scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/6i1pjz.md

What irrational fiction do you enjoy?

• Author: u/None *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6i1pjz/what_irrational_fiction_do_you_enjoy/

• Score: 21

• Created: 2017-06-18T20:05:03

Post:

Books, movies, t.v. shows, general literary concepts, whatever. What fiction do you enjoy that doesn't make any rational sense?

Comments:

u/None [+32] (an hour later)

Anything and everything by Brandon Sanderson is incredible. Words of Radiance in particular is amazing

u/trekie140 [+14] (5 hours later)

Sanderson has yet to write a story I didn't like, but Mistborn is my favorite fantasy series of all time. Even the sequel series The Alloy of Law is great pulp adventure.

u/Imperialgecko [+6] (12 hours later)

I actually enjoyed alloy of law more, it just felt better written to me

u/trekie140 [+4] (21 hours later)

I don't know if it's better written, but I certainly find it more fun. Even when it pulls a Deus Ex Machina it feels intentional for a pulpy story like this, it's supposed to be kind of goofy. The action, comedy, mystery, and chemistry between the characters are all hugely enjoyable and know exactly how serious to take itself. I love the occasional shout outs to the penny dreadful.

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

I was shouting and belly-laughing in my empty apartment at the climax of Bands of Mourning. Fuckin incredible.

u/Anderkent [+4] (a day later)

Mistborn's probably the only Sanderson story I can't stomach. Dunno, all the characters just feel so flat and cliche.

WoR on the other hand I think I read at least 4 times.

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

I'd have to think more about WoR, but is Mistborn really irrational fiction? I think it hits most if not all the sub's descriptions of RF:

• Sanderson typically uses "hard" magic systems, aka ones with very clearly defined rules, and sticks with them throughout the series (even if the reader doesn't necessarily know all the rules at the beginning).
• Problem solving is done through intelligent application of resources, particularly in the first book (there's a lot of creative use of very specifically defined powers, such as the ability to mentally push against metals)
• Factions are driven into conflict by their beliefs/values - one of the main themes of the series is exploring what actually motivates the "heroes" and "villains", and as we progress through the series its shown that with greater perspective, people become more defined by their beliefs than by a black and white morality. Not to get too spoilery, but [series spoiler](#s "even the "deities" aren't purely Good or Evil, but instead are of Ruin and Preservation, which are essentially avatars of specific beliefs")
• I'd have to go back and reread to confirm, but I can't remember any character actions that occurred just because 'the plot required it'; to my memory, they all occurred for very plausible reasons.

Just because it wasn't explicitly written as RF, doesn't mean it couldn't be considered as such.

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

Words of Radiance in particular is amazing

Kaladin mothafuckin Stormblessed!

u/EliezerYudkowsky [+33] Godric Gryffindor (2 hours later)

I'd be hard-pressed to name an enjoyable book that was true nonsense or without reason, but for alternative sense and alternative reason, the obvious classical recommendation would be Lewis Carroll, e.g. The Hunting of the Snark (read it aloud!). Lord Dunsany is also good for this.

Longer books that make alternative sense: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, One for the Morning Glory by John Barnes. Those continuities both have consistent alternative epistemology that's depicted as working inside them, but isn't rational epistemology, but isn't horribly annoying either. Some elements of that in Terry Pratchett too.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+6] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)

How do you feel about Lev Grossman's The Magicians?

u/EliezerYudkowsky [+24] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)

I dislike literary fiction about awful people having awful experiences.

u/Imperialgecko [+5] (a day later)

I agree, the book was good but damn did it make me feel like shit. I doubt I'll ever pick up the sequels

u/blebblee [+3] (10 days later)

It gets better.

I mean, it gets worse in book 2. Book 3 though.

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

Yeah I think its just too emotionally draining for me to finish

u/waylandertheslayer [+5] (a day later)

I've read the first two books only so far, and I feel like the setting was wasted on incredibly unlikeable characters. The lack of growth for the main character throughout is almost unbearable.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)

Quentin Coldwater? I'll give you that, though he didn't seem as bad as all that in my recollection. It didn't bug me that much in the books, but it stalled me out when I tried watching the SyFy series... and there he's actually one of the least annoying of the group.

But in terms of rational/irrational?

u/waylandertheslayer [+6] (a day later)

Irrational enough to make me stop reading. Spoilers for the ending of book one

Spoilers for the ending of book two

And this is after we're repeatedly told, not shown, that he's supposed to be some super-intelligent wonderboy. Quentin's character can be divided into two parts - how he acts, which is pretty much just 'whatever it takes to drive the plot', and how he feels, which is pretty much just 'depressed/horny/depressed' with occasional breaks for alcohol or drugs.

...in summary, I don't really like Quentin that much. He starts off as an interesting and flawed character, then wallows in those flaws for two books without improving much. Every time it looks like he's taken a step in the right direction, he just backslides.

u/alexanderwales [+7] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)

I'd recommend you read the third book, even though you felt that way. Maybe especially since you feel that way. I think most of his growth/change/redemption is loaded into the last book.

