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On September 26 2015 19:43 Redox wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 04:38 Vladix wrote:![[image loading]](http://d3by36x8sj6cra.cloudfront.net/assets/images/book/large/9780/5750/9780575079793.jpg) After reading the Malazan book of the fallen, I was searching for a new fantasy serie and this has been a good choice and I am happy I bought the trilogy, even after reading a small portion. Read the whole trilogy and had a lot of fun. It doesnt take itself as serious as some other Fantasy and is really funny at times. While still being suspenseful at others. And I liked how the fights were described. Also its not written for children.
I'll second that it's a very good series. Doesn't quite have the sweeping epicness I like from stories (like there was a lot of material and a few mysteries/ loose ends that weren't quite tied up, but definitely very fun. A good bit of humor (dark humor too).
Also, the titles are epic. The third book, "Last Argument of Kings" just sounds so cool to me.
If anyone is into stories about science, medicine and discoveries, I highly recommend Awakenings by Oliver Sacks (he passed a couple years ago. Overdiagnosed by H. Gilbert Welch is also good, not done quite yet.
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This is like two weeks late but why not. I finished The Girl in the Spider's Web authored not by Stieg Larsson but David Lagercrantz. The themes revolve primarily around the dangers of hyper-advanced AI technology, surveillance from the NSA, crime and corruption mixed with a heavy dose of hacking and broken families. It does delve into some relevant issues, even the struggles of modern journalism, but most of it feels glossed over or added for the sake of being relevant and interesting without being fleshed out. The writing tries its best to evoke Larsson's style and it doesn't do that bad of a job, but it simply doesn't have enough space to cover the depth Larsson wrote in. The book is 400 pages which compared to the previous novels is insufficient to match the pacing and character development of the previous works. I didn't find it a bad read and it still kept me thrilled at points, but it follows a very predictable formula and after a while you can almost smell how the story progresses.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
eh, i've not read much schopenhauer except the hilarious MRA stuff, but he can't write that clearly if he started out well enough but ended up in some sort of mystical confusion.
i have not much nice things to say about plato's style.
as far as marx goes, he writes better when he's not trying to write about marxism as an economic theory. as a general rule, the more confusion and conflict a piece of writing leaves posterity, the worse its writing (likely anyway). the chief objective of philosophical writing is not persuasion or laying out grand systems with undefined language and assumptions. if marx wrote more humbly and less inspiring of dogma, maybe commies would be at a better place.
this is not to say everyone has to write like carnap or provide a glossary of terms at the back, some of the most productive philosophical writings are aphoristic. but generally when the presentation is used to do some obfuscatory work and bridge gaps in arguments, we have bad writing.
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can you give an example of a gap that was bridged with obfuscatory writing
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
in the case of marx, his style is direct assertions without justifying each step, and doing so at an ontological level that is stylistically abstracted so as to fit the theory being propounded. take the labor theory of value as example, he could have said, ricardo said something that seems true about labor being a critical input of production, and thus a major factor in determining pricign of products. this statement specifies a mechanism of action, and leaves room for deviation and further explications.
but marx had to argue in a way that makes this observation a logical necessity:
Marx provides a two stage argument for the labour theory of value. The first stage is to argue that if two objects can be compared in the sense of being put on either side of an equals sign, then there must be a ‘third thing of identical magnitude in both of them’ to which they are both reducible. As commodities can be exchanged against each other, there must, Marx argues, be a third thing that they have in common. This then motivates the second stage, which is a search for the appropriate ‘third thing’, which is labour in Marx's view, as the only plausible common element. Jonathan wolff, SEP
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#3
the basic probelm with marx's way of thinking about political economy is his overreliance on theoretical objects that are too abstract, with concreteness built upon the need of theory rather than the actual operation of whatever it is seeking to describe. "dialectical materialism" and the like are grand theories that marx elevate to the status of law or necessity, but the actual arguments for them are less than that.
take the law of falling profit, a contradiction of capitalism that necessarily propels social conflict. this is what the argument in support consists of, observation about early industrial economy's demand for labor. e.g. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#S5
indeed, a lot of this section is true, given the conditions at the time. but, why does marx elevate this to a 'law'? because of his penchant for hegel style crackpot metaphysical style of philosophy. that's a stylistic preference that is pretty bad.
