51 KiB
Fiction that changed how you think
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Author: u/callmebrotherg now posting as /u/callmesalticidae*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3mr6uz/fiction_that_changed_how_you_think/
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Score: 30
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Created: 2015-09-28T21:55:03
Post:
What fiction (especially rational/ist fiction) has changed the way that you think or how you look at the world?
(The book which comes to mind most readily for me is Blindsight, which got me really interested in the workings of the mind on a biological level, made me value consciousness that much more and, somehow, helped me through a particularly depressive period in my life)
Comments:
u/_stoodfarback [+23] (10 minutes later)
Permutation City.
u/Vebeltast [+8] You should have expected the bayesian inquisition! (18 hours later)
Even better, a version of Permutation City with a corruption halfway through that made my ebook reader think the book ended halfway through.
Exactly halfway through.
For a few months, I thought that the book
Made me think really hard about what was actually going on. spoiler
u/BadGoyWithAGun [+7] (a day later)
Holy shit, are you me? I guess we must have pirated the same version of it, because I had the exact same issue, and thought it was just an extremely disappointing ending. (I wasn't redpilled on AI or even thinking that hard about it back then)
u/Vebeltast [+4] You should have expected the bayesian inquisition! (a day later)
That's the amazing thing - as far as technical story quality goes, it was an awful ending, but that wrenching sense of wrongness drives the philosophical point home in a uniquely memorable way.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
redpilled on AI
What does that mean?
u/Solonarv [+1] Chaos Legion (a day later)
I assume it's a shorthand for having integrated the AI-related writings of EY et al.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
integrated
I much prefer the term "infosorbed"
u/itaibn0 [+1] (4 days later)
Are you being sarcastic?
u/None [+1] (4 days later)
Not remotelyy
u/itaibn0 [+1] (4 days later)
I asked because your preference seems very strange to me. The former is a relatively well-known and accepted word, whereas the latter seems to be a portmanteau that I have never heard before, and they mean almost exactly the same thing [edit: in this context].
u/None [+1] (4 days later)
Portmanteaus. All the fashion these days
u/NotUnusualYet [+4] (5 hours later)
Do you still recommend this? I'm a little wary about a hard sci-fi book on artificial intelligence that's over 20 years old.
Also, interesting fact, there's a very positive review of it on Amazon by none other than Eliezer Yudkowsky, written in 1997!
u/lehyde [+6] Nudist Beach (13 hours later)
It's not about AI but about emulations of human minds. It's also not really hard sci-fi because it assumes some rules about our universe that I don't think are true... However, the part about the emulations was very fascinating (and a bit scary).
u/Escapement [+5] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (6 hours later)
I strongly recommend Permutation City. It's pretty great in a lot of respects. It has aged extremely well (read it a couple years ago).
u/scruiser [+18] CYOA (4 hours later)
Dune. I had already read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but Dune was the first that really caused me to think deeply and philosophically about its meaning and theme for an extended period of time. I was in High School at the time, and after finishing Dune, it occurred to me that the sensations I felt was what my English teachers wanted me to feel about the novels we read in class.
Harry's speech to Dumbledore in the humanism chapter of HPMOR made me consider morality independent of an omnipotent god which (with the help of the Sequence) eventually lead away from my YEC Fundamenalist Southern Baptist beliefs.
In the aftermath of abandoning my religious beliefs, Shinji and the Warhammer 40k made me take humanism seriously. The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover made me question the upper limits of what is possible in my newfound materialistic understanding of reality.
u/Transfuturist [+19] Carthago delenda est. (5 hours later)
...
This thread seems to warrant an article about the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Fanfiction.
u/boomfarmer [+2] Trying to be helpful (a day later)
Or even Teaching Through Fiction, like with the tome in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.
u/Anderkent [+4] (a day later)
Or perhaps a warning tale about generalising from fictional evidence...
u/Transfuturist [+5] Carthago delenda est. (a day later)
In this case, I think it might be warranted. The Primer would have been my primary obsession in my childhood. Adaptive teaching through play is actually kind of a holy grail in education.
u/None [+3] (14 hours later)
In the aftermath of abandoning my religious beliefs, Shinji and the Warhammer 40k made me take humanism seriously.
And here I was expecting half this subreddit to run off to join the Kaworu-Tau!
The Emperor Protects, bro!
u/Nevereatcars [+2] The Greatest Is Behind (2 days later)
Praise the Sun?
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
That meme is from League of Legends, isn't it? I don't play.