But I never really disliked Quentin, because he reminded me of myself, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

u/waylandertheslayer [+3] (a day later)

I might look at it, but to be honest I'm at this point thoroughly uninvested in the story. Perhaps it'll be like with book two, where after a few months I start thinking 'but the setting was good, I want to read more about that' and then pick it up anyway.

u/None [+5] (a day later)

Quentin is never supposed to be some super intelligent wonder boy. He's pretty explicitly supposed to be a pretty good but not particularly remarkable magician who happens to have a lot of opportunities that other magicians do not.

u/waylandertheslayer [+4] (a day later)

In the context of other magicians, sure. In the context of an average person, he's supposed to be very smart indeed (e.g. look at the start of the first book).

u/None [+3] (a day later)

Ehhhh, he's supposed to be pretty smart and academically inclined; this more or less matches up with his character and the way he behaves. He's definitely not supposed to be the smartest person on the planet or anything like that.

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

I don't feel like his intelligence matches his behaviour, personally. I can't think of a single point where Quentin does something genuinely clever. On the other hand, we also get very little insight into his thought processes, and his decisions are almost entirely formed based on what the plot requires, so it's probably just an offshoot of that.

u/None [+6] (a day later)

Which of his decisions aren't the result of him seeking an escape from the real world? The author doesn't spell out Quentin's motivations, but it's right there in the text if you do any analysis whatsoever.

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

seeking an escape from the real world

That's an incredibly broad description. It covers pretty much every possible action he could take other than going back to not being a magician (which, incidentally, he does do at one point). Is being a drug- and booze-fuelled party animal an escape from the real world? If he were really trying to escape from the real world, why not join Alice in magical research at that point?

Quentin doesn't ever properly plan, is seldom aware of what he's trying to achieve through his decisions, is very shortsighted, and generally doesn't come across as competent or smart in terms of how he steers the plot.

u/blebblee [+1] (10 days later)

I'm one of (what feels like very few) people on reddit that actually loved the books. There's something about the characters that resonates with me; maybe their terribleness, maybe their very human weaknesses. They aren't absurdly fallible. The threads of magic woven in are hopeful. The lost years after college when these ridiculously fortunate souls are adrift in drugs and alcohol and stupid lowbrow dramatic shit when they should be better, could be better. Janet. Especially that moment when she tells Quentin about what happened in the desert. The writing is very pretty, which helps me sink into it.

It doesn't feel hopeless to me. Honestly. And they do change. Quentin particularly towards the very end. Alright, I'll agree that the first book is a bit much on the emo shit but by the end of the series he's very nearly an adult. I know people like the characters in the book. Sad, angry, edgy, fortunate people who have the chance to go on magical adventures but keep fucking up despite everything. And maybe one day growing up. Grossman taps into something real for some of us while letting the magic thrive.

I can get how it's not everyone's cup of tea.

u/ZeroNihilist [+2] (5 hours later)

I actually got most of the way through a rational alternate ending for LeGuin's The Farthest Shore (third book in the Earthsea series). I might see if I can finish it today, but here's the work in progress: The Path to the Farthest Shore (4,400 words at the moment). Spoilers for the book, obviously.

I loved the series when I was younger, but The Farthest Shore really annoyed me when I recently reread it. Much of the dialogue before the perspective character (Arren, true name Lebannen) interjects is directly adapted from the book, including how Ged treats one of his closest friends.

My take on it hopefully doesn't require any background for the series, but it probably helps. I tried to rationalise the characters rather than the setting, because the setting's irrationality is part of its appeal.

u/MonstrousBird [+3] (a day later)

THat's great and puts the finger on what I hated about that art of the book. As an avid UKlG fan I would love to read the rest

u/scruiser [+29] CYOA (7 hours later)

Abridged Series. By their very nature, they tend to be pretty irrational, mocking and exaggerating the plot holes and characterizations of the canon materials to extreme lengths or reinventing the characters entirely to make them even more crazy and funny.

Friendship is Witchcraft, DBZ Abridged, Hellsing Abridged, SAO Abridged, etc.

Along the same lines: Darths and Droids and D.M. of the Rings are also enjoyable.

u/Flashbunny [+7] (20 hours later)

There's a Fate/Stay Night Abridged series that started recently, it only has 1 episode so far, but it's really good.

u/Subrosian_Smithy [+1] Nudist Beach (a day later)

Oh, sweet. Is it UBW or Deen?

u/Flashbunny [+3] (a day later)

UBW

u/scruiser [+2] CYOA (a day later)

There are multiple Fate/Stay Night Abridged... 3 based on UBW Fate/Stay Night, and one or two based on Fate/Zero. Fate/Cero is pretty good and has a decent number of episodes. The UBW abridged series I would classify as okay, good, and very good. The best one only has one episode, so I hesitated on recommending it.

u/PM_ME_EXOTIC_FROGS [+3] (18 hours later)

Oooh, I've only seen ~half of those, but you have good taste.

