Now Reading

[Bechuga]

Finished Purity by Franzen. Not as good as Corrections / Freedom (no surprise, they were excellent) but it was definitely enjoyable.

Started on South of the Border by Haruki Murakami and is looking to be as melancholic as his other work. And short too, which is a plus! Too many eight hundred pages books to read atm.

and perhaps an AI thread is in order, because it's such a rich topic that has implications for economics, global politics, labor, democracy, Utopia and Distopia, actual immortality, nuclear game theory, art and music, right-libertarianism vs socialism, psychology, morality, etc etc...I mean, if word got out that someone was currently developing super-intelligent AI, it might set off a chain reaction that destroys the world before the thing is even built. The perception would be that whoever develops it will rule world for the rest of time, I mean just imagine if it's the Chinese gov't or Solicon Valley Right-libertarians who get there first...neither strike me as the type eager to donate the fruits to humanity and create a work-free utopia for all...and that's assuming that whoever makes it would have any measure of control over it, which...the 'control problem' is an open problem that I would bet good money that it's unsolvable...like, you would have to design an elaborate system of incentives and failsafes that was immune to exploits, human error or corruption...a super-intelligent AI is gonna find elaborate, domino-like exploits that humans could never imagine...

That's a lot of what if's. And my current thinking is an uncontrollable superintelligence has GOT to be better than the UK Conservatives. Even if they implement a system of blocking out the sun for their power source: the weather's shit enough as it is.

 

edit: the quantum mechanics confusion reminds me of when I listened to the Dalai Lama's autobiography, read by Richard Gere. When the book gets to the section about quantum physics--which the Dalai is well versed in--Richard Gere can be heard audibly struggling to process what he is reading aloud. Quite amusing, worth a listen (and not just because the book is good).

Edited July 2, 2016 by Bechuga

[QQQ]

Finished Purity by Franzen. Not as good as Corrections / Freedom (no surprise, they were excellent) but it was definitely enjoyable.

Started on South of the Border by Haruki Murakami and is looking to be as melancholic as his other work. And short too, which is a plus! Too many eight hundred pages books to read atm.

 

i recently brought 2 more of his (Colorless Tazaki and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running). something about his stuff keeps pulling me back in despite me never being sure if i like him or not. i enjoyed South of the Border right up until the end - it ends just when it gets going and it doesn't answer anything (typical Murakami).

 

i'm reading The Naked and the Dead (Norman Mailer) at the moment (a 700+ page novel). good stuff so far. some very purple prose keeps cropping up but he did write this in his early/mid 20s so it is mighty impressive considering.

[LimpyLoo]

1) The AI 'motivation' question is really interesting...of course the big concern isn't really creating an evil AI...it's creating an AI that regards humans the way humans regard ants...what's strange is that in the last 5-10 years, we have more and more come to realize just how crucial emotion is in motivation...I think the current thinking is that perfect stoics like Spock or Data are impossible...that without emotion there can't be preference or motivation...it makes sense if you think of emotion as a sort-of gauge of how much the world is aligning to your will (and to the extent that it's not, we feel negative emotions which we seek to minimize though acting on the world, etc etc)....anyway, that's something I've not heard talked about anywhere

 

2) The 'what-ifs' in my post are just a few possibilities, but the fact is SOMEONE is gonna design it, and there are gonna be massive economic and political shifts, and wars have been started over much less. I think the only way to avoid that sorta stuff is to assemble a global committee to design it, with the goal of sharing its fruits equally among all people.

If it's designed by some right-libertarians who aren't big on charity or sharing or general pro-social behavior, then just think how that might play out. They will potentially have the power to destroy any government on earth (esp. if an AI can improve itself, or create better versions of itself...eventually the outcome will be a sort of all-powerful machine God)...so anyway, if word got out that such a person/group was on track to create a super-intelligent AI, the choices would be to either stop them or let them rule the world.

[sweepstakes]

Just read PKD's Confessions of a Crap Artist which was slightly disappointing, especially with such a great but pretty misleading title.

 

Now reading A Confederacy of Dunces, and unlike the last 2 or 3 times I tried to read it, I'm finding pretty easy and actually quite funny, antiquated racism aside. I think I just read a little slower and more carelessly than the intended audience.

