|
add list of shitheel authors with full dossiers (e.g. races they dislike, stances on homosexuality, stance on guns, sexism on 1/10 scale) on who said what about whom, and when, to the OP
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 16:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 00:28 |
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:Speaking as a homosexual: gently caress you. Right in the eye. coyo7e posted:I don't feel that his views on gun laws are reprehensible either. However, setting oneself up as an unassailable pillar of light truth and knowledge in a dark and ignorant world, is pretty reprehensible to me.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 16:41
|
|
|
Hitler was a great artist (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 16:41
|
|
|
both of you are cis-scum, speaking as a POC transwoman i would like to add to the worst derail in the history of this thread that
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 16:43
|
|
|
Tornhelm posted:Speaking as a bi guy, gently caress you right back. I don't like Vox, I don't agree with his opinions, but I'm sure as gently caress not going to blame others for them or for failing to denounce them.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 16:47
|
|
|
Can we turn away from arguing about personal culpability, and back to agreeing that people who write mil porn are terrible sacks of human filth with unrequited murderous impulses?
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 16:53
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:Can we turn away from arguing about personal culpability, and back to talking about loving scifi/fantasy books
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 16:56
|
|
|
lol, I change my mind, this dude owns. correia45 posted:Uncle Timmy is no racist. His crime was reposting jokes that would have been okay to laugh at if they’d been told by a comedian on TV. One lone ANONYMOUS jackass threw a fit so Archon tossed him. His books look really good  No fedora in sight, haters 
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 17:06
|
|
|
In an attempt to keep the discussion going but perhaps get it refocused on books rather than personalities: Has anyone ever noticed that in a lot stories that seem to espouse some version of libertarianism, a lot of the "average" characters actually aren't ordinary people at all and a lot of times if you made a minor change in assumptions, it guts the entire story? For example, recently I picked up "A Taste of Tomorrow - The Dystopian Boxed Set" for Kindle, and it included a novel called Apocalypse Drift by Joe Nobody. The novel itself was decent insofar as it was fast-paced, well-written, and interesting--our hero survives via boat, which is at least a bit more original than your run-of-the-mill apocalypse tale. I probably gave it way more thought than it deserved, but I realized that what was bugging me about it was that the "average" people weren't realistic at all. (I'm going to spoiler this part in case you haven't read it and want to.) So our hero is living out at the marina when everything starts going to hell. There's a neighborhood nearby, and this scummy dude who lives there with his wife and kids comes to the marina and gets some food off of them. Scummy guy's family has pretty much gone through all their supplies which is the rationale for him going looking. Wife and kids sit in the house and do nothing. Scummy guy gets killed when he attempts to rob our heroes at the marina, and they figure out where he came from and bring the body back to his wife. Long story short, she and the kids are starving to death a few weeks later so she kills the kids and then herself. The author knows his trade, so while I was reading it, it seemed perfectly normal. But wait just a loving minute here. Am I supposed to believe that this mother loving sat in her house without talking to anyone for more than a loving month? I'm supposed to believe that everyone in the entire loving neighborhood sat in their drat houses the whole time? This is utterly outside the realm of my experience with people. I will speak for myself here, but there is no loving way I would let two little kids in my neighborhood starve to death. I am no drat leader by any stretch of the imagination, but I would never let that happen, and