Zompist Bboard Again

Ah, yes! That's probably the best counter-example -- it's definitely a story, and a very good one at that.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 4:02 am b) Computers aren't very good at a lot of what our brain does. (With a humongous load of data, a few months of work and constant nursing by a few engineers, you can teach a computer to recognize cats. Babies pick up that skill pretty much instantly.)

Now I'm reminded of that old xkcd strip about how, if you do something yourself, with your own brain, you're technically not lying if you tell people afterwards that you "taught a neural network" to do it.

I watched Beforeigners over the last two weekends and found it a fun little show, even though I normally don't like time travel plots very much. It's a nice mixture of the fantastic, comedy, and crime procedural. Plus, it has spoken Old Norse.

I just watched Beforeigners too, just at the same time! I agree with you... though I didn't really warm to it until after the Mesolithic thug's line, "Now... wife win glory, in blogging."

Just finished reading The Fabric of Civilisation: How Textiles made the World, by Virginia Postrel. Very interesting with lots of relevance to conworlders. Recommended.

fusijui wrote: ↑Sun Apr 10, 2022 3:28 am I just watched Beforeigners too, just at the same time! I agree with you... though I didn't really warm to it until after the Mesolithic thug's line, "Now... wife win glory, in blogging."

Navn Ukjent was a great character, although I think they generally copped out on the Mesolithic people's language - you'd think that after several years in Norway, at least some of them would move beyond speaking Pidgin Norwegian*), and the Vikings speak Norwegian just fine when they're not speaking Old Norse among themselves (if it were only about Navn, that'd be fine; he is clearly cultivating an image).
*) I assume that's what they speak in the original; I watched the dubbed German version, where they speak Pidgin German.

I recently bought the Baburnama and got Ada Palmer's A Will to Battle from a local library, and am going to start the latter first because I am obliged to return it. Palmer has a series, of which this book is the third of four, set a few hundred years in the future in which people tried to set up a utopia after a series of vitriolic religious wars. It almost worked but not quite. The sovereign entities of the future are based on hobbies and interests, broadly speaking, as opposed to being based on control of territory which they explicitly are not based on because they're utopias now donchaknow. I sent her a fan email after reading one of the previous volumes to which I was mildly surprised to receive a response. I have been hazily interested in the Baburnama for several years; I was on the verge of buying it at one point, and then on his blog, Zompist questioned the utility of reading it if one isn't writing a book on India, so I put off buying it, and then saw it in a bookstore and was like 'why not'?

I've now started J. K. Galbraith's The Great Crash:1929, which is about (spoiler warning) the great crash of 1929. I thought that with the state of the world being what it is, some light escapism might cheer me up a bit. OK, more seriously, I had re-read some of zompist's pages and blog posts and eventually ended up at this blog post from more than ten years ago:

https://zompist.wordpress.com/2011/12/2 ... yesterday/ ,

which recommended the book in passing. So I thought I'd buy it. I'm not that far in yet, but so far, it seems interesting.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – "Altered Beast II" from Murder of the Universe. The whole first third of the album is best experienced in one go, so here it apparently is.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sun Apr 17, 2022 6:57 am I've now started J. K. Galbraith's The Great Crash:1929, which is about (spoiler warning) the great crash of 1929. I thought that with the state of the world being what it is, some light escapism might cheer me up a bit. OK, more seriously, I had re-read some of zompist's pages and blog posts and eventually ended up at this blog post from more than ten years ago:

https://zompist.wordpress.com/2011/12/2 ... yesterday/ ,

which recommended the book in passing. So I thought I'd buy it. I'm not that far in yet, but so far, it seems interesting.

I'm moving steadily through the book now. Interesting to read. I should put in a content warning, though: At one point in the fourth chapter, there's some fairly appalling sexism for a few paragraphs. Also, a while before that, there's a casual use of the old-fashioned word for "miserly" that looks and sounds a bit like the n-word.

normal, it was written in 1955, you can't expect it to have the same taboos as those of this millennium...

xxx wrote: ↑Sun Apr 17, 2022 3:28 pm normal, it was written in 1955, you can't expect it to have the same taboos as those of this millennium...

Oh, I don't - I just wanted to give a fair warning to people who might think about reading the book but would see this kind of thing as a dealbreaker.