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![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bE6SBNroL._SX318_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
Just finished with Ready Player One. A book with a fun plot and relatable characters but bad editing. It is a story about a contest in an online world with a very large price. The competition, problem solving and intrigues this creates.
The major real downside is in the info dumping. Most culture references are explained, which is good if you don't know them and bad if you do.
The other thing is that the description of things often gets long. Backgrounds and sights can ramble on a few too many paragraphs. Somewhere in the book it was commented on how two lines of text in an interactive game was enough to get you immersed. Taking that to heart would have made a better book.
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xCKGoqAlL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
Before that I read up through book 7 of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?. It is a series of Japanese light novels taking place in an RPG like world. The focus being a massive dungeon with replenish-able monsters and our hero's climb through the levels. As the story progresses more focus is on the power plays in the area around it and less on the dungeon itself.
It features a lot of the classical features from a light novel with the fan service and a few drawings here and there. The main character also has to be special in some way. He isn't as obnoxious as most but still not a great character.
Overall it is good, the action is high in tension and the world very interesting. The novel length and many times high pace often makes it hard to relate to characters but that isn't why one reads stories of this kind anyhow.
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Eq8xAW7fL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
Will continue on towards the goal of 100 books this year again (at 99 so will make it). Always a worthwhile goal.  Up next is Leviathan by Jack Campbell, continuing his "space opera" series The lost fleet.
Is there any recommended reading of fun science books (not sci-fi)? Mostly in physics but anything related to the nano scale would be fine as well.
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On September 27 2015 10:37 phantomfive wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 22:11 corumjhaelen wrote:
I think it's top notch among philosophers. Worse than Schopenhauer and Plato, equal or better than about anybody else I've read, including Descartes who is always hailed for his style by French people. He really is hilarious too.
Reading Ibn Khaldun. Lots of pretty amazing ideas for a XIVth century guy. Lots of pretty repetitive stuff too, a pity.
Also rereading H2G2 for some reason. Still can't really find that funny. Voltaire is probably worth mentioning in any list of skilled writing philosophers. Nietzsche is interesting in that I find his stuff fairly flowing, even when I have no idea what he's saying. That could be the translation though.
What philosophy has Voltaire written though ?
Nietzsche is a strange case, I won't judge.
I'm not surprise by your judgement oneofthem, analytical philosophy at its finest. How is Ludgwig's writting btw ? :p
By reading Schopenhauer front to cover, one can see how clear his reasonnings are so clear that almost all their numerous flaws are immediatly apparent, so this should please you in a way.
As for Plato not writting well, I guess this comes from your arbitrary definition of how philosophy should be written. I don't know a better written book than the Symposium.
On the other hand Timaeus sucks (but it's not really a dialogue, so no surprise), and I don't get half of Parmenides, but a I'm not sure the problem has to do with style.
I also think Proust gives the most compelling philosophical argument I know about aesthetics with his novel, by precisely not writting philosophy (or criticism). Let's say clashing traditions.
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On September 27 2015 11:49 PhoenixVoid wrote:
This is like two weeks late but why not. I finished The Girl in the Spider's Web authored not by Stieg Larsson but David Lagercrantz. The themes revolve primarily around the dangers of hyper-advanced AI technology, surveillance from the NSA, crime and corruption mixed with a heavy dose of hacking and broken families. It does delve into some relevant issues, even the struggles of modern journalism, but most of it feels glossed over or added for the sake of being relevant and interesting without being fleshed out. The writing tries its best to evoke Larsson's style and it doesn't do that bad of a job, but it simply doesn't have enough space to cover the depth Larsson wrote in. The book is 400 pages which compared to the previous novels is insufficient to match the pacing and character development of the previous works. I didn't find it a bad read and it still kept me thrilled at points, but it follows a very predictable formula and after a while you can almost smell how the story progresses.
Oh wow, I had no idea that they had brought someone in to write a fourth book. I read and loved the original trilogy, so I guess I'll pick it up sometime.