I am willing to bet that 99% of the people here wouldn't allow it either. While it's easy to theorize when it's some distant news story, I don't know of anyone who, confronted with an actual starving child, would go back into their house and close the door. So this novel is pretty much completely gutted if people just act like ordinary human beings. This is also true of Terry Goodkind's novels. First couple were okay, but then such stupid things had to happen to keep his hero the hero that I just got disgusted. Everyone has to chant our hero's name and let him rule their hearts? Are you making GBS threads me? I won't neglect Ayn Rand either, although she isn't thought of as a fantasy author. There are a bunch of what-if's that would destroy the whole narrative. Like... Hank Rearden getting into an accident and needing a wheelchair, say. In real life, that wouldn't stop him from inventing Rearden metal, but it would sure as hell gut the story. Or, while I'm on the subject of Rearden, what would have happened if he said "I won't cheat on my wife"? Maybe I'm just getting pickier as I get older, but if one little monkey wrench will tear down your entire structure, it's not a very solid structure.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 18:51
|
|
|
It's not your fault. Libertarianism only even works by redefining people as frictionless spherical humanoids of uniform density. The moment you include real people, who behave in real human ways, it all falls apart. Ayn Rand is the same way. Both work by saying "well, if people were like this instead of how they actually are, then..." and go from there. There's no such thing as Libertarian or Objectivist fiction, really, because the whole thing runs on fiction. [e] It's actually a lot like Communism that way. Both rely on people not being people to make their fiction work. Cardiovorax fucked around with this message at 19:38 on May 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 19:34
|
|
|
Amberskin posted:Man, THANKS a lot for this suggestion. I finished Germline yesterday, and it has been one of my greatest reads in the last years. Not an easy one (the writing is heavy in slang and it is sometimes difficult to follow for a non-english speaker), but both the battle/war descriptions and the inner world of the character are well developed and written. It is quite predictable sometimes, but great anyway. I'm glad you liked it. Yeah, it is a dark novel, it had the same sort of bleak and cynical vibe as some Vietnam War books that I've read. Also, each book is pretty self-contained and told from a new and different POV, so you won't have to worry about remembering every little detail just to follow the plot when you start the next one.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
As a Rational Actor, mommy understood that her children has no economic purpose in the brave new post-apocalyptic libertopia and so liquidated their corporate personhoods.  If that whole mess was a major enough plot point to warrant spoliers, good god. Children literally starving to death is usually the point where our brave objectivist heroes demonstrate their boundless generosity by gifting them table scraps or jobs in the salt mine, but it sounds like the author soared right past that into new hieghts of FYGM glory.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 20:11
|
|
|
I have a whole rant in me about this, but I'll sum up. This is why some of the best post-apocalyptic fiction was written by John Wyndham, because he lived through the London Blitz in WWII and saw how real people act when faced with disaster. He also gave a drat about people. Disaster-fic written by basement nerds, whether it's zombie poo poo or whatever, almost always features themselves as competant libertarian heroes while "the mundanes" literally rot in the streets because it's essentially revenge fantasies of getting back at everyone who picked on them in school. It's loving pathetic.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
Clark Nova posted:As a Rational Actor, mommy understood that her children has no economic purpose in the brave new post-apocalyptic libertopia and so liquidated their corporate personhoods. As I said, I just spoiled in case there are people who are planning to read it. Thanks for clearing that up that liquidation thing for me. 