Have you tried Death Note Abridged? It has merit for sure.

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

There's a pretty good Bleach Abridged, too.

They started re-doing their older episodes with better quality. That link is to the re-do of episode one. They made it past the whole soul society arc in like 12 episodes, and nothing of value was lost.

u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (4 days later)

Agreed with all of the above. Attack on Titan Abridged was also amazing, easily the highest quality one I've seen aside from any of TeamFourStar's. Shame there won't be a season 2, but understandable.

u/None [+16] (a day later)

Basically all the anime I happen to enjoy. But most especially, for refusing utterly to make "rational" sense while still completely making sense, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

(Same answer every thread.)

u/RMcD94 [+14] (a day later)

Quite enjoying Malazan Book of the Fallen. Here's the opening of the current chapter I'm on. No spoilers.

There is something profoundly cynical, my friends, in the notion of paradise after death. The lure is evasion. The promise is excusative. One need not accept responsibility for the world as it is, and by extension, one need do nothing about it. To strive for change, for true goodness in this mortal world, one must acknowledge and accept, within one’s own soul, that this mortal reality has purpose in itself, that its greatest value is not for us, but for our children and their children. To view life as but a quick passage along a foul, tortured path – made foul and tortured by our own indifference – is to excuse all manner of misery and depravity, and to exact cruel punishment upon the innocent lives to come.

I defy this notion of paradise beyond the gates of bone. If the soul truly survives the passage, then it behooves us – each of us, my friends – to nurture a faith in similitude: what awaits us is a reflection of what we leave behind, and in the squandering of our mortal existence, we surrender the opportunity to learn the ways of goodness, the practice of sympathy, empathy, compassion and healing – all passed by in our rush to arrive at a place of glory and beauty, a place we did not earn, and most certainly do not deserve.

The Apocryphal Teachings of Tanno Spiritwalker Kimloc
The Decade in Ehrlitan

It's a pretty close articulation, if not perfect, of one of the major issues I have with an afterlife which I don't think very many people religious or otherwise even are aware of or accept.

u/KilotonDefenestrator [+1] (2 days later)

Malazan has some really great worldbuilding, lots of strange and interesting cultures, lots of history. My only small nitpick is that some of the historical timespans are a bit massive.

u/RMcD94 [+3] (2 days later)

Yeah yet not large enough when they're talking about evolution.

I haven't yet gotten to an explanation that properly justifies why there was hundreds of thousands of years of basically stagnation and yet suddenly within a span of years of the books time frames there are hundreds of significant events that shape the world.

u/KilotonDefenestrator [+1] (2 days later)

And some conflicts have been going on for those time spans. But it doesn't really bother me as I read, it's only between reads that I think about it. In the scope of the series, it's a nitpick.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+12] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (24 minutes later)

I used to be into Unsong but it got too alt-rational for me. You might want to try it.

u/DCarrier [+23] (7 hours later)

I'd say Harry Potter and the Natural 20 is pretty similar. It's like rationalist fiction, except that all the lessons they teach don't apply to real life. It's all munchkinning and genre-savviness.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+10] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)

I'd call HP and the Natural D20 pretty rational. Not rationalist, but that's a whole different ball of Aesops.

u/LupoCani [+9] (26 minutes later)

Alt-rational? I have not heard that one before. Could you elaborate?

u/ArgentStonecutter [+21] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (3 hours later)

I just coined it in an attempt to describe the ... convoluted, hallucinogenic logic of Unsong. It's a brilliant work, and in part it seems like an utterly rational story about Qabala and Judeo-Christian biblical mysticism... but it keeps stepping off the edge of the cliff and keeping on going. And I just couldn't be arsed to keep finding my footing over and over again so I could follow it.

u/melmonella [+5] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (a day later)

Your cardinal error was assuming you needed to find your footing in the first place. Should have went for wings instead.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)

Belgium, man. Belgium!

u/trekie140 [+5] (6 hours later)

I agree, but what really got me to stop reading wasn't that it went off the cliff but that I didn't enjoy what I found there. I know a lot of people like The Broadcast, but that just wasn't what I wanted from a story like this. Uriel's reveal about souls is what finally did me in, the story has just become unpleasant to read by that point,

u/ArgentStonecutter [+6] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (6 hours later)

Oh, you mean how he hung a lampshade on the philosophical zombie thing?

u/trekie140 [+3] (7 hours later)

Yeah. Him just deciding North Africans wouldn't have souls but retain all other aspects of being human was just distasteful and discomforting. Apparently he did it because souls are a limited resource for humans, but that isn't how souls have worked in literally any religion or mythology so it just seems random and bizarre.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+14] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)

Well, think about this: don't feel sorry for the North Africans, because they're just like every human in our world. Which I suspect is the point.

but that isn't how souls have worked in literally any religion or mythology

The divine light as a computational structure isn't how most religions work either.

u/CCC_037 [+7] (a day later)

When I read it, it looked like Uriel did that in a genuine but misguided attempt to help; that without a soul, there was no person inside the body, leaving all of them philosophical zombies, who could look like they were suffering (from war, hunger, etc.) but without actually suffering because there was no-one there to suffer.

