later)

I'm guessing you weren't a big fan of philosophy in college. People argue about a lot more foundational things than that. And it's kind of a blanket argument for ignorance, since most people find most things obvious. But do as you like, ethos rather than logos is how most folks prefer to run their lives.

u/Audere_of_the_Grey [-1] Grey Collegium (12 hours later)

college philosophy is in fact full of people pranking themselves and wasting their time; i thought this was pretty common knowledge among rationalists, given the content of the sequences. the obviously stupid positions referenced here are still debated, for example: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X3HpE8tMXz4m4w6Rz/the-simple-truth

there existing high-status people with credentials who spend their time arguing about something doesnt make it meaningful. i thought credentialism was also widely refuted in rationalist circles.

u/Amonwilde [+7] (12 hours later)

OK, seems like you have things all figured out. :) Philosophy != college philosophy, I just mentioned college since that's where many people are exposed to philosophy. Not even sure what "college philosophy" is, except maybe getting high in a dorm. Not sure where credentials come in.

I guess philosophy is interesting here because it's often a study of precepts that most find obvious. Socrates would walk up to someone and challenge some commonsensical but mostly unexamined belief. It's also basically what people like Peter Singer do.

Fundamentally, there are two ways to get at things (Not really, I'm just doing the classical essay thing.) One, you can crowdsource your ground truth. This looks like doing stuff like having strong affiliations, mocking people with obviously bad opinions, and dismissing arguments as not worth making. It also saves a lot of resources and won't get you tarred and feathered (at least not by your own side). 2. You can examine things from first principles. This looks like questioning everything, even things you don't really want to question, and seeing controversy where there's consensus. It's also time-consuming, can make you unpopular, and the failure state often looks like crankism. The rat community tends toward the latter compared to the median non-rat, which is why your blithe dismissals stand out more here than they would elsewhere.

Anyway, I'm not much of a rat myself, so bang away and play team sports and word valence games, I do that too and it's probably a winning strategy. The sky sometimes looks pretty green, though, especially over the ocean.

u/Audere_of_the_Grey [-1] Grey Collegium (12 hours later)

one of the primary draws of the rationalist community is that people in it generally already understand certain obvious things like "just because something sounds nice, that doesn't make it true" and "death is bad." lots of obvious truths are obscured by culture and worth deriving from first principles, but rederiving the same things over and over again from first principles is usually a waste of time.

if you do want to refute deathism, it's far more effective to make its obvious falsity more apparent by presenting it in a fresh way that counters cultural conditioning. the fable of the dragon-tyrant is a good example of this. it presents deathism as saying that our purpose is to be eaten by a giant evil dragon, which is not particularly charitable, because it doesnt need to be and in fact being "charitable" would obfuscate the point it's making.

u/lillarty [+5] (2 days later)

An exercise that I think you would benefit greatly from, and most people would if I'm being honest, is to describe your opponent's opinion in a way they would agree with. Then, and this step is crucial, present that description to someone who believes it as a way to confirm your description is accurate. You don't need to defend their argument or give them a particularly charitable interpretation, but you need to understand the overall discussion enough that your opponents agree that you're at least capable of comprehending what they're saying.

Is it trite to quote Sun Tzu? Whatever, I'll do it anyway: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

I will charitably assume that you know yourself (although, that is less common than it probably should be), but your comments here indicate that not only do you not understand your enemy, you're outright hostile to the very idea of trying to understand them. You are entering a battle of information warfare by obstinately refusing to collect information.

u/sephirothrr [+7] (16 hours later)

the obviously stupid positions referenced here are still debated, for example: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X3HpE8tMXz4m4w6Rz/the-simple-truth

It's rather poetic that you'd link a perfect example of someone missing the point and devolving into a cascading waterfall of strawmen to defend your own missing of the point and resorting to a series of strawmen.

Strictly defining "truth" is in fact an extremely valuable aim, even in a purely functional sense - while the sequences are a passable set of heuristics for a relative layperson, they're far from a solid grounding in epistemology, the lack of understanding of which Eliezer displays quite clearly in that piece. (Though I'm willing to allow that in the intervening 15+ years he has made some effort to correct that shortcoming.)

Though no one but you brought up credentials: while strict credentialism is usually agreed to be suboptimal, a degree is still generally strong evidence towards knowledge - this is trivially demonstrable with an application of Bayes' theorem, which, as an alleged follower of the sequences, you should be quite familiar with.

u/lsparrish [+3] (5 hours later)

I mean if you need to write a character journey, that sort of thing.

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