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (5 hours later)
That's really awesome. Thank you for sharing that.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (14 hours later)
Ah, Dune. Such a wonder of a book. It's a fantastic work for teaching a person to think on multiple levels.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
Multiple levels, many of them mystic bullcrap though.
u/clawclawbite [+1] (23 hours later)
God Emperor of Dune even more so than Dune for me. Leto II was the big picture thinker.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (a day later)
Shinji and the Warhammer 40k made me take humanism seriously. The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover
Can you link these three. The Shinji one I've seen on here but the other two I wouldn't know which ones you mean exactly.
u/scruiser [+3] CYOA (a day later)
Can you link these
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5389450/1/The-Finale-of-the-Ultimate-Meta-Mega-Crossover
Note the first chapter is devoted to a spoiler warning and a mimetic hazard warning. I found some of the implications of the ideas pretty existentially disturbing. If you are the sort of person that can be bothered by Roko's Basilisk, I would exercise caution about reading this story.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3886999/1/Shinji-and-Warhammer40k
If you like serial escalation, humanity fuck yeah, giant mech battles, and over-complicated plotting, this is the story for you. Be advised that the story is about one or two chapter short of being finished, and that it has been like that for several years now (with a few minor updates each year). The author is in fact rewriting the story from scratch, so it is unlikely he will get to actually finishing it for some time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28novel%29
Has a good and unique setting, explores lots of interesting metaphysical themes like the implications of precognition. The sequels by the original author are also good. The prequels by his son are low-mediocre pulpy science fiction, and thus trash in comparison to the original. I actually found the sequels by his son to be tolerable, but they are still no comparison with the original.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (2 days later)
So I didn't get what that scary memetic hazard was. That everything could be infinitely simulated with simpler simulations being more probable? PM me if it isn't for public display.
Also, any idea what the hell that very last line is supposed to mean? Especially the word she says. Stick that in the PM too.
Anyway, I know Dune. Was a tween when I started reading it though. Long time ago. And I skipped the God-Emperor.
u/scruiser [+5] CYOA (2 days later)
That everything could be infinitely simulated with simpler simulations being more probable?
[Spoiler and existentially bothersome ideas] (#s "This idea implies that you are in some kind of nested simulation. In fact, there are infinite versions of you in different nested simulations with near identical experience. When you also factor in the selection bias of your own existence/experience, i.e. you can't experience being dead, this means that you will never subjectively experience dying and that instead your own experience will just get weirder and weirder (as increasingly improbable events keep you alive, possibly including events like disruptions in you level of simulation). (This is a similar argument to quantum immortality, just more generalized and with even more bizarre expectations.) Even if I didn't care about the people around me, I am not sure enough to test the idea by dying, but I still find it plausible enough to be disturbing if I really try to grasp the implications on an intuitive level. (So it only really bothers me if I think about it hard enough and accept the premises while I do so.) Also, the last line means that Ravna has started counting the nested simulations she has experienced. Before, she refused to acknowledge that she wasn't just in a simulation from her reality, as opposed to being a lower level simulation.")
u/Bowbreaker [+3] Solitary Locust (2 days later)
Oh. I just don't get how that is a bad thing. I mean the 'typical' thing to expect as an atheist is oblivion. This sounds much better than that. But thanks for the explanation.
u/LeonCross [+16] (21 minutes later)
MoR / lesswrong gave me definitions and examples of how I was already thinking / in the process of developing how I think.
Finding a nicely paved road instead of hacking through the jungle with a machettee and all that.
u/None [+14] (a minute later)
Well, MoR got me into LessWrong, so ... there's that, of course.
Besides that, I'd say Doctor Who and Lovecraft. But neither of those qualify as necessarily rational, I suppose, so I'll just -> nod my way out of this discussion
u/None [+13] (54 minutes later)
I think it's pretty rational to run like hell when a giant man squid from beyond our realm gets lost and wanders in.
u/scruiser [+6] CYOA (a day later)
I think it's pretty rational to run like hell
Describes a large portion of Doctor Who as well.
u/None [+10] (3 hours later)
The Prince of Nothing trilogy is my equivalent to Blindsight. Had a lot of cool stuff about cognitive biases and consciousness in it (though it could get a bit didactic), with the same sort of strain of eliminativism I believe I've heard is in Blindsight, capped with some horrifying scenes with those ideas taken to their conclusion. All against a well-designed fantasy backdrop (based on the Crusades)playing off tropes in the genre.
It got me more into the issue of consciousness and how we think, lead me to Kahneman and others and their views (albeit far less extreme) about thinking, which definitely had an impact on how I think about the mind.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (5 hours later)
Oh, goodness. I remember reading about this. Felt like "Game of Thrones but more imaginative worldbuilding", which is nice, but also not sure how I'd do with those horrifying scenes that you mention (or some horrifying scenes, which I assume are among those that you are thinking of).
u/None [+5] (11 hours later)
Yeah, the author has a dark take on things. It can get bad.