(In other words, Uriel painlessly killed off an entire race of people to prevent them from suffering.)

u/CeruleanTresses [+5] (21 hours later)

If I remember correctly, it wasn't that souls were a limited resource, but that consciousness was computationally expensive.

u/RMcD94 [+3] (19 hours later)

distasteful and discomforting

You know it's fiction right?

u/trekie140 [+6] (20 hours later)

Yes, the point is that it's fiction I didn't want to read so I stopped reading it.

u/RMcD94 [+3] (21 hours later)

Yeah and I'm saying that if you might want to check out your moral compass when horrific torture is fine but people lacking an irrelevant metaphysical feature is what bothers you.

u/trekie140 [+2] (23 hours later)

I pointed out I wasn't okay with The Broadcast either, Uriel's reveal was just the last straw after I was already considering dropping the story. I don't think whether I find a piece of fiction entertaining is an appropriate way to draw conclusions about my moral compass.

u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)

Oh I misread what you said as what you wanted my bad

u/everything-narrative [-11] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (an hour later)

It's internal politics in the rationalism community. People who make fun of EY, and focus more on social activism, socialist thought, identity politics, etc.

u/UltraRedSpectrum [+18] (2 hours later)

Requisite grain of salt: Scott Alexander was one of the most prominent contributors to LW, is a left-libertarian, not a socialist, and he's pretty unsympathetic to identity politics.

u/None [+1] (a day later)

What the heck is a left libertarian?

u/Roxolan [+3] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (6 days later)

In his own words

u/None [-5] (3 hours later)

[deleted]

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

I think it's fair to say you don't understand Scott Alexander, Meditations on Moloch, or the ideological concept of left-libertarianism.

u/everything-narrative [-1] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (3 hours later)

I think it's fair to say [...]

Yes, because we have had an extensive exchange of views and a long debate full of references. We have hashed out a list of disagreements and tabooed problem words!

You're playing ideological purity games for virtue points and you should feel bad.

If you wanna have a long discussion about the perils of capitalism and the true meaning of cristmasleft-libertarianism, look me up.

But don't presume my knowledge states without. It's bad rationalism.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+6] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (3 hours later)

That's not the sense I mean it.

u/None [-5] (2 hours later)

Holy fucksticks, we have that here?

Man, socjus cancer infiltrates everything in the end, I guess.

u/None [+1] (3 hours later)

[deleted]

u/ArgentStonecutter [+11] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (3 hours later)

Well, that wasn't the direction I was thinking responses to my comment about Unsong... which is NOTHING like that... would go.

But thank you for that anyway.

u/everything-narrative [+7] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (3 hours later)

“In the old days, we told ourselves that poverty was a fact of life. That there wasn’t enough food or medicine or clothing or housing to go around. Then it was true. Now it is false. To feed the hungry or heal the sick no longer requires scarce resources. It requires only a word. A word that the entire international system of governance – corporations, politicians, UNSONG – has united to prevent the needy from ever obtaining. [...]”

UNSONG is an iconic work of socialist fiction.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+13] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (3 hours later)

It uses that narrative as motivation for some of the characters, yes, but then someone goes and and boils a kid in its mother's milk and it makes Hunter S Thompson look like Sarah Brown.

Also, it would make for a TV series that would make SyFy's version of The Magicians (which is kind of like Narnia meets Stanley Kubrick) look like Beatrix Potter.

u/everything-narrative [+11] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (3 hours later)

UNSONG is 99% an excuse to make really elaborate puns.

u/None [+5] (a day later)

Nothing in that paragraph is necessarily false. A good deal of UNSONG is dedicated to pointing out that that interpretation is naive, but it is not actually untrue in the strictest sense. Anyone who can memorize a few dozen words can be a doctor and a farmer, and in that sort of world there is no reason to charge for either service. If not for the intervention of the aforementioned "international system of governance" (intervention which may or may not be ultimately beneficial or necessary) a great deal of material suffering could be alleviated. So the stance of the characters is a possible rational stance given their information. Does the fact that Harry in HPMOR reaches the conclusion that the government of magical Britain ought to be overthrown make HPMOR an iconic work of fiction advocating for the overthrow of any real life government?

u/None [-1] (4 hours later)

Punch up.

Holy fucksticks, let me address this before we do anything else. No, don't fucking "punch" up. Or to the side. Or down. Don't "punch" at all.

This concept that it's somehow okay to attack people physically for the crime of wrongthink is how you get the berkely riots, or the current fracas at Evergreen college, or the "bash a fash" mentality, or any of the other nonsense going on.

You're not helping anyone get better, just dragging others down into the dirt with you.

With that out of the way, let's discuss.

It's not that I dislike "social justice nuts", as you succinctly put it. My SO and I are fairly liberal (in the classic definition; in support of free speech, free thought, and all that horrible, horrible wrongthink nonsense) and left-leaning (we support things like UBI, single-payer healthcare, mental health treatment for criminals rather then incarceration, prison reform, etc). And yet, we hate the modern left and the social justice causes with a passion.