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On September 27 2015 17:09 oneofthem wrote:in the case of marx, his style is direct assertions without justifying each step, and doing so at an ontological level that is stylistically abstracted so as to fit the theory being propounded. take the labor theory of value as example, he could have said, ricardo said something that seems true about labor being a critical input of production, and thus a major factor in determining pricign of products. this statement specifies a mechanism of action, and leaves room for deviation and further explications. but marx had to argue in a way that makes this observation a logical necessity: Show nested quote +Marx provides a two stage argument for the labour theory of value. The first stage is to argue that if two objects can be compared in the sense of being put on either side of an equals sign, then there must be a ‘third thing of identical magnitude in both of them’ to which they are both reducible. As commodities can be exchanged against each other, there must, Marx argues, be a third thing that they have in common. This then motivates the second stage, which is a search for the appropriate ‘third thing’, which is labour in Marx's view, as the only plausible common element. Jonathan wolff, SEP http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#3 the basic probelm with marx's way of thinking about political economy is his overreliance on theoretical objects that are too abstract, with concreteness built upon the need of theory rather than the actual operation of whatever it is seeking to describe. "dialectical materialism" and the like are grand theories that marx elevate to the status of law or necessity, but the actual arguments for them are less than that. take the law of falling profit, a contradiction of capitalism that necessarily propels social conflict. this is what the argument in support consists of, observation about early industrial economy's demand for labor. e.g. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#S5indeed, a lot of this section is true, given the conditions at the time. but, why does marx elevate this to a 'law'? because of his penchant for hegel style crackpot metaphysical style of philosophy. that's a stylistic preference that is pretty bad.
I would say that majority of the book, the last 2/3 of it, delve into non-theoretical detail to the point of repetition. There are pages and pages and pages on factory conditions and calculations of factory costs and profits. If you want to say that the first two parts of the book don't stand alone that's fine and true. But starting around chapter seven, or part 3, the labour process and the valourization process, the rest of the book essentially explicates and expands upon the first two parts. So maybe you take issue with the way Marx went about laying out his ideas, starting with the commodity, exchange of, money, etc., instead of working from the production side or something. I will agree with you that if you don't make it through to the meat of the book then Marx can look like a bad writer, and I might even go so far as to say that the first two parts of Capital are some of his darkest prose, but the rest of the book was pretty delightful, if a bit repetitive at times.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
witty's writing is my favorite. <3<3<3
full bias engaged but yea
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On September 27 2015 17:47 Yurie wrote:
Is there any recommended reading of fun science books (not sci-fi)? Mostly in physics but anything related to the nano scale would be fine as well.
Why not do both and read Egan's Diaspora? 
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I've been doing some reading for the course in Sci-fi I'm taking this term.
So far, we've done Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and H.G. Wells' The Time Machine.
I've never actually read either of these novels before, so it was somewhat interesting, since most of my perception of them was driven by various adaptations from popular culture. They were quite different from what I was expecting going in.
Now, I'm re-reading George Orwell's 1984. I'm a little scared of what the class discussion of this novel is going to be like.
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Do you know the rest of the material ? Honestly would be disppointed by such a content 
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It gets better, in my opinion.
After that, in order, we'll be doing:
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Joe Haldeman, The Forever War
William Gibson, Neuromancer (One of my favourite books)
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl
I've gotten through Forever War so far, and thought it was alright. Haven't actually read Slaughterhouse-Five or The Windup Girl yet. Depending on what our term paper actually is about, I'm going to try writing about Neuromancer.
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I read the Forever War, it was kinda short but I didn't like it all that much. It read like Hemingway if he tried scifi.
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Well, Mary Shelley had to be there since she was the precursor of sci-fi.
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But there is no Jules Verne, so choices had to be made apparently (and I don't like them, but I don't know them all anyway, so I can't complain^^).
Edit : wait, English language only. Whatever.
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Baa?21243 Posts
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Really sad I don't think Verne is the greatest writer ever, and I'm sure English-speaking youngsters have tons of great stuff to read, but I had so much fun reading some of his novels when I was younger, it really seems a pity. Often witty, crazy ideas, charismatic characters... My favourite is The Mysterious Island, or how 5 random guys get stuck on an island with next to nothing and finish the novel with a telegraph and nitroglycerin. Beat that Robinson.
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EPT