But the peaks are relatively few, so it does tend to a similar level of darkness to Game of Thrones (but perhaps a bit worse because he writes weird people, people who are difficult to empathize with because they're actual religious fanatics, not snarky agnostics like Tyrion).
Really, it's hard to tell if it's for someone. Some can look past those bits or really enjoy it, others can't and I'm not surprised.
Ironically, the rational protagonist makes it worse. He's...a bit too rational. Hard to like.
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
He's...a bit too rational.
How is this possible? Also I haven't read the Prince of Nothing trilogy, but don't mind being spoiled on the plot points.
u/None [+5] (a day later)
Most of it is in the first few bits of the book anyway, for anyone that wants to look at the spoiler:
[Spoiler] (#s "Kellhus is essentially the result of a massive, 2,000 year old breeding program meant to eliminate human weaknesses and biases. They believe (as modern cogsci seems to lean) that humans are driven by passions that they often have no clear understanding of but that they rationalize anyway and are incredibly confident in their ability to judge . To be "free" in their eyes, you need to be able to understand and master some of those passions, or at least "see" them. Otherwise, free will is just an illusion,something the brain does. So they went into hiding, and tried to breed out all the "flaws" in human thinking and biology, improving themselves for millenia, learning to suppress those pesky emotions. ")
[Spoiler](#s "The problem is; Kellhus is a transhuman in the true sense-beyond man- ,not in the rosy way. He's not really human or burdened with anything other than The Mission. He finds what he calls "The Shortest Path" and executes it, regardless of who dies or is hurt. He's...like an arch-sociopath, moving people like pieces for his own rational ends, using their superstitions and beliefs against them. A lot of those pieces are characters you come to empathize with more than Kellhus, after all, even the worst human is still human, Kellhus...isn't. It's very difficult to read this hyper-rational person completely turn these people inside out. You intellectually know that he's right and is being totally rational, but it's infuriating and scary, especially since what he's doing works because he denies our basic...humanity.")
Which is as the author intended,Kellhus represents modernity,and the danger of both transhumanism and reductionist psychology. The sort of things he does are the sort of things we're afraid corporations will do.
EDIT: Does anyone else hate the spoiler system?
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
I think your problem with the spoiler, is that you need [Spoiler ](#s "Kellhus... in the beginning. Also, '/spoiler' needs to go.
Otherwise, I understand what you are saying. Kellhus
u/None [+4] (a day later)
Ah...much better.
As for the Dunyain
All things considered their basic assumptions seem to have worked out for them. It's just odious to see in action.
u/AugSphere [+2] Dark Lord of Corruption (2 days later)
Surely the lesson here is not "biases and idiocy are awesome and an essential part of makes us human" and more of "make sure powerful agents have friendly goals".
I don't really remember what the overarching goal was, so it probably was some vaguely defined bullshit. I'd be completely fine with Kellhus fully exploiting the stupidmonkeyness of everyone around him in service of a worthwhile goal. I remember cheering for him half the time when I last read it.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
Surely the lesson here is not "biases and idiocy are awesome and an essential part of makes us human
Why would that be the message? Is the message of Lovecraft that blindness to the massive forces that dwarf humanity is awesome and an essential part of what makes us human? Well...maybe, but no one said blindness is positive, only that the visceral reaction to the consequences of it being exposed is natural.
And it's not as if the fear that transhumanism or AI can go bad is crazy. If you already want it to happen you'll only take the note of caution for granted and forge on, but it isn't silly in and of itself.
and more of "make sure powerful agents have friendly goals".
Make sure how? He's not an AI and even that is not certain.
I don't really remember what the overarching goal was, so it probably was some vaguely defined bullshit
It wasn't. But it wasn't anything you'd value.
The sequel series deals exactly with that "worthy goal" situation should you [spoiler] (#s "fuck with people to prevent the apocalypse?") ironically though major spoiler for second series!
u/AugSphere [+3] Dark Lord of Corruption (2 days later)
Why would that be the message?
Yeah, I don't really know who I was addressing with my whinging. Some imaginary straw man most likely. It just sometimes feels like the aim is not to say "let's be careful while we do this awesome thing" and more of "no, transhumanism is pernicious and evil and we should pre-emptively lobotomise anyone who does not disapprove of it absolutely". I haven't figured out why every strongly cautionary statement about transhumanism feels like a personal attack against me just yet. Affect heuristic and my tribal affiliation are probably big parts of it.
tl;dr Transhumanism mind-kills me, disregard previous post.
Make sure how? He's not an AI and even that is not certain.
In this particular case not letting him loose on the unsuspecting populace, unless there is some existential threat or something similarly dire. It's not so much about preventing him from fucking with people, as making sure the end justifies the means.