 

I think it's time to read some smarter mathy/sciencey/philosophyey books. I ordered a few Alan Kay mentioned in his recent AMA on Hacker News - Thinking: Fast and Slow, Amusing Ourselves to Death and a couple others. That'll be a good little handicapped ramp up from the fiction.

[Bechuga]

 

Finished Purity by Franzen. Not as good as Corrections / Freedom (no surprise, they were excellent) but it was definitely enjoyable.

Started on South of the Border by Haruki Murakami and is looking to be as melancholic as his other work. And short too, which is a plus! Too many eight hundred pages books to read atm.

i recently brought 2 more of his (Colorless Tazaki and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running). something about his stuff keeps pulling me back in despite me never being sure if i like him or not. i enjoyed South of the Border right up until the end - it ends just when it gets going and it doesn't answer anything (typical Murakami).

 

 

No-one quite does melancholy that isn't teenage angst type pretentiousness like Murakami. Tsuru Tazaki I loved, even read 75% of it in one night until it was finished and felt ruined, but in a good way. Should really get onto reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle / Norwegian Wood.

 

Murakami doesn't resolve certain stuff, but I feel that is the point, especially with something like After Dark or (my favourite heartbreaking book) Sputnik Sweetheart. It does make me scared to read him, because he inflicts such perfect psychic damage on me, but I keep coming back too.

 

Spoiler: Tazaki does not feature many, if any cats. Does feature a vinyl record. And salad.

[sweepstakes]

 

 

 

 

Finished Purity by Franzen. Not as good as Corrections / Freedom (no surprise, they were excellent) but it was definitely enjoyable.

Started on South of the Border by Haruki Murakami and is looking to be as melancholic as his other work. And short too, which is a plus! Too many eight hundred pages books to read atm.

i recently brought 2 more of his (Colorless Tazaki and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running). something about his stuff keeps pulling me back in despite me never being sure if i like him or not. i enjoyed South of the Border right up until the end - it ends just when it gets going and it doesn't answer anything (typical Murakami).

 

No-one quite does melancholy that isn't teenage angst type pretentiousness like Murakami. Tsuru Tazaki I loved, even read 75% of it in one night until it was finished and felt ruined, but in a good way. Should really get onto reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle / Norwegian Wood.

 

Murakami doesn't resolve certain stuff, but I feel that is the point, especially with something like After Dark or (my favourite heartbreaking book) Sputnik Sweetheart. It does make me scared to read him, because he inflicts such perfect psychic damage on me, but I keep coming back too.

 

Spoiler: Tazaki does not feature many, if any cats. Does feature a vinyl record. And salad.

I love the dreamlike quality of Murakami's stuff, including how much he leaves hanging. I've only read Windup Bird Chronicles and Kafka on the Shore so far. I enjoyed the latter more but both had lots of beautiful haunting images and thoughts, which sometimes got a bit heavy for me.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

maybe it's cause i had spent all day in the sun in southern spanish summer (was feeling dizzy while reading) but the Eschaton game off Infinite Jest had me laughing out loud this evening

[lawrenke]

maybe it's cause i had spent all day in the sun in southern spanish summer (was feeling dizzy while reading) but the Eschaton game off Infinite Jest had me laughing out loud this evening

It wasn't the sun; that part is an absolute highlight of the book. Keep going, it's an unbelievable read, and surprisingly touching

Edited July 7, 2016 by lawrenke

[hello spiral]

After Brave New World (which was A++, much better than I expected) I'm now halfway through Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex. Very satisfying and engrossing read, reminds me of stuff like The World According to Garp and The Deptford Trilogy.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

oh I grabbed that Garp book from one of those free "travelling book" thingies, is it good?

[hello spiral]

Very good

[gnarlybog]

 

This was wicked crazy fun. I would keep a tab open with dictionary.com and elseq on in the background. If it got too dense, I would read it as if its sci-fi poetry.

[caze]

nearly finished Oliver Sacks' autobiography, great read, fascinating character, smart bloke, all round good egg.

[doorjamb]

Nice! I find Baudrillard most compelling when (as here) he's on about language/linguistic representation in particular (rather than broad "simulation ≥ reality" musings).