Which is weird, you'd think. On paper, we should be a perfect fit.

But the problem is that social justice activists seem to share you "punch up" mentality while attempting to dilute many complex social problems to as few centralized boogeymen as possible. Everything wrong is because of "misogyny", or the "patriarchy", or "white men", or in some crazy circles "men" in general. You can't be racist against white people, they say, because racism is "power + privilege" (which may be true in a vaccum of academia, but in realistic practice is horseshit; I can't wander into certain neighborhoods in my city because I'm the wrong color, and I'm white). The patriarchy is keeping women down with institutionalized misogyny, they say, ignoring the fact that the majority of college degrees are now earned by women, and the fact that, despite being from the same disenfranchised generation with few real prospects, there are initiatives that prioritize getting women into jobs (never dangerous jobs like welding or difficult jobs like garbage collecting, but jobs like managers, executives, etc) on the basis of sex alone, so that a checklist of "diversity" can be marked. Men are the cause of society's problems, they say. We gotta teach men not to rape, they say. I'm not even going to touch this one, it infuriates me so much.

There's no social outreach here. Everyone is either with you, or against you. You can see it very clearly in our recent election, where we were forced to choose between president Agent Orange (Trump) or president Shit Sandwich (Clinton). Despite the fact that both were terrible candidates (though I'll be the first to say that Clinton, while Terrible, was the Less Bad by far of the choices), there is a nasty culture war between both camps, and both camps hate each other. Neither tribe is willing to even attempt to understand the other.

The crux of our problems is in the fact that our economy and media is controlled by a few elites and conglomerate. That we have no prospects to escape a corporate dystopia future in a blighted and flooded world, that every bit of "race war" is just class conflict, and social justice activists want to fucking tear down those who they should be standing shoulder to shoulder with.

So, yes. I have some issues with socjus cancer infiltrating even what I considered, and I use this term with the irionic grimace of realizing whose terminology I'm borrowing, a safe space of rationality and meritocracy, not "muh feefees" and "socjus bash the fash whitey is da devul", to use a crass metaphor.

u/None [-3] (4 hours later)

[deleted]

u/None [-3] (6 hours later)

What. The. Fuck.

Like.

Did it ever occur to you that "punching up" was a metaphor? Like, do you honestly believe your political quote-unquote opponents are violent psychopaths?

Oh, goodness me, a metaphor? However did I miss that, what with you so firmly declaring it at the tail end of a seriously presented rant?

Oh, I hope they don't lynch a nigger over this. Oh, no no. That's a metaphor too, you see.

No, you can sit your ass the fuck back down and we can hash this out in a conversation over instant messaging.

No, thank you. I prefer my conversations to be a matter of public record, not back-room chitchat. If this bothers you, please refrain from initiating conversations on public forums.

I never accused anyone of wrongthink, and you seirously lack any ability to think two steps ahead of your ideology.

Dearest me, I wonder why you would assume that my mentioning that the socjus cancer insists on decrying anyone who disagrees with them as wrongthinkers to be about you.

Unless...you're looking to build a strawman?

I disagree with you and you immediately conclude that I must be an anti-american, anti-freeze peach, anti-democratic violent anarchist.

Whoowee, boys, look at that there'un big 'ol straw man being built.

Grow up, man. We're both reasonable people. We can discuss this like civilized persons in a free democracy, and I promise I won't throw rocks at the neo-nazis.

It says a lot about you and your argument when you jump straight to accusing people who disagree with you of being neo-nazis. Do you know what a neo-nazi is, mate? Because anonymous randos disagreeing with you on a public forum ain't it.

So, just to be pedantic for a second: you hate gays, lesbians, transgender people, black people, and other minorities standing up for themselves? Way to be left-leaning.

fwoosh and there it goes. Strawman's a-burnin.

No, you insufferable fool. People of any denomination have the right to seek a comfortable and honest life on this earth. However, your phenotype, sexual preference, and genitals give you no special privilege to happiness or an easy life, and I will not support any sort of "affirmative action" that props up one group of people on arbitrary reasons at the expense of another, or many others.

Boom there it is.

You've never read a book, and you're parrotting the opinions of right-wing populists who want to drive a wedge between people like you and people like me so we don't realize they are stealing our money and wrecking the planet.

And you were saying something about purity games while pouring the gasoline on the straw man?

You're butthurt because you're a white man and you have it bad and all these nasty people are calling white men bad. But you're not bad! You're virtuous!

It's OK, man. Calm down. They are not talking about you. Unless you habitually disrespect women, black people, poor people, queers, and so on. Ideally, you shouldn't be butthurt about it, but say "yes, as a white man I think that white men in general have done bad things, and even though I am myself innocent, I am mature enough to acknowledge that I am part of a group with blood on their hands."