The sequel series deals exactly with that "worthy goal" situation
Perhaps I should read them again, even though I vaguely remember being disappointed when Kellhus started loosing his marbles.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
In this particular case not letting him loose on the unsuspecting populace, unless there is some existential threat or something similarly dire. It's not so much about preventing him from fucking with people, as making sure the end justifies the means.
In their mind, it was.
The problem is that it's like trying to keep a dangerous AI in the box...if its jailors are just as dangerous.
The Dunyain don't care about people. The only reason they'd keep him locked up is that it was beneficial to their project*, when it wasn't they sent him out.
*Strangely,this might be irrational since they deliberately eschew sorcery to better become rational. It worked out, but seems odd.
Perhaps I should read them again, even though I vaguely remember being disappointed when Kellhus started loosing his marbles.
It's actually a mystery how crazy he is or how right he is. And it's part of what's driving the suspense of the later series. He's crazy for a Dunyain..but the Dunyain have been wrong. After all, Kellhus was certain that magic and god weren't things...until he stepped outside.
But if you were interested in the rational bits I suppose it would be pretty strange.
u/Escapement [+12] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (6 hours later)
Terry Pratchett's stuff probably shaped my viewpoint more than any other author. Probably partly because I read him at the right time when I was still fairly young, but also partly because he often says a lot of fairly profound-sounding stuff (a larger portion of than average of which is not just sounding profound but is legitimate insight).
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Probably partly because I read him at the right time when I was still fairly young, but also partly because he often says a lot of fairly profound-sounding stuff (a larger portion of than average of which is not just sounding profound but is legitimate insight).
Oh yeah, Sweeper stuff.
u/Farmerbob1 [+10] Level 1 author (8 hours later)
I know myself rather well. This is partly because I spend so much time considering where I stand on things. I have a very broad range of interests and can discuss most topics at least on a surface level. I am constantly examining myself and everything around me to validate what I know. This makes me a very, very stubborn person, and I can think of no single work of literature that impacted me dramatically by it's content.
But I still have an answer. Wildbow's Worm.
Worm was a good read, but the content of the story wasn't world changing to me. How the story was written, the process of serial web fiction - THAT got my attention. I determined long, long ago that if I ever tried to write a novel, it would never happen, because I couldn't write that much all at once with no input, and didn't want to impose on family to read what was certainly going to be terrible crap, at least at first.
Wildbow's Worm was the first serial fiction I ever encountered. Somehow. I had always read dead tree books before, nothing online. The idea of writing little pieces of a book, piece by piece, hit me like a Louisville Slugger. Two years later, I can barely look at that first story and not cringe, for so many reasons. But it was good enough that people liked it, and gave me feedback that I desperately needed.
In short, Worm showed me a way I could write. At this point I'm far over a million words written since I found Worm, and about to start editing six novels for publication (the oldest ones are gonna be painful!)
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+5] Roll the Dice on Fate (14 hours later)
I would be happy to have your work on my bookshelf, so I am glad that you are publishing.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (8 hours later)
Fantastic! I'm glad that you're making progress on your writing. >:]
u/boomfarmer [+5] Trying to be helpful (3 hours later)
HPMOR to some extent, but also Gurren Lagann, The Mars Trilogy, the Bible, and in general Twitter.
u/None [+3] (19 hours later)
1: Can you elaborate on how Twitter has changed the way you think?
2: I just glanced through the Wikipedia page for The Mars Trilogy. I couldn't help but notice the first line of the description of Maya Toitovna, "An emotional woman who is at the center of a love triangle between Boone and Chalmers..."
So like, does this book have well written female characters?
u/boomfarmer [+3] Trying to be helpful (19 hours later)
Okay, so Maya Toitovna is not the most stable of characters. In some ways she uses sex and relationships as a way to achieve and maintain and demonstrate power, which is very apparent because Frank Chalmers is the head of the American side of the mission and John Boone is the First Man On Mars. She worked her way up through Roskosmos by playing the game of beds.
As a counter to this negative stereotype of Russia, you have the rounded, stable Nadia Cherneshevsky, who does not define herself through her relationships, and who is a role model to many of the nisei (the second-generation Martians). Nadia's relationships are healthy ones. She's also an engineer, not a politician.
Maya eventually pairs with the psychologist, Michel, who is himself psychologically unstable. This is a healthier relationship, but Maya still has problems with major swings in her mood trends.
Ann Clayborne is the chief aerologist, and while she has relationship issues that we are told ultimately stem from being abused by a male relative when she was young, she does have a stable family life with Simon. The Reds idolize her, but (I haven't read the books in a while) I don't think she likes their attention and elevation of her to a figurehead. She loves Mars, not the life that grows upon it.
