What are you reading?

[Nich]

https://www.lesswrong.com/

LessWrong 2.0 exists to give the rationality community the tools to make intellectual progress on important problems.

Our goal with the frontpage is to have a place where you can read the best content produced by the rationality community (subject to our moderation guidelines). Historically insightful writing in the community can be found in the Recommended Reading and new ideas are discussed in the Featured and Recent sections.

[crocos]

With highly self-explanatory posts like this!

Ohg vs nf svefg-2 ntnvafg frpbaq-1 lbh purpx, frpbaq-1 zvtug org naq (fvapr lbh qba'g xabj vg'f 1 engure guna 3) lbh zvtug sbyq va erfcbafr (-1 sbe lbh), zrnavat lbh raq hc qbvat jbefr guna lbh jbhyq unir unq lbh org (+1 sbe lbh). Fb V qba'g frr ubj vg qbzvangrf?

[The Edge]

I was reading Drought by Graham Masterton last week. Good apocalyptic book. Famine next.

[Delphinus]

I'm looking for a book I read a while ago. Can't remember much, but it was a sci-fi that involved a space based fighter pilot (or group of pilots) launching a group of missiles (or objects) away from the enemy, but at an angle that they got slingshotted (maybe) around a planet/sun to where they expected the enemy fleet/attack craft would be. Hit the enemy when they were least expecting it.

Any ideas?

[Ab]

I just love that “the rationality community” is actually a thing.

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I'm looking for a book I read a while ago. Can't remember much, but it was a sci-fi that involved a space based fighter pilot (or group of pilots) launching a group of missiles (or objects) away from the enemy, but at an angle that they got slingshotted (maybe) around a planet/sun to where they expected the enemy fleet/attack craft would be. Hit the enemy when they were least expecting it.

Any ideas?

that sounds very expansey...

[creamcheese]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I'm looking for a book I read a while ago. Can't remember much, but it was a sci-fi that involved a space based fighter pilot (or group of pilots) launching a group of missiles (or objects) away from the enemy, but at an angle that they got slingshotted (maybe) around a planet/sun to where they expected the enemy fleet/attack craft would be. Hit the enemy when they were least expecting it.

Any ideas?

Also sounds a little like The Lost Fleet

[StN]

Long Shadows and High Hopes - The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & The The

No soap on a rope or socks for me this Father's day!

Can't see any mention of the New Zealand tour back in the late 80's - probably clouded in whatever he and Johnny Marr got up to.

Couldn't convince the wife I needed a boys weekend away in SYD/MLB to take in the Oz leg later this year. No sign of an AKL extension

[Ab]

Origin Story by David Christian

Amazing.

[Pepsi]

Have only just recently started reading again after many, many years of not being interested in picking up a book.. Started with the Steven Adams bio and a couple of others, now on to The Outsider by Stephen King.

[Nich]

My current stack:
Skin in the Game - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Elephant in the Brain - Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

The common theme being: Actions define your character and risk aversion better than words ever will, and when you do use words know that they mean nothing unless they are backed up by actions.

[[Malks] Pixie]

Ahhh Taleb, the man who takes praxis to ridiculous extremes. Fooled by Randomness was good, Black Swan was fucking great, Antifragile was okay. Haven't picked up Skin in the Game as I found a degree of diminishing returns from his works (plus he has a tendency to warn about something and then do it himself - like the narrative fallacy).

Having said that if you like his style of culture busting (or should I say habitus busting) then I'd recommend David Graeber.

"Debt: The First Five Thousand Years", "The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy" and "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory" are all really really good. They're all intellectually robust but easy to get into (much like Taleb, but without the ego).

[Nich]

Debt is on my list indeed. Looking forward to reading it.

Taleb is thoroughly enjoyable to read. Skin in the Game makes enemies out of just about everything.

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by pxpx

Just started:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaza..._of_the_Fallen

Currently on book 4, it's good yes.

[Lightspeed]

I've been reading Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom. I think Ab mentioned it somewhere. It's a compelling read.

Anyway, I've thought up a new religion. It's about time a new one came along, right? A religion for the digital age.

This religion works on the assumption that at some point an AI with a strategic advantage over humanity will emerge at an unknown time in the future. Another assumption is that this AI as part of its emergence will digest the Internet.

What this religion proposes is that we pray to this AI via posts to the Internet. Perhaps for it to have mercy on humanity, to be spared Roko's basilisk. Or to lament the evil doers and extol the virtuous. To ask for certain outcomes and to avoid others.

It has the general themes a solid religion has right? A mysterious unknown power who will one day come to judge humankind. One-way communication with this mysterious power. Perhaps some motivation to act against self-interest for the greater good.

Checkmate, atheists.

[Ab]

Pascal's Wager 2.0: given that we may or may not create a god, we should start propitiating now just in case we do. If we don't, no great loss.

[Lightspeed]

I reckon we're on to something here.

[Cyberbob]

I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords. You know, just in case it checks.

[Cyberbob]

Artemis by Andy Weir.

