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Guest The Vidiot

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Ah, I see. Yes, I agree with you. Intensive livestock farming is horrible. It’s just that I stick to buying organic meat for now, not yet ready to start reading seriously heavy political philosophy about it.

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current books on the go:

1. The Illiad (Chapman translation): re-reading this as part of my process of more thoroughly exploring ancient greek shit. Next upis Chapman's version of the Odyssey, which actually i don't think i've read that version of.  always forget just how violent this shit is, jfc

2. Being & Event (re-read, English version). This shit makes way more sense than it did last year, perhaps in part because I read a bunch of set theory stuff in between. really great book imo. Gonna read some supplementary material after this & then probably re-read Deleuze

3. The Three Musketeers in the original french. Good god this book is as beefy as the dude who wrote it. But yah I've been working on improving my french so I've been reading a lot of the classic fiction. I've also got some french philosophy in the original language (Bergson mostly) but i dunno when i'll be ready for that

4. Transcendental Magic by Eliphas Levi. Almost done. It's kinda hilarious how pretty much every few pages the translator adds a footnote basically saying "yeah even by the standards of ppl who take magic seriously this bit is just Levi talkin out the left side of his ass"

5. Endnotes volume 3. Been reading through these for a podcast. As far as communist lit goes next up is probably Capital volume 3 (already read the first two) or the quotations of chairman mao

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1. the odyssey (Chapman): I appreciate how there's more variety in this one beyond just "the gods argued somemore, and then the mediterranian dudes killed each other some more". after this i'll probably be doing fables or aesop, although i hear there is a recent translation of the iliad which is apparently the first major translation of it by a woman? kinda curious to check that out

2. Mathematics of the Transcendental. Holy fuck Badiou we get it you like math

3. l'oeuvre d'art a l'epoque de sa reproductibilite technique. also read some bataille & adorno essays in french. for some reason i'm finding this much easier to get through than dumas

4. capital volume 3. joking aside though why does every book from the 1800s contain a large cardinal  number of pages

5. endnotes sitll, almost done with volume 3 now

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14 hours ago, gnarlybog said:

I just blasted through the first two books of Liu Cixin's The Three Body Problem trilogy. Damn... mind-bending sci-fi. Strong recommendation.

Dude hell yeah.  What did you think of The Dark Forest?  I went through all three of them this past Summer....as good as you think the second one is, the third one is even better.  I've possibly never read a better science fiction book in my life.  You're in for a treat.

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That is awesome to hear! Loved the first one... was not prepared for it to go so psychedelic and technical towards the end.
The Dark Forest was incredible, although at times it felt like a bunch of cool ideas strung together. I think the english translation did not flow as well as the previous book. With that said, I read the last 200 pages or so in one sitting, haha. Looking forward to the third.

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55 minutes ago, gnarlybog said:

That is awesome to hear! Loved the first one... was not prepared for it to go so psychedelic and technical towards the end.
The Dark Forest was incredible, although at times it felt like a bunch of cool ideas strung together. I think the english translation did not flow as well as the previous book. With that said, I read the last 200 pages or so in one sitting, haha. Looking forward to the third.

Are the English translations good in general? I tried to read the German version when the first volume came out, but couldn't get into it. I suspect it might have been the translation; maybe I could give the English one a shot.

(I know it's hard to judge how faithful they are to the Chinese original; I guess what I'm asking is just if they're a good read.)

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On 11/11/2020 at 7:30 AM, Nil said:

Tell me more, might be right up my alley ?

About to finish War and Peace.

It's really great if you are into reading postmodern novels a la House of Leaves.  Lot of changes in style, huge focus on typefaces and design, and heavy into the sci-fi.  Started very slow, but once it picked up steam I couldn't put it down.  Has sort of a pulp novel within a novel and a soundtrack written by Strictly Kev/DJ Food.  Hits all the right boxes for me ?

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On 11/11/2020 at 8:20 AM, gnarlybog said:

I just blasted through the first two books of Liu Cixin's The Three Body Problem trilogy. Damn... mind-bending sci-fi. Strong recommendation.