There are other well-written women in The Mars Trilogy. Jackie's relationship with Zoe is between a narcissist and her independent daughter, across a generational gap that expresses itself politically. Phyllis' rise and fall from power is itself well-written, but Phyllis is not a POV character. The mystic biologist Hiroko is not a POV character, but we see her through the eyes of Nirgal, Sax, Nadia, Michel and in some ways the non-POV character Coyote. Zoe, Nadia, and Maya are POV characters.
If it sounds like there are a lot of troubled female characters, there are. There are also a lot of troubled male characters. I think the least-troubled person among the First Hundred is Sax, and he's described by his students as a colony of a hundred enhanced lab rats puppeting a human body.
...
I don't think KSR has any people do things because they are male or because they are female, with the exception of Hiroko. Maya isn't emotional because she's a woman, but rather because her brain and past relationships were fucked by Russian social hierarchy. Nadia builds to build, not because she's a mother or some such. Coyote doesn't wander because he's male, but because there's no real place for him on Mars. Hiroko becomes the mother goddess figure of Mars because, well, shikata ga nai, but also because she's carrying out her philosophy through the farm team and her family. Characters do things because the characters have reasons, and if those reasons are sexist it's because of in-book sexism rather than blatant authorial sexism.
Does this answer your questions?
For Twitter: I started following people in my industry. And they led me to other people in my industry, and from there to some really truly astoundingly mind-opening people and feeds, like Erin Kissane, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Wesley Lowery, The Marshall Project, and Melody Kramer. It's served to open my eyes to a lot of stuff that I miss in my social circles, and consider political things that I didn't know about.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)
I recall them being characters, not plot devices if that's what you're worried about.
u/None [+6] (3 hours later)
but also Gurren Lagann
OH MY GOD you too? Finally, someone else who gets that show!
u/boomfarmer [+5] Trying to be helpful (16 hours later)
Gurren Lagann is a motivational poster.
u/elevul [+2] Cyoria Observer (4 days later)
Agreed on Gurren Lagann, that was one of the sparks that got me out of depression.
u/nolrai [+1] (7 days later)
Other people must work very different from me, because that sort of think just makes me more misanthropic, not less depressed.
u/Charlie___ [+6] (5 hours later)
For rational-ish things I read as an adult, Luminosity was pretty good. "What do I want?" Some Terry Pratchett should probably get a nod too, e.g. Night Watch and Carpe Jugulum.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+5] Roll the Dice on Fate (15 hours later)
Dune. Dune is a fantastic book for teaching you to think in layers. The feint within a feint within a feint is real. The sequels for Dune teach you that just because a writer is clever, it doesn't mean he knows what he is talking about or will come to accurate conclusions.
MoR, obviously, because it lead me to LessWrong.
Pratchett's works are fantastic because in making fun of the way everything works they make you consider why they work like they do and what would work better. I have read them all.
Surprisingly, Artemis Fowl. I was 11, and looking back it did not change the way I thought for the better. Instead it made me an insufferable little swat for a few years there. Though I suppose we all look back at our childhood like that.
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema is a quest on SV. It gave practical experience of testing reality and observing the results. Also learned how to write fight scenes partially from that, which I am glad for.
Ian Irvine's View From the Mirror books. They were the first stories I read where good did not gloriously triumph over evil, and instead was an ever marching parade of taking shit in order to just barely squeak an ambiguous victory, all overturned because you did not pay attention to one particular detail. Not very good lessons from that one either. I learned cynicism. Took a while to get over. Also forced me to consider that the evil invading aliens might be alright people in a shit situation with bad PR.
u/scruiser [+5] CYOA (a day later)
Dune is a fantastic book for teaching you to think in layers.
I think it was sometime around reading Dune (I can't remember exactly when, so I am not 100% it was entirely a result of reading DUne), the I picked up the habit of trying to internalize and understand competing points of view/worldviews simultaneously. I was a Young Earth Creationist at the time, but I tried to seriously imagine how an "evolutionist" (I would have used that terminology at the time) would view things (as opposed to just assuming their viewpoint was because they had rejected God, like >90% of the other people at my church would think). The decisive point was when my "atheist" mode of thinking started outputting more moral answers than my Christian mode of thinking (which was used some mix of moral realism and Divine command theory).
But yeah, it was around the time that I read Dune in High School that I started developing the tendency to try to hold multiple contradictory viewpoints/worldviews simultaneously.
I think God Emperor of Dune might have contributed to my thoughts on omniscience and free will would interact.
u/Transfuturist [+4] Carthago delenda est. (2 days later)
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
I read the first chapter and for some reason I am into this whole-heartedly. That intro was hardcore! Thanks for the rec.