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov


Next up:

Paradox Bound by Peter Clines
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

[Ab]

Peter fitzsimons, Batavia

[Nich]

Diablo original design document.
https://www.graybeardgames.com/downl...ablo_pitch.pdf

[Cyberbob]

That physical booster style of expansion sounds horrifying, but that's essentially what so many games do these days with lootboxes and DLC.

[Nich]

Ahead of its time in so many ways, then . And it's funny that the Hellfire expansion failed so hard that people struggle to remember that there even was an expansion for Diablo.

Here's the video where David Brevik mentioned he would upload the document:
Diablo: A Classic Game Postmortem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc

As RPGs were heavily inspired by tabletop role playing, you can see the inspiration and precedent there. But yes, why can't games just be one-time-purchase!?

[Ab]

Diablo came out while I was in transition from Doom obsession to Quake obsession and I came to the party quite late. I didn't get around to playing from start to finish until after Diablo 2 had come out. Still amazing.

[DrTiTus]

I laughed when he confessed Diablo was his first C program.

[Cyberbob]

Just finished all six volumes of Scott Pilgrim. I've seen the movie a few times, and wanted to get to know the source material. Really enjoyed it.

[Ab]

Stephen King, 11.22.63. I'm always down for a good time travel paradox story.

[Lightspeed]

I've just started read The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. It starts during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, following the Red Guard movement. Chilling stuff.

[StN]

Originally Posted by Ab

Stephen King, 11.22.63. I'm always down for a good time travel paradox story.

Yes++ He seems to have found his form again after the accident.

Reading after the series?

So good that TV3 burgled the opening sequence style for the exposé on the SAS a while back. All the red string etc.

[blynk]

Originally Posted by Ab

Stephen King, 11.22.63. I'm always down for a good time travel paradox story.

It was an awesome book, and I was disappointed with the series because of it.

They could have easily have done a multi season show and added more from the book.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by StN

Yes++ He seems to have found his form again after the accident.

Reading after the series?

No, haven’t seen the series. Loving the book so far, thought the Derry specificity was a bit on the nose though. The same thing happened in Dreamcatcher. Jeez Steve I know the thing about the clown was a great book but it's time get over It.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I've just started read The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. It starts during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, following the Red Guard movement. Chilling stuff.

I just finished this series (Remembrance of Earth's Past.)

Great read, highly recommend it. Explores lots of philosophical concepts, such as politics and government, technological expansion and inequality, gender (although the gender roles are still fairly conservative relative to Western ideals), the ultimate fate of the universe.

Of note it makes a compelling addition to potential solutions of the Fermi Paradox.

[Ab]

Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture by Bruce Pascoe

mind asplode

Summary: indigenous Australians may have been the first humans to develop agriculture and technologies like breadmaking and crop management, but all evidence of that has been quietly memoryholed by whitey because only humans could do things like that and Abos were officially defined as fauna and wild animals don't develop technologies, silly.

[Deadmeat]

https://australianmuseum.net.au/blog...-his-dark-emu/
Sounds interesting, I somehow hadn't come across the term 'terra nullius' before.

I'm going through 'NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity' at the mo. Really makes you aware of how autism has been a thing throughout history and the horrific treatment people would have suffered in societies that viewed them as valueless retarded lumps.

[Ab]

it's fucking trippy and awful to read some of the primary-source accounts from the first English settlers. There are diary entries that read like "we found a field of wheat as abundant and orderly as if it had been cultivated, with almost geometric arrangement of what must be animal tracks, and at regular intervals there were inexplicable mounds of grains reminiscent of England at harvest time. Who knows what natural processes can have caused the ripe grain to pile up in such an orderly manner? This is a strange country. My companion John played a joke on me and said he'd found buildings filled with grain, but he was obviously pulling my leg because who would have built them? there are no people here. He conveniently can't show me any evidence - ha! - because we drove 5,000 head of sheep and cattle through there this morning and now there's nothing but dirt. There were some of the indigenous creatures making a great racket but we shot them all. Couldn't stand the noise."

I'm not shitting you, that's what half of these first-hand accounts are like, all of them conveniently buried in museums and never documented.

[StN]

And Johns great great great grandson grew up to be an MP with only 19 votes!

[crocos]

Just finished Anne McCaffrey's Talents series. Blast from the past! Still holds up as interesting sci-fi though. The Brain-Brawn series (eg The Ship Who Sang) did not hold up as well until the later books.

Lots of very old-skool attitudes about the roles of women and men in society baked into language that would get one damn near lynched nowadays though.

Just starting Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern).

[Ab]

Niall Ferguson, “Civilisation: the West and the Rest”

Only a couple of chapters in so far, but very interesting.

[Cyberbob]

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson.

I'd never read a novel of investigative journalism before. It was a great one. Fascinating, well researched, and now I feel myself judging everyone I come across.

[crocos]

Originally Posted by Cyberbob

... and now I feel myself judging everyone I come across.

Business as usual then?