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 20:31
|
|
|
Piell posted:Bringing this over from the Dresden Files thread since it fits better here Rather than move drama between threads, it'd probably be best to just start a separate thread to discuss these issues rather than bring them into an existing thread. It's ok if the discussion rises organically within a particular thread but I don't want drama to start cross-pollinating. These are important issues and worth discussing but jumping the discussion around between threads is just going to get confusing.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 21:07
|
|
|
Stuporstar posted:I have a whole rant in me about this, but I'll sum up. This is why some of the best post-apocalyptic fiction was written by John Wyndham, because he lived through the London Blitz in WWII and saw how real people act when faced with disaster. He also gave a drat about people. Disaster-fic written by basement nerds, whether it's zombie poo poo or whatever, almost always features themselves as competant libertarian heroes while "the mundanes" literally rot in the streets because it's essentially revenge fantasies of getting back at everyone who picked on them in school. It's loving pathetic. Oh, by all means, rant away. I agree about John Wyndham, Aldiss' complaints about it being a cosy catastrophe notwithstanding. Some of the scenes in The Day of the Triffids are haunting, such as when our hero and lady have dinner together and she dresses up and they realize that probably they won't see that level of civilization again in their lifetimes. I don't think an apocalypse necessarily involves a Social Darwinian battle. The strong can be felled by an accident just as quickly as the weak, which is why humans have developed the habit of banding together.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 21:18
|
|
|
Zola posted:Oh, by all means, rant away. I agree about John Wyndham, Aldiss' complaints about it being a cosy catastrophe notwithstanding. Some of the scenes in The Day of the Triffids are haunting, such as when our hero and lady have dinner together and she dresses up and they realize that probably they won't see that level of civilization again in their lifetimes. I don't think an apocalypse necessarily involves a Social Darwinian battle. The strong can be felled by an accident just as quickly as the weak, which is why humans have developed the habit of banding together. Exactly. This is how humanity has survived for its entire existence. The fall of civilization would not change that because up until 10k years ago, at least, we did not have civilization. We survived without the comforts of an heirarchical agrarian society for well over 10 times that long, and we did it by being social animals, not anti-social ones. Sure, there would be panic, and lots of panicky assholes would make life miserable for all the survivors, but the people who would survive in the long term would be the ones who work together. I want more post-apocalyptic novels that focus on that, rather than the libertarian lone-wolf survivalist bullshit I'm so utterly sick of.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 21:55
|
|
|
Stuporstar posted:Exactly. This is how humanity has survived for its entire existence. The fall of civilization would not change that because up until 10k years ago, at least, we did not have civilization. We survived without the comforts of an heirarchical agrarian society for well over 10 times that long, and we did it by being social animals, not anti-social ones. Sure, there would be panic, and lots of panicky assholes would make life miserable for all the survivors, but the people who would survive in the long term would be the ones who work together. I want more post-apocalyptic novels that focus on that, rather than the libertarian lone-wolf survivalist bullshit I'm so utterly sick of. This is why I hate The Walking Dead.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 22:14
|
|
|
Stuporstar posted:Exactly. This is how humanity has survived for its entire existence. The fall of civilization would not change that because up until 10k years ago, at least, we did not have civilization. We survived without the comforts of an heirarchical agrarian society for well over 10 times that long, and we did it by being social animals, not anti-social ones. Sure, there would be panic, and lots of panicky assholes would make life miserable for all the survivors, but the people who would survive in the long term would be the ones who work together. I want more post-apocalyptic novels that focus on that, rather than the libertarian lone-wolf survivalist bullshit I'm so utterly sick of. Not only are humans social animals, we are also far more adaptable than most of us realize, and are able to survive in conditions that many would consider unlivable. So often post-apocalyptic books just miss out on how much of a survival benefit a group is, in favor of some half-baked survivalist superman scenario. Makes me look at pretty much anything in the subgenre with a bit of a jaundiced eye. Azathoth fucked around with this message at 22:22 on May 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 22:19
|
|
|
Azathoth posted:This. I recently read a nonfiction book about how society dealt with The Black Death, and I was continually amazed at how often things didn't degenerate into chaos and anarchy, even in the face of death rates akin to what we would experience in the event of nuclear war. In fact, most post-apocalyptic stories villianize groups because they represent the social order that's supressing their lone-wolf survivalist superman ideals. The group is full of high school bullies who prey on all the "sheep" they've wrangled into the fold. Only our lone hero has the balls to walk away and leave all the "sheeple" to get hosed by zombies or whatever.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2014 22:32
|
|
|
Have any Rugged Individualist Wank authors ever written an unofficial version of what happens after Atlas Shrugged. Where the Randian ubermensch wander the wasteland that is post-Atlas America killing the remaining looters who have grouped together into Mad Max-esque degenerate hoon gangs and wolverining away the invading Ruskies and/or Chinks (who, communist monsters that they are, have decided to take advantage of the situation and invade). This seems like a thing that should exist.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 02:17
|
|
|
Is Dragon's Path any good?