The wish seems kind of OP, but in pretty much the same way that Madoka's wish was. And they're going to be fighting a precog of some sort... I haven't read or watched the spin-off material.
I also found this. So awesome! I didn't know there were so many PMMM quests.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (2 days later)
Yeah, it's very well written, especially considering it is a daily update quest. The wish is kinda OP, but then the more power you wield the greater the challenges you must set yourself.
I should look into Noir Quest, looks like fun.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Dune. Dune is a fantastic book for teaching you to think in layers. The feint within a feint within a feint is real. The sequels for Dune teach you that just because a writer is clever, it doesn't mean he knows what he is talking about or will come to accurate conclusions.
u wot m8 ill feckin cut ye swear on me mum.
eh-hem
I think God-Emperor of Dune and Dune Messiah are the books in which Herbert cuts to the damn chase and makes his point. He damn well knows what he's talking about.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (a day later)
I was a kid when I read Dune and I... kind of skipped God-Emperor of Dune? Could you elaborate. Also please don't cut me. Take my phone instead!
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
Dune is basically a Hero's Journey. Dune Messiah is the actual consequences of the Hero's Journey being taken. God-Emperor of Dune is the Hero's son trying to destroy Heroism forever.
u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (3 days later)
God Emperor of Dune is the best book!
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (a day later)
I think God-Emperor of Dune and Dune Messiah are the books in which Herbert cuts to the damn chase and makes his point. He damn well knows what he's talking about.
He tried to write a character many times smarter than him with powers he could not comprehend: it was a losing proposition no matter how skilled he is. Also, the race consciousness? Being a smart precog of his power and failing that hard? It smacked of him losing because the author wanted him to lose.
I mean, I think we can agree that the thing where humanity seeks genetic mingling through jihad was a bit strange.
It's been a while since I read it or I'd make more specific points.
u/None [+4] (15 hours later)
My dominant, most obvious influence is Gurren Lagann. If you couldn't tell that, you've never spoken to me for 15 minutes at a time. More subtle is the influence of So You Want to be a Wizard. More obvious but less deep are the Warhammer 40k memes.
u/thecommexokid [+4] (4 days later)
The short story collection Where Do We Go From Here?, edited by Isaac Asimov, is directly responsible for sparking a lot of my interest in physics. Highlights (in terms of which stories had the most influence on 8th-grade-me, not necessarily in terms of which present-me now thinks are the best) include
- "And he built a crooked house" – Robert Heinlein
- "The big bounce" – Walter Tevis
- "Surface tension" – James Blish
- "Omnilingual" – H. Beam Piper
Each entry in the collection was chosen "for its scientific content as well as its merit as a story," and Asimov writes an afterward for each story teasing some of the science content a bit further and providing some topics for further engagement.
u/Quietus42 [+6] (24 minutes later)
Not really fiction, but this song changed the way I thought about music.
And FiO made me afraid of ponies.
u/whywhisperwhy [+2] (a day later)
After watching that (which btw, you definitely changed how I think about Tool), now I've really gotta ask- how do you feel about music?
u/Quietus42 [+2] (a day later)
I stopped bitching about bands "selling out"! I used to be really bad about that, when I was a teenager. Then this song came out, and I really sat down and thought about my reasoning.
Vicarious changed the way I looked at media.
u/Transfuturist [+8] Carthago delenda est. (6 hours later)
HPMoR taught me that the ones you love can be the most evil people on Earth. Also that /r/HPMoR is a fearsome hivemind that outsmarted Eliezer on one occasion.
Kill la Kill has changed my perspective of resolve and sacrifice. Chills were a regular occurrence. That was my second fiction after quitting antidepressants, and it had a big impact on me emotionally.
Hourou Musuko makes me want to be all that I want to be. The third fiction after antidepressants, and I definitely cried. I like crying.
Peter Watts (Blindsight et al, Starfish et al, The Things) is remarkably good at portraying the inner experience of alien psychologies. I badly want that skill, and I'm preparing for an attempt for RaNoWriMo. I doubt I'll get close in the first draft, but that's more for laying down the plot and setting.
Ghost in the Shell would have been nice to see years and years ago, but I saw it only two weeks ago. I was too familiar with the themes and ideas involved for it to have a real impact on me, but if I had seen it as a child, I think it would have been very formative. Viewing it now only yielded appreciation for the animation, art, and music. I only pieced together the actual plot after a second viewing, as it's very sparse on detailed exposition.