[cwmbrancity]

Alan Moore's Providence #1 arrived, long overdue getting some new weirdy beardy occult/magic musings

 

and its actually warm out (again)

 

garden, Providence and the recliner - saaaaaaaaaaaaafe

[prdctvsm]

picked this up 4 a gold coin donation @ recent election's local polling station fete's 2nd hand book stall , & halfway thru:

 

 

havn't read it since was a schoolkid so now v much ejnoying the eerie tropical surrealism / alt reality. gr8 story, characters a bit wooden imo but its only a short book, & wld make 4 a gr8 film if some dir. cld do smthng similar 2wat coppola did w. conrad's 'heart of darkness'.

 

theres this vid w same name, which looks good, but seems 2b inspired by another book ?

 

[tec]

Alan Moore's Providence #1 arrived, long overdue getting some new weirdy beardy occult/magic musings

 

and its actually warm out (again)

 

garden, Providence and the recliner - saaaaaaaaaaaaafe

 

Sweet, gonna order me this thing.

[Leon Sumbitches]

Aw man, I want a poster-sized version of that JG Ballard cover.

 

Reading a bunch of stuff about the folklore and mythology of the British Isles atm, a rich trove of madness

Edited July 21, 2016 by Leon Sumbitches

[Bechuga]

Pre-ordered Jerusalem by Alan Moore. The hardcover is 1200 pages.

 

*orders wrist braces*

[tec]

Aw man, I want a poster-sized version of that JG Ballard cover.

 

Reading a bunch of stuff about the folklore and mythology of the British Isles atm, a rich trove of madness

 

What you reading? Just finished The Land of the Green Man by Caroline Larrington, not a bad choice for an introduction to it all.

[cwmbrancity]

you beat me to it Tec, as an archaeo-toss bloke always on the look out for anything on Britain & Eire beyond staid site excavation reports with zero interpretation

 

will have a rummage for the Larrington text cos the Green Man myth goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back

 

 

 

Reading a bunch of stuff about the folklore and mythology of the British Isles atm, a rich trove of madness

 

if you'd like some gear that pushes the chronology even further back into the Neolithic (4000BC) or Bronze Age(s), Richard Bradley's "The Idea of Order: The Circular Archetype in Prehistoric Europe" is 1 of the most illuminating archaeo-toss texts out there (the linked version is a bit steep, but paperbacks & pdf's are available in all manner of public libraries and internet sources). Time is a flat circle after all, as various True Detective characters have already said:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Idea-Order-Circular-Archetype-Prehistoric/dp/0199608091

 

Also, have a dig around texts by researcher/author Professor Miranda Aldhouse-Green (me old uni supervisor) for some spell-binding treats on all sorts strange, but more-weighted toward the the Celtic world, Druids & indigenous shamanic practices native to Britain/Eire. You can grip most for a few quid:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miranda-J.-Aldhouse-Green/e/B001HPF7O6

[Alcofribas]

That Ballard cover is so dank. I want it as a blanket.

[hello spiral]

Middlesex was great, very moreish.

Now this thing I bought by chance years ago, think it's scifi.

 

[Leon Sumbitches]

Will definitely check that out Tec, sounds ace.

 

Haha Cwmbran, I actually read The Idea Of Order after seeing you mention it (in this very thread iirc), really enlightening read. Will also rinse the Aldhouse-Green stuff for sure, love me some Celtic history.

 

Currently reading Mythology Of The British Isles by Geoffrey Ashe, general overview of mythology from pre-Roman times onwards. Devotes a lot of space to Arthurian stuff which doesn't really do it for me as much as bizarre old pagan stuff. Wouldn't really recommend it except as an introduction. Also reading The Fairy Faith In Celtic Countries by Walter Evans-Wentz. Published in 1911, it's a collection of rural beliefs in 'fair folk' throughout the British Isles, collected by a super-credulous Edwardian dude. Some of it's pretty standard, some of it's an insight into a rural Ireland/Britain that's obviously now completely vanished, and can be a bit mind-blowing.

 

J.C. Atkinson's 40 Years In A Moorland Parish has, as I recall, some great accounts of English folklore in the 19th Century.

[Lane Visitor]

Im not a reader. At ALL. Like I have a pathetic history of amount of books I've "read" -- probably only truly finished several books in my life, no joke. I have this terrible case of ADD when it comes to reading and Ive tried all different types of books and none really hold my interest for longer than a day or two. I also have this fidgity issue where I feel like after an hour or so of reading, i feel like im wasting time (i know that total bs), but it just feels that way. Whats funny though is i have this longing to find and read some mysterious book that's never been read before, or only by a very small amount of people.