Firstly, piss right the fuck off here, mate. No, I am not part of any goddamned group with "blood on their hands" because of my goddamned phenotype, something I have had zero input and zero fucking control over. I am a first generation immigrant, the son of a poor russian and a poor jew. We have seen exactly none of this magic "white pirivilege" that everyone espouses. We had to learn the language, adopt the cultures, and work our assess off to be considered americans. And we worked our goddamned asses off. My grandfather, before he died, became an aeronautics engineer at NASA. My father owns a string of stores, and my uncle is a senior network engineer at a large corporation. None of this shit was handed to us for our "whiteness".

As for "blood on our hands", fuck that "sins of the father, sins of the son" bullshit. I'm ethnically jewish by blood, and I don't give a rat's ass about the holocaust except so far as that it happened and we should work to prevent such a thing from happening to any group of people again. And let's not forget it wasn't just the jews who suffered and died there; the actual, real life nazis killed homosexuals, retards, and others. I have never, in my life, looked at a german and thought "you are part of a group that has blood on their hands", because they fucking don't. They were never part of the group that did it, they would never consider being part of the group that did it, and most of their current population wasn't even alive at the time.

So, kindly piss right the fuck off with that.

People are crazy. This is not news. Crazy people occasionally have a point.

The fact that a broken clock is right once a day does not make it any less broken. Even if, by some chance, they've gotten one thing right, the baggage that comes with them is unacceptable.

Also, notice how you called them man-haters crazy. I know you're talking about women.

No, you don't. The misandrist fruitcakes aren't just women. There are plenty of whiteknight male fruitcakes.

Lesbians most often.

No, they aren't. Most of them are heterosexual fruitcakes that are "politically lesbian", which is it's own brand of crazy.

Some of them have been traumatized by men, and that's OK.

I can't tell what you're trying to say here. Are you saying it's OK for them to have been traumatized by males, or that it's OK to sling shit on all males for the trauma a single or small number of males inflicted on them?

Because neither of those are OK.

Some Many of them are just assholes.

At least on this we can agree.

Again you're generalizing from the loudmouths. Bad rationalism.

The only people representing the movement are loudmouths. They've almost completely edged out others.

Slavery. Segregation. Lynchings. Policemen killing black people in the streets with no repercussions. Pay gap.

You godsforsaken loon. Slavery happened to EVERYONE. Segregation happened to EVERYONE. Lynchings happened to EVERYONE.

Police officers killing black people on the street? Hah. Fucking where, mate? Are you seriously trying to use the small number of newscast high-profile police killings (more then half of which were voted "not guilty" by a grand jury afterwards, but that's not interesting news when your intent is race baiting) of black males as evidence?

No. We definitely have massive issues with police accountability, but they fuck everyone over. We definitely have perception issues on the police forces of black americans, but that's the end result of a hell of a lot of shit (including on-the-job training and experience) that needs a major overhaul of poor american black culture AS WELL AS american police culture to even begin to be solved.

And, if you consider massive public outcry, riots (that destroyed the business of people completely ininvolved), and an endless media circus to be no repercussions, I don't know what to say to you.

As for "pay gap", there isn't one, not really. People who invented the pay gap to feed to war machine of the culture wars compared average incomes (which include billionaires and multi-millionaires) instead of median incomes, and failed to factor in job types, hours worked, and dificulty of work. surprisingly, when you account for everything, the pay gap shrinks to 1-3% at most, and economists who actually study such things argue endlessly about statistical drift.

This is demonstrably false. Women want to be welders and garbage collectors just as much as men do; but both jobs are so heavily entrenched as man-professions and so much more based in tradition that it's slow and hard work.

Oh, haha, thanks. I needed the laugh.

Oh, wait, you're serious.

Man, I'm laughing so much it hurts.

Mate, the reason these jobs are male dominated is because they require long, arduous hours, and jobs such as welding are dangerous as fuck. Women generally don't apply for them, because a desk job as an HR something or other doesn't occasionally explode or drop I-beams on you, nor does it require getting up at the crack of dawn to haul tons of literal garbage out of filthy cans into filthy trucks, and the desk jobs pay well enough. Men have to take them, because we're expected to provide in this country.

Let all the men not show up to work tomorrow, and let's see what happens. Just one day.

Management and academia listen to reason, at least; hence why change happens faster there.

Shows what you know, which is clearly nothing. Management listens to the loudest complainers, and academia listens to itself.

(Cont in next post, character limits)

u/None [+2] (6 hours later)

(Cont from last post, character limits)

This is right-wing rhetoric. Verbatim chan-tard speak. "Wah wah, pandering."

Nobody has a diversity checklist. It is a lie invented by literal fascists.

It's funny that you try to sit on your high horse and spout this shit with a straight face. "Someone doesn't agree with me, must be a retarded something-chan poster". Yeah, buddy, great logic there. Superb.

You think there aren't diversity checklists? Fuck, I worked as an HR person for a few years. We had fucking diversity checklists for non-critical departments. I did my best to subvert them by ignoring the name and just reading qualifications, but when managers literally say "we don't have enough women, hire more women" and ignore the response of "you've see everyone we vetted, and we took the best candidates", there's only so much you can do.