I read the first book and liked it, but it didn’t blow me away. Honestly was more into the descriptions of the Cultural Revolution era than “the Three Body Problem” itself. 
 

It’s supposedly being adapted into a Netflix series.

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3 minutes ago, Extralife said:

I read the first book and liked it, but it didn’t blow me away. Honestly was more into the descriptions of the Cultural Revolution era than “the Three Body Problem” itself. 
 

It’s supposedly being adapted into a Netflix series.

It gets way better, more cosmic and hell of a lot bleaker in the sequels.

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I agree.   I think the sequels are each bleaker and bigger than the one before.  The third one straight up gave me the most existential dread I've ever experienced reading ANY book.  Which one in the series you like best really depends on the kind of person you are, but for me, each sequel is better than the one before.  It's a very unique writing style too, every 15 pages or so is a super interesting idea that COULD be its own book.   And it's like that for the entire series.  You have to really like science too, I would not recommend this book to just anybody.  It takes a certain mind.   Just incredibly clever, and very big ideas.  The guy is a genius imo.

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Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe. Even though I don't actually agree with the basic premise that reality is fundamentally mathematics, it's still a very interesting look at modern cosmology and current trends in theoretical physics and astronomy. Cosmology is probably anyway the most speculative field of science there is. I've been reading Stephen Wolfram's and Roger Penrose's work before and I don't really agree with either of them in cosmological matters, but it's all interesting stuff.

Also I've been reading the Infinite Jest for months now.. I'm about halfway through..

I feel I should next read some crappy scifi or fantasy to balance this shit out.

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On 11/11/2020 at 3:20 PM, gnarlybog said:

I just blasted through the first two books of Liu Cixin's The Three Body Problem trilogy. Damn... mind-bending sci-fi. Strong recommendation.

Just started reading it, thanks for mentioning it here ! Liking it a lot so far.

On 11/12/2020 at 9:29 PM, Extralife said:

It's really great if you are into reading postmodern novels a la House of Leaves.  Lot of changes in style, huge focus on typefaces and design, and heavy into the sci-fi.  Started very slow, but once it picked up steam I couldn't put it down.  Has sort of a pulp novel within a novel and a soundtrack written by Strictly Kev/DJ Food.  Hits all the right boxes for me ?

I'm currently a tad too tired to dive into a novel written in English, but will grab a copy and will most certainly read it right when / if finishing the whole Three Body Problem saga. I'm also appeal by the typographic experimentations it seems to offer, reminds me of Nicola Barker's H(a)ppy.

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read the quotations of chairman mao in a couple days. the parts that related more to tactics were pretty badass, the parts that were more clearly just straight propaganda//rallying the troops gave me a "you had to be there" kinda vibe

reading some jean baudrillard in french. i like baudrillard but sometimes his imagery is a little flashy for my taste. can't tell when i'm agreeing with his basic ideas, and when i'm just getting carried along by cool visual metaphors.

capital volume 3 & the odyssey (still)

re-reading difference & repetition (in english). forgot just how dense this thing is. reading five pages takes me like an hour. far less incomprehensible than it was a year ago, though, which suggests that my attempt to homebrew a philosophy degree is progressing!

i want to start reading the works of neitzsche in german but i dunno when i'm getting around to it. i generally try to read at least 10% the total number of pages of each book on my "currently reading" list each day. rn i have four books on the list (one which is of course over 1000 pages) & getting through those takes a few hours, so i dunno Neitz u might have 2 hold tite my dude

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De l'inconvénient d'être né: I admit, I got into reading Cioran a couple years ago solely because of OPN song titles, but he's actually pretty good

The Black Swan: I read Antifragile last year. Still haven't figured out how much I actually like Taleb as a writer, and how much I just vibe with his core project of exploring chaos & complex systems. Also I watched his 2018 Google talk on youtube & it kinda reminded me of that Sam Hyde TED talk from back in the day

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