My own story idea is suffering from a number of unfortunate coincidences; the main character is very similar to Ghost in the Shell's Kusanagi Motoko, and she even has a similar hairstyle as Motoko in ARISE. All this, and I had made those details concrete weeks before I watched GitS. Writing is suffering.
u/callmebrotherg [+5] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (7 hours later)
Peter Watts (Blindsight et al, Starfish et al, The Things) is remarkably good at portraying the inner experience of alien psychologies. I badly want that skill, and I'm preparing for an attempt for RaNoWriMo.
Yes. It gets so bad that sometimes I feel like a story I've written is trash because it doesn't feel enough like Blindsight, before I realize, wait, this isn't even in the same genre, not every book has to sound like Blindsight.
On a related note, I think that one of the most difficult things for me as a writer is accepting that different authors have different styles, and though I write differently than many of my favorite authors that does not mean that my style is automatically inferior.
/really really likes that book
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (8 hours later)
My favorite of his is Starfish, but I haven't read Blindsight completely. I plan to rectify this. :)
u/callmebrotherg [+4] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (8 hours later)
And I am in the middle of going in the other direction, reading Rifters now that I have read Blindsight and Echopraxia.
u/Bowbreaker [+3] Solitary Locust (a day later)
Ghost in the Shell would have been nice to see years and years ago, but I saw it only two weeks ago. I was too familiar with the themes and ideas involved for it to have a real impact on me, but if I had seen it as a child, I think it would have been very formative.
I saw that in elementary school. Arte (an art-house oriented TV channel) had "anime night" and my mother, who was going out that evening, thought "Oh cartoons! That will keep him busy alone at home". I'm sure I missed a lot of nuance but it still opened me to interesting new ideas. It was also pretty heavy for me that age, but nothing compared to Jin-Roh, which run right after that. That ending...
u/boomfarmer [+2] Trying to be helpful (a day later)
Have you read Dresden Codak yet? The Hob and Dark Science storylines are probably right up your alley.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (a day later)
I enjoy Dresden Codak for the characters, art, humor, tone, and softcore technofetishism. The actual stories leave quite a bit to be desired.
u/lehyde [+1] Nudist Beach (13 hours later)
Kill LA kill? I only watched some episodes of the anime and it seemed kind of silly?
u/boomfarmer [+4] Trying to be helpful (a day later)
It's insanely silly, and then it punches through the silly, subjugates fanservice into a plot device, and gets dark fast. The recap episode is 90 seconds long because they needed to squeeze more plot in.
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (17 hours later)
It is incredibly silly, and that only made its serious moments even *more awesome.*At least, for me.
u/None [+1] (14 hours later)
My own story idea is suffering from a number of unfortunate coincidences; the main character is very similar to Ghost in the Shell's Kusanagi Motoko, and she even has a similar hairstyle as Motoko in ARISE. All this, and I had made those details concrete weeks before I watched GitS. Writing is suffering.
Also, being meguca. But hey, at any given time, almost everything good has been done before.
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (19 hours later)
I've mentioned this before but Animorphs and the Ellimist Chronicle put a way of abstract thinking into my brain that I find useful for understanding causality.
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening started me on the path of evaluating just what the nature of life and reality is.
u/scruiser [+4] CYOA (a day later)
I think the train of thought that Animorphs (with the kids morphing animals and retaining their minds but having their experience filtered through the animal's instincts) put me on kind of lead me to reinvent substance dualism in order to describe what empirical predictions my religious beliefs at the time should make. I believed that analyzing the brain closely enough would show that it was interacting with something outside of conventional physics...
u/Nighzmarquls [+4] (a day later)
the thing I rather LIKED about animorphs is that their brains are actually still around. They cover it during the book where ax throws away a comment how morphing super small creatures makes him really nervous.
Because his original mass is being pushed into Z-space and he is worried that an infinitely unlikely collision will occur between his mass and a passing star ship.
u/blazinghand [+2] Chaos Undivided (7 hours later)
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (CrunchyRoll) (Wikipedia) taught me that inner strength and outer strength are the same thing. I haven't watched/read Stardust Crusaders-- this is just talking about Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency.
Not rational, but has this: YouTube link
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (7 hours later)
I think I've watched this clip half a dozen times now. I just can't stop rewatching it.
u/Sylocat [+2] Canterlot Campaign (18 hours later)
Seconding those who cited Blindsight and the works of Terry Pratchett. Also Ghost in the Shell. I would also cite Revolutionary Girl Utena (and, to some extent, its spiritual-semi-predecessor The Vision of Escaflowne).
Recently, Inside Out, though it's caused my love-hate relationship with the Rationalist community to waver further.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Recently, Inside Out, though it's caused my love-hate relationship with the Rationalist community to waver further.