Good on you that you're not a rapist. Not so good on you that you're incapable of abstracting from the fact that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual violence.

What the fuck, this is exactly the fucking shit I'm talking about.

No, we aren't. Amazingly, sexual assault is split roughly 50-50, and is primarily perpetrated not by "stranger danger", but by relatives and family friends.

At least when you dump the fuckshit mcstupid definition of rape as "forced penetration with a penis" and apply the common sense definition of "forcing someone to have sex with you when they did not wish to do so", as well as dump the bullshit stats of "rape" as "next morning regret" accusations.

We do teach little boys it's okay to violate girls' personal space. We need to stop that.

We teach little kids that it's OK to violate each other's personal space. This is not a gendered issue, and you need to stop trying to make it such.

Also, Clinton literally had slaves (prison labor) to do her housework when Mr. Clinton was govenor. Clinton would ahve been far less destructive, yes.

As opposed to everything Agent Orange has fucked up in just the last few months?

Yeah, Shit Sandwich would have been better.

The real solution was of course Sanders.

Bernie "white people can never understand black poverty" Sanders? Bernie "nuclear reactors are bad and need to be shut down forever" Sanders?

Don't get me wrong, Sanders was the Least Bad of candidates we've had in two decades, but he had many, many policy issues.

Buddy, every serious activist I know is trying to get people to stand together, and white guys like you are the problem.

Das Racis

Black people? They fucking know it's about class-warfare already. They are ready.

Haha, nice pedestal you've put an entire arbitrary phenotype on, there.

No, mate. People are people, no matter what color. Some understand and want to help, some think education is "fo dem whipipo" and sling rocks for a living.

They are waiting for you to stop demanding that the Feminists get the TERFs under control, and that they add "not all men" to their tweets. If you're really as leftie as you say, then you can overlook your differences with the social justice movement and focus on fighting capitalism.

There's nothing wrong with capitalism, you loon. Capitalism is a system of competition and meritocracy. The issue is unregulated capitalism and a culture that worships kipple. When monopolies (regional or otherwise), duopolies, oligarchical business conglomerates, and such are prevented from existing by law and people stop buying the new iStupidshit because a new one came out this year oh my god my status symbol!, we'll be well on our way to a decent form of economic management.

It's like communism; great on paper, but then we let fucking people get ahold of it.

I have some issues with the fact that your social awareness is near nil and that you're parroting alt-right rhetoric while pretending to be a leftie.

I have some issues with your burning field of strawmen, your attempts to discredit arguments with "no true scotsman" fallacies and ad hominums, and the fact that you can't try to find common ground with those who disagree with you, but instead immediately start throwing around insults and insulting labels.

Let's meet in the middle. PM me if you want some contact info so we can have an IM discussion; I rather dislike writing these essays.

As i said above, no thanks on the IMs. I'd prefer our disagreement be handled openly, as a matter of public record.

u/None [+20] (7 hours later)

As a member of the observing public, will you get a room you two. A thread about fiction preferences is not the place for insult-laden rhetoric. Leaving it in the public record is currently doing nothing but ruining the public record so, please, argue all you want, but do it in an appropriate setting and consider using some degree of civility.

u/None [+2] (7 hours later)

What you consider "ruining" is considered by others to be "debating", albeit we could use a moderator to tone down some of the flashing tempers.

But you're welcome to your opinion.

u/None [+11] (8 hours later)

I don't see a debate. I see two people shouting insults at each other and refusing to hear each other's arguments without resorting to taunting, baiting, mocking, and other devices that are very good for making you feel good about yourself, and not very good for uncovering useful truths, changing people's minds, changing your own minds, or doing anything else generally associated with the word "debate". Your argument is entertaining, childish, and entirely inappropriate in a thread devoted to talking about what kinds of books and movies people enjoy. There are public forums much better suited to debates and shouting matches than this one; take it there. If nothing else, please take a few hours to "tone down some of the flashing tempers", as you put it; you're getting in the way of your own truth-seeking by turning every exchange into an emotionally charged conflict. Thank you.

u/everything-narrative [+9] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (14 hours later)

Dude, let's shelf this. I specifically requested private chat so we could rapidly exchange information instead of addressing points in massive essays and bothering everyone.

We were yelling, and I started. I'm sorry.

u/CCC_037 [+8] (11 hours later)

I'm in agreement with Swimmingly here. This isn't a calm, reasoned debate. This is you two yelling at each other.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+0] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)

Oh, goodness me, a metaphor? However did I miss that, what with you so firmly declaring it at the tail end of a seriously presented rant?

"Metaphor" and "Serious" are not antonyms.

But actually "Punch Up" is "Jargon".

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

Monty Python is a great one.

u/None [+7] (18 hours later)

I like China Mieville a lot. His stuff definitely isn't rational, but at the same time, the bad guys tend to have comprehensible motives, even if their methodologies are wacky, and there are a lot of interesting things happening.

u/narfanator [+3] (a day later)

I honestly credit Embassy Town with teaching me what literature is.