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 04:00
|
|
|
holocaust bloopers posted:Is Dragon's Path any good?
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 04:15
|
|
|
gvibes posted:It is fine. You can find much worse. Hhmmm alright. So I like Game Of Thrones. Haven't read the books, but am caught up on the show. What fantasy series is up there with GoT that would be worth reading?
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 04:24
|
|
|
holocaust bloopers posted:Hhmmm alright. So I like Game Of Thrones. Haven't read the books, but am caught up on the show. What fantasy series is up there with GoT that would be worth reading? You specifically after low-magic swords and nobles being lovely and gritty? China Mieville's Bas-Lag stuff is goddamn interesting. It is short of knights and dragons in ye olde pretende europe, and long on cactus-men and puissance. So much puissance.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 04:36
|
|
|
Slo-Tek posted:You specifically after low-magic swords and nobles being lovely and gritty? I'm open to trying new genre stuff.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 04:40
|
|
|
holocaust bloopers posted:I'm open to trying new genre stuff. I'd give it a shot, it is a bit literary in spots. But full of crazy interesting ideas. Perdido Street Station was his big breakout 'this changes the way we think about fantasy writing' book, but has some first book pacing issues. The Scar is the second in the universe, and I think is a stronger story. I'd probably give PSS a shot, and if you don't love it, then you don't need to read The Scar. But if you do, The Scar is better. There is a China Mieville thread, but it is exceedingly spoilery.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 04:45
|
|
|
Cool. I'll give PSS a go here once I wrap up another book or two. I just had a Kindle Paperwhite delivered. It's amazing.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 04:47
|
|
|
Azathoth posted:This. I recently read a nonfiction book about how society dealt with The Black Death, and I was continually amazed at how often things didn't degenerate into chaos and anarchy, even in the face of death rates akin to what we would experience in the event of nuclear war. Probably veering off topic, but that Black Death book sounds interesting. Got a title/link?
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 05:24
|
|
|
CaptCommy posted:Probably veering off topic, but that Black Death book sounds interesting. Got a title/link? Seconding this request. And seconding the recommendation of Perdido Street Station. Yes, the pacing and prose are a bit wonky at times, but the sheer weirdness of its imagery, setting, and the whole "socio-politics with gross monsters" thing make it worth a go.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 05:31
|
|
|
holocaust bloopers posted:Hhmmm alright. So I like Game Of Thrones. Haven't read the books, but am caught up on the show. What fantasy series is up there with GoT that would be worth reading? Steph Swainston's Fourlands books are a non-Tolkieny fantasy series that buck a lot of tropes, and are super fun about it. They're not "gritty," per se, but their battle scenes don't pull any punches, there's sufficient intercharacter conflict without anybody really devolving to mustache-twirling caricatures, and the narrator is a hilarious rear end at times. I think the trilogy is about the same length as a single Game of Thrones book, so there's that too. Along similar lines, I just picked up "The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars" by Steven Brust without knowing who he was and really enjoyed it. Are his Vlad Taltos books interesting in any way, or is it just another look-how-cool-my-RPG-character-was fantasy series? The book summaries sound like they could go either direction.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 05:45
|
|
|
Azathoth posted:
Yeah, that's what me always annoys me about all the survivalist/apocalypse stuff (games, TV, books, movies). People for the most part aren't first and foremost out to gently caress everyone else and declare themselves king of the hill. If - as these guys love to call it - TSHTF - most people work together and help others, even if it means risking their lives for no reward. Look at what's just happening in Southern Europe: People lost all their belongings, houses, comforts and sometimes loved ones and still for many the first order of the day is helping others in the same situation or worse. holocaust bloopers posted:Is Dragon's Path any good? I like it. It's not as good as the The Long Price Quartet-series was, because the story tends to stall out here and there, but it has compelling characters, especially the villain, is well written and has an interesting scenario. Decius fucked around with this message at 05:54 on May 23, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 05:51
|
|
|
