Any topic is good. Don’t care about format or where it’s published as long as I can access it (substack, random PDF, journal, etc). Looking for deep and rare thought, but essay length for a short reading.
EDIT: Also I am particularly looking for stuff not as much in online or nerd culture.
Stanislav Lem wrote really good short stories next to his amazing books.
In my opinion he is the most philosophical, most intelligent and best in physics among all sciencefiction authors. I think his most famous book is Solaris but everything I read of him was actually really interesting - including the short stories.
Be aware that stories of his early career are more funny while later he got really pessimistic about humans in general.
This one is from 2001 and is about how the pornography trade was getting increasingly violent, interesting to read in a post internet porn world. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/mar/17/society.martinamis1
Read The Egg.
This one is excellent, thank you for posting I had been re-looking for that for a while.
I would also suggest God’s Debris and I met God on a Train.
All three have a similar idea of questioning the nature of what God might look like. No religious nonsense in any of them.
On a different tack I’d suggest Manna- Two Different Views Of Humanity’s Future. Also a very good read but nothing to do with extracorporeal beings.
Exiting the Vampire Castle, by Mark Fisher (2013): https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exiting_the_Vampire_Castle):
“Exiting the Vampire Castle” is an essay written by the English theorist Mark Fisher for the online publication The North Star in 2013. It argues for increased leftist solidarity by departing from the phenomenon of online callout culture to instead orient activity around organization of efforts around the accountability of one’s economic class, rather than around traits in identity and culture.
Fisher argues that a largely online style of identity-based leftist discourse grounded in “witch-hunting moralism” halts productive leftist discourse and undermines class politics.[1] In particular, the combination of a primary focus on identity and the policing of others’ speech is deleterious.[2] Fisher saw the turn from class and materialism towards identity as a move from objective outward-facing goals to subjective inward goals that result in fragmentation of the left’s efforts and community.[3]
Fisher defends Russel Brand in the essay, but remember that this was written in 2013, and Fisher died in 2017.
As we may think is an exellent read
What is entropy : https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-entropy-a-measure-of-just-how-little-we-really-know-20241213/
The life changing contrast of Japanese clutter : https://aeon.co/essays/the-life-changing-magic-of-japanese-clutter
How about HG Wells talking about mini wargaming in 1912? I think it’s fascinating to see proto-nerds inventing the geek stuff that we take for granted a hundred years later.
Little Wars via Project Gutenberg
And a subtitle that he probably thought was egalitarian and progressive at the time.
Yeah, that’s pretty bad.
I still think it’s an interesting read.
All good. It’s something I’d like to play sometime. I just think it’s important to acknowledge this shit.
I highly suggest the Umberto Eco book “How to Travel With a Salmon”. It’s a collection of short essays on a variety of topics.
I enjoyed reading Ur-Fascism so it’d probably be nice to read something lighter from him.
Foucault’s Pendulum is amazing.
It’s the book that kicked the Davinci Code to death and left it bleeding in a gutter.
It’s the book Dan Brown was “inspired” by.
That’s actually a complicated story…
It goes back to a book called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” back in 1982.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail
Then you have Foucalt’s Pendulum (1988) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault’s_Pendulum
The comic book series “Preacher” 66 monthly issues from 1995 to 2000. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)
Da Vinci Code (2003) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code
Read this many years ago and enjoyed. Great recommendation in the spirit of this thread (for anyone who has not read it)
I love the bit where they just attack the idea of someone saying “Ugh, capitalism” and perform character assassinations (on people they seem to respect?) rather than actually discuss issues in the world. Like yeah, virtue signalling exists. See the companies that ask to work with LGBTQIA+ people specifically in the month of June and no other. We know it happens. You’re doing the exact thing you’re currently complaining about.
“Y’all can’t quote the exact policies that are causing issues” - says the dude who complains about everyone in Brooklyn having ‘Ugh capitalism’ in their tinder bios. I thought we were talking real issues here? Hard hitting policy that needs to be changed, not horny men using a tactic.
Awful article really.
There’s never any real discussion of detailed fixes in this kind of complaint—because that might acknowledge we can fix the problem without overthrowing the system. There’s never any argument about how under socialism (or some other alternative economic model) public policy tradeoffs, political failures, or scarcity just wouldn’t exist.
It’s as if “Capitalism” wrote that article.
That’s certainly a way you can describe something.
Recuperation would be a better description.
If you’re in the mood for nonsensical madness:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Time_Cube
or
https://pdf-library.org/terrence-howard-math-theory.pdf (Yes, this is the actor that played Rhodes in the first Iron Man movie)
My virus scanner says that last link redirects to a phishing site.
There’s nothing of value there, feel free to look up “Terrance Howard math theory” elsewhere
You beat me to the cube. Wish the original blog was still around
I suppose that OP didn’t state that the ideas presented must be worth any consideration
OP did not!
Upvote for time cube