I know of know way to convey the message that book conveyed without telling the story the book tells. Near as I can tell, that's what defines literature.

u/None [+1] (a day later)

I actually haven't read Embassy Town yet, but I'll put it on my list

u/None [+12] (14 minutes later)

[deleted]

u/None [+10] (33 minutes later)

Ooh Doctor Who is a good one. Great story at times but totally nonsensical if you think about it for three seconds.

u/None [+3] (34 minutes later)

The last couple of episodes were especially painful but I can't stop watching because occasionally there is a real gem in there.

u/None [+11] (32 minutes later)

I'd list Watership Down as one of my all-time favorites. Rabbits with that degree of culture and planning is nonsensical, but the story tickled all the non-rational parts of me (so most of me).

u/blebblee [+1] (10 days later)

Yessss. Yes! I loved that book. It was so dark for young-me though. I mean it literally starts with sentient rabbits getting gassed and just... gets... worse.

u/None [+4] (a day later)

Saga is pretty dope

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

Is there a "thread title" equivalent of nominative determinism? Because I think this one is an example.

u/eroticas [+3] (a day later)

Steven Universe and Avatar, The Last Airbender are my two running favorites of the moment

u/nerdguy1138 [+6] GNU Terry Pratchett (a day later)

Steven "What's a follow-up question?" Universe rocks! Pun completely intended. Also, Madoka Magica, Evangelion, Death Note, etc. The Deus Ex game franchise.

There's a Madoka fanfic on AO3, Persephone's Waltz, that's just fantastic.

u/None [+2] (a day later)

Speaking of Madoka fic, are you following To The Stars? That one seems to qualify as genuinely rational and its worldbuilding is insane.

u/Cariyaga [+1] Kyubey did nothing wrong (4 days later)

Any suggestions on SU fics (rational or otherwise)? I've been kind of reticent to look them up because reasons. :P

u/nerdguy1138 [+1] GNU Terry Pratchett (4 days later)

The world is your oyster is pretty good. http://archiveofourown.org/works/3808279?view_full_work=true

u/-main [+1] (6 days later)

I like Deus Ex, but "all the conspiracy theories are true" is a bad premise for worldbuilding.

u/MonstrousBird [+3] (a day later)

I keep coming back to Doctor Who, though that may be childhood loyalty as much as anything. What I find in general is that I can stand scientific implausibility, and even self contradictory implausibility, and I can stand idiotic protagonists up to a point, but I can't stand protagonists who always fall through the same emotional flaws time after time after time, especially when ordinary people I know are capable of doing better. This is what ruined The Flash and Supernatural for me (as well as the whole 'literally Hell' deal in the latter)

u/None [+5] (a day later)

I loved Doctor Who, but dropped out after the episode where the moon hatched and laid an egg of the same mass as the moon. I didn't like most of the Moffat era and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

u/trekie140 [+2] (2 days later)

I hated that episode too and found nearly all of that season to be an endurance test, but the episodes since Clara left are worth watching. Not that all of them are great, I've found most of them to be just okay, but I've yet to see one I didn't like and that's still a big step up. At the very least you should watch The Husbands of River Song, that episode is fantastic.

u/MonstrousBird [+1] (2 days later)

That was for sure the worst episode - at least there's been nothing that terrible scientifically since...

u/None [+1] (2 days later)

Conservation of energy doesn't seem to be a thing in Doctor Who.

u/SevereCircle [+1] (5 days later)

I was surprised that it was even possible for something to be that terrible. Here's the most unlikable girl ever also she's future president even though that's directly unconstitutional. Gravity isn't working in this room, touch my yo-yo! Watch out for moon spiders! Here's an ethical dilemma that only the most hardcore Kantians would have trouble with and comes off as a pretty heavy-handed pro-life metaphor which the writer of the episode said was accidental.

u/None [+2] (20 hours later)

The Walking Dead. Undead zombies are physically impossible but I love them anyway.

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

The Nier games aren't rational (too much absurdism) but I think plenty of people here would enjoy them, especially Nier: Automata. They're fairly unique in their storytelling methods and themes.

u/ngocnv371 [+2] Chaos Legion (a day later)

The Witcher book series. It started with a bunch of aesop-ish stories, then in later books, the adventure catches wind and soars.

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

I can't believe nobody has said diana wynne jones. Chrestomanci? Howl's Moving Castl? Nothing is less rational than most of the things that happen in all of her books, but they're magical and glorious and the main characters have spunk and wisdom and genre-savviness and they are the books to read to your kids, just saying.

u/ABZB [+1] Count of Real Numbers (a day later)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Pi.

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

Dhalgren by Samuel Delany is set in a world that makes absolutely no rational sense. One of the many things I enjoy about it is how the communities in the story exist in spite of that.

I also enjoy the short fiction of Jorge Luis Borges.

u/everything-narrative [+1] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (20 days later)

Garth Nix's Sabriel springs to mind.

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