Decius posted:Yeah, that's what me always annoys me about all the survivalist/apocalypse stuff (games, TV, books, movies). People for the most part aren't first and foremost out to gently caress everyone else and declare themselves king of the hill. If - as these guys love to call it - TSHTF - most people work together and help others, even if it means risking their lives for no reward. Look at what's just happening in Southern Europe: People lost all their belongings, houses, comforts and sometimes loved ones and still for many the first order of the day is helping others in the same situation or worse. Counterpoint: Somalia
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 07:11
|
|
|
Decius posted:Yeah, that's what me always annoys me about all the survivalist/apocalypse stuff (games, TV, books, movies). People for the most part aren't first and foremost out to gently caress everyone else and declare themselves king of the hill. If - as these guys love to call it - TSHTF - most people work together and help others, even if it means risking their lives for no reward. Look at what's just happening in Southern Europe: People lost all their belongings, houses, comforts and sometimes loved ones and still for many the first order of the day is helping others in the same situation or worse. Yep. A handy book on this, nonfiction, is Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. There's an excerpt on the New York Times website that isn't behind a paywall, I think.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 07:16
|
|
|
Is there a reason the Space Opera thread was killed? I kind of enjoyed a space scifi only thread.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 07:46
|
|
|
gohmak posted:Is there a reason the Space Opera thread was killed? I kind of enjoyed a space scifi only thread. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3149277&pagenumber=45#lastpost It's just a slower thread so it tends to drop down to page 2.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 08:07
|
|
|
Isolated incidents of horrendous and awful events happening over a period of weeks, months or even years in a house without anyone else knowing about it happens on a fairly regular basis and is semi-frequently reported on in the news. That is how child neglect, even in fairly highly populated areas, has occasionally gotten to the point of a teenaged child being literally unable to verbally communicate. That is how rape dungeons go unnoticed for long enough to raise a bunch of incestuous children and/or leave abductees' families assuming the worst. The example of a mother and her children starving to death may not seem likely, but given the fact that people starve and/or freeze to death on the streets of even developed countries on a daily basis, I don't think it's a massively unlikely picture being drawn.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 09:20
|
|
|
Kalenn Istarion posted:Counterpoint: Somalia Counterpoint: Somalia The discussion belongs in D&D not here but the common perceptions of Somalia (and Africa as a whole) are very different from the reality and the trends
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 12:54
|
|
|
Chairchucker posted:Isolated incidents of horrendous and awful events happening over a period of weeks, months or even years in a house without anyone else knowing about it happens on a fairly regular basis and is semi-frequently reported on in the news. That is how child neglect, even in fairly highly populated areas, has occasionally gotten to the point of a teenaged child being literally unable to verbally communicate. That is how rape dungeons go unnoticed for long enough to raise a bunch of incestuous children and/or leave abductees' families assuming the worst. The example of a mother and her children starving to death may not seem likely, but given the fact that people starve and/or freeze to death on the streets of even developed countries on a daily basis, I don't think it's a massively unlikely picture being drawn. I have to disagree with you here. I am not saying it was unrealistic that people might starve to death. I am saying it was unrealistic that the mother wouldn't lift a finger to save herself and her children, and it was unrealistic that everyone around her would hide in their houses and not interact with anyone. I've been through some weather "disasters", both in densely and sparsely populated areas, and that's not what people do. The crimes you are thinking of tend to take advantage of anonymity and limited interaction, and the minute anybody gets wind of something going on, it's game over even in an area where people tend to mind their own business.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 14:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 00:28 |
|
|
systran posted:add list of shitheel authors with full dossiers (e.g. races they dislike, stances on homosexuality, stance on guns, sexism on 1/10 scale) on who said what about whom, and when, to the OP At this point, it would be quicker to list the ones who aren't.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2014 14:26
|
|