Wait... the Pixar film? How's that related to the LW community?
u/Sylocat [+1] Canterlot Campaign (a day later)
Eh, I should write a short fanfic to explain it.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
DOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.
u/Transfuturist [+1] Carthago delenda est. (2 days later)
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
Ok.... See, I don't follow Eliezer on Facebook (Facebook is for meatspace), so I don't get these notifications of What We All Think.
How does this [intensify] your love-hate relationship with "the rationalist community"? Because the psychologists and neuroscientists criticized a movie Eliezer said was Very Rationalist?
u/Sylocat [+1] Canterlot Campaign (9 days later)
How does this [intensify] your love-hate relationship with "the rationalist community"? Because the psychologists and neuroscientists criticized a movie Eliezer said was Very Rationalist?
No. Psychologists and neuroscientists loved the movie (which isn't surprising, since it was based on the most up-to-date psychological research available, which makes it pretty unique given that most of Hollywood still thinks psychologists cite Sigmund Freud with a straight face), and I didn't know Eliezer had reacted at all.
I knew the film would go over well with a lot of the rationalist community, but I also predicted (accurately) that I'd see a number of self-proclaimed capital-R Rationalists complaining that the movie should have had a character called "Reason" whose job it was to give the emotions a talking-to and stop them from causing Riley to make suboptimal decisions.
Even in the replies to Eliezer's facebook post, I saw some people linking to that godawful Vox article.
u/None [+1] (9 days later)
BUT REASONING DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!
Fucking straw vulcan jerks...
u/Sylocat [+1] Canterlot Campaign (9 days later)
The fanfic idea I had in mind was about a young potential-rationalist, who still thinks in terms of "girls... er, I mean, most humans who aren't me, are emotional and that makes them less smart," and the perils of this mindset are illustrated by, in his mental headquarters, his Disgust is trying to sacrifice all the other emotions in a ritualistic sacrifice to summon the mythical deity of Reason.
u/None [+1] (9 days later)
Please write that. I promise to laugh my ass off at this kid while probably picking up some insights you were trying to convey?
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (a day later)
Recently, Inside Out, though it's caused my love-hate relationship with the Rationalist community to waver further.
Would you mind elaborating?
u/chaosmosis [+2] and with strange aeons, even death may die (3 days later)
I haven't gotten very far in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series, but its words and phrases stick in my head. It's helping me become a less pessimistic and self-destructive person, learn how to forgive myself for flaws, those kind of things.
u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (4 days later)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
That series is middling in terms of ratings, sounds pretty depressing, and is 10 books long... What else about it do you think made it a good series?
I realize that probably sounded critical/aggressive but really, just curious.
u/chaosmosis [+3] and with strange aeons, even death may die (4 days later)
The main character's outlook on life is very distorted, but watching him struggle with that is interesting. The author does a fantastic job writing a main character who is simultaneously pitiful and inspiring, repulsive and admirable. The darker moments of the book make it more beautiful, by contrast.
I understand why you'd think it sounds depressing, but in my view it's more like a book that's about depression. Partly, this means it is looking for ways to overcome depression from within the inside. That's almost the opposite of depressing, it could be argued. However, to be fair, the author is not writing a simple book. In order to explore the topic of depression faithfully, Donaldson offers partial explanations and justifications for Thomas' worldview and mistakes. These justifications are simultaneously very compelling, when you view the world from Thomas' point of view, and very inadequate, when you view them in an impartial way. Sometimes, however, they are adequate. Thomas has a strong degree of hardness and pragmatism, that in itself seems beneficial. He struggles with self-hatred, and sometimes this makes him do terrible things while other times it makes him act very altruistically, out of self-sacrificing love for how much better other people are than himself. Even that logic comes across as twisted, but it's somewhat admirable despite it. Because his negative qualities and positive qualities and the connections between them are prominently displayed, overall, while the book makes it clear that Thomas is deeply flawed, it uses an extraordinarily empathetic approach to convey that message. It is a book about emotionally learning how to avoid making terrible mistakes due to maladaptive reasoning processes or detrimental mind-body-behavior feedback loops. I find it valuable for that reason.
As a work of fantasy, it doesn't do particularly well on most traditional benchmarks. What's interesting isn't the plot or the worldbuilding, but what goes on inside Thomas' head. Even after taking that excuse into account, it gets rather repetitive, which is why I haven't gone back to the series yet.
Have you ever watched Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog? That inspired a few similar feelings in me. Dr. Horrible is easy to care about, he has a heart and some admirable personality traits, but he's also selfish and an idiot and self-sabotaging. The stories aren't exactly the same of course, but both their main characters inspire a mixed reaction in me that's both intellectually and emotionally interesting to process.
u/Cariyaga [+1] Kyubey did nothing wrong (26 minutes later)
The game, Undertale. It came out a couple weeks ago, and was an incredible and inspiring experience.