Since we can't apply a watering down algorithm, perhaps we should consider rewriting the books of previous centuries, some of Shakespeare's are particularly disturbing, or burning them (provided we can find a way to filter the fumes so they don't get released into the atmosphere...)

Sigh. I know that you're being sarcastic, but you're still starting to get ridiculous. You're reacting to my reaction to a book that I'm currently reading and planning to finish. "I acknowledge that there might be other people who might not want to read this book" is not the same statement as "I want to see this book burned".

xxx wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:43 am Since we can't apply a watering down algorithm, perhaps we should consider rewriting the books of previous centuries, some of Shakespeare's are particularly disturbing, or burning them (provided we can find a way to filter the fumes so they don't get released into the atmosphere...)

The whole point of giving a warning about certain topics or even word usages is so that people who don't wish to read that material can back out, people who are not bothered can still read it, and people who are on the fence can make the decision for themselves with full knowledge. Giving content warnings is, if anything, the opposite of trying to get a book burned or censored.

I have started reading The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. I've heard this series is really good.

linguistcat wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 10:23 am The whole point of giving a warning about certain topics or even word usages is so that people who don't wish to read that material can back out, people who are not bothered can still read it, and people who are on the fence can make the decision for themselves with full knowledge. Giving content warnings is, if anything, the opposite of trying to get a book burned or censored.

it is not a book of apology of the rape or the slavery, which would hide its goal...
I find it crazy to put reservations on a book for reasons of vocabulary or simple point of view of the time when it was written...

I might as well advise to read only books published last year and validated by such or such censorship committee...
from there to burn it, there is only one step...
that has even been crossed for writings as subversive as TinTin and Asterix (attention zompist has made the apology on his site !!!)

hum, excuse me I get carried away...

xxx wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 12:56 pm it is not a book of apology of the rape or the slavery, which would hide its goal...
I find it crazy to put reservations on a book for reasons of vocabulary or simple point of view of the time when it was written...

Why? Maybe you've spent too much time around certain types online who view the only options for writing being either something is wholesome (for their definition of wholesome) and worth existing, or unwholesome and only worth burning. But I promise you there are a myriad of steps between "morally upstanding" and "burn it with fire". Someone could simply not be in the mood to read a certain word or phrase, or about a certain subject, and this might not even be a permanent situation. They could decide later they are fine with it.

There is a book that I love as a work of fiction, and it has a rape scene in it. Do I think that makes it unworthy of being read? Absolutely not or I would not love the book. Do I think the rape scene in the context of the story is handled well? Yes, I do. Do I think a lot of folks would still be upset or even clinically triggered if they read the book without them being warned it was there? Also yes. Do I think these people, and others who might not be upset by the scene, should be warned of its existence so they can ready themselves emotionally or not read the book if that is their choice? Yes again, and they can always change their mind at a later time.

I think people should be allowed to judge for themselves, and giving warnings helps them decide this. There's even research that being given a warning about a book's contents helps one to prepare for reading about it, in cases of assigned reading for school. So even when the reading of something upsetting is "mandatory", having the warning relieves some of the negative emotions that might get in the way of whatever lesson is being given. Quite a distance from censoring things.

Content warnings are also normative for film and video games (and have been for at least the past thirty-ish years; every one I've ever owned has had a rating symbol on the packaging, often with some explanation of potential objectionable content, and digital releases have them somewhere, too), it might be added. Whether or not people look at them before buying is another matter entirely. Manga (or at least the volumes I've seen) also usually have age ratings printed on them, and books in bookstores are often classified as "children's", "young readers", "teen", "general fiction", "adult", and other such things. Publishers also classify books to indicate their contents. The classification is not to obscure the book, but to help you find what you actually want to read. "This book contains [whatever potentially troubling thing], but here it is for you to read if you choose" is very little like burning a book.

One thing, though, is the expectation of content warnings ("trigger warnings") by some students in academia, which tends to have a restrictive effect on academic discourse, by either deluging things in warnings or putting pressure on academics to restrict content. And contrary to popular belief, it's not simply left wing or liberal students who demand these - very often it is conservative students who demand trigger warnings. Should students expect to have disclaimers for everything in a course or to be able to complain when anything they personally find objectionable is so disclaimed, especially when the students in question are conservatives?