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Strom Cuzewon posted:Was the request someone fed up with seeing BLACK DEMON SEED next to their wizard books, or someone from this thread who thought we'd get more readers if we re-branded? It was me, I thought the holes line was better than what I started with. 
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Dec 7, 2016 21:20
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:If we're rebranding, we should go with "now with less demon seed"
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Dec 9, 2016 06:51
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Ok, how's this?
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Dec 13, 2016 01:36
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Turbo-rad.
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Dec 13, 2016 01:50
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Dec 13, 2016 02:40
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Only a few more months to TUC whee.
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Jan 17, 2017 04:51
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And then a wait of so many years for the next trilogy, if he does write it. 
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Jan 18, 2017 17:01
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Does this series get better? I am halfway through the warrior prophet and the entire book seems to be characters telling other characters how much they absolutely love Kelhus. Like thiiiiiiiiis much. Or crying because other characters are telling them "Nu huh I love Kelhus the mostest." It's loving dire.
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Jan 18, 2017 18:28
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Collateral posted:Does this series get better? I am halfway through the warrior prophet and the entire book seems to be characters telling other characters how much they absolutely love Kelhus. Like thiiiiiiiiis much. Or crying because other characters are telling them "Nu huh I love Kelhus the mostest." Yeah, it adds a lot to the dread presented by Kelhus. It gets even better later!
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Jan 18, 2017 18:37
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Collateral posted:Does this series get better? I am halfway through the warrior prophet and the entire book seems to be characters telling other characters how much they absolutely love Kelhus. Like thiiiiiiiiis much. Or crying because other characters are telling them "Nu huh I love Kelhus the mostest." There's also Saubon's "nobody looooooooooves me, why can't they see how great I aaaaaaaaaaaaaam" I loving love Saubon. Petulant poo poo.
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Jan 18, 2017 19:56
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Collateral posted:Does this series get better? I am halfway through the warrior prophet and the entire book seems to be characters telling other characters how much they absolutely love Kelhus. Like thiiiiiiiiis much. Or crying because other characters are telling them "Nu huh I love Kelhus the mostest." Not every reader realizes that Kelhus is not a good dude. Kelhus gets built up in a Mary Sue-ish way partly as misdirection, and partly to eventually show how super hosed up Dunyain are.
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Jan 18, 2017 23:28
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Okay remind me (TGO spoilers) did Kellhus make any attempt to translocate the nuke before it went off? A couple horizons could have done it. Maybe it's too big and effortful even for reddit jesus
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Jan 18, 2017 23:38
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Nah, he leaves it on the mountain and then tells people to run like hell by appearing in all their shields. So I assume he knew about the nuke and was using it to kill all the sranc. They make a big deal in that book about how the ordeal is just herding the sranc together, so theres no way they'd be able to defeat them in battle. With Proyas primed to convert them to cannibalism the ordeal is gonna eat its way to Gologtterath.
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Jan 19, 2017 00:03
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I'm pretty sure Kelhus has calculated things so the last human soldier spears the last sranc in the chest just outside the gates of Golgotterath so Kelhus can hate-gently caress Aurang or something.
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Jan 19, 2017 00:14
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I enjoy the (accidental?) double meaning in the thread title. Truly nothing better
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Jan 19, 2017 01:03
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Corvinus posted:Not every reader realizes that Kelhus is not a good dude. Kelhus gets built up in a Mary Sue-ish way partly as misdirection, and partly to eventually show how super hosed up Dunyain are. It's like Richard read that GQ article about PUAs and made a character based on their bullshit claims. Sure you can read micro expressions but if you don't have any context you very likely pull the wrong string and get stabbed in the eye. Which never happens, apart from the one character who portrayed as mad/crazy (loving the brown brown earth eh?). That stuff sounds good in theory but it really doesn't work, humans are super contrary. I got the end of the book and Captain Cuck just saved *~<3~<3~The One~<3~<3~* Seriously? I will slog on for the occasional memorable section of prose and try to skip the drek The philosophy, like so much of the continental field, is waffle.  I guess this may get answered in later books but the Dunyain don't make a jot of sense. How can a monastic cult, or whatever they are, honestly exist if they eschew history? How would Kellhus and his father even know what they family name is? Why would they even bother teaching these conditioned that aren't defective and strung up for educational purposes? Why do they spend all their days learning about humans, how to manipulate them with fancy kung-fu and whatever, if they also never want to be part of, known by, or anything about the rest of humanity? He is talking poo poo right? Do they keep their women chained down in perpetual pregnancy chambers, I can't think that they produce many normal children, never mind these <3 Übermensch. They would be lucky if 1 in a 1000 births were not the baby from Eraserhead. I guess you could say it's fantasy and fantasy rules apply but wouldn't that just mean his metaphysical waffle is fantasy rules as well? Sorry for all the questions, I found many parts of these books frustrating.
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Jan 19, 2017 17:51
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Collateral posted:Do they keep their women chained down in perpetual pregnancy chambers, I can't think that they produce many normal children, never mind these <3 Übermensch. They would be lucky if 1 in a 1000 births were not the baby from Eraserhead. 
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Jan 19, 2017 18:04
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The second trilogy ('trilogy') addresses pretty much all of those things, and represents a big shift in tone, but I think honestly if you're not enjoying the books so far you might not enjoy the next ones either. I was hooked pretty much from the beginning because I'm a sucker for cool world building and introspective philosophising. Yeah the Dunyain don't really make sense but Bakker is honest enough to roll with that and explore it as the plot unfolds. e: and yeah the Dunyain face reading is not possible in reality but you can roll with it since it's possible in theory if you accept the conceit that events have strictly defined causes and that a sensitive-enough superintelligence can stochastically find those links. It's not meant to be 'look how cool this guy is with his mind reading', but 'look how our primitive notions of agency and free will fall apart when we are confronted with sufficiently advanced prediction systems', which you wouldn't raise an eyebrow at if this were sci-fi. Boing fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jan 19, 2017 |
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Jan 19, 2017 18:19
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I liked the first book and a half and it slowly but steadily got worse from there, and I was like 17, so honestly I'd say stop now
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Jan 19, 2017 18:27
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Collateral posted:I will slog on for the occasional memorable section of prose and try to skip the drek The philosophy, like so much of the continental field, is waffle. Yeah okay Mr. Sokal, your hoax was real cool
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Jan 19, 2017 19:46
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Collateral posted:It's like Richard read that GQ article about PUAs and made a character based on their bullshit claims. Sure you can read micro expressions but if you don't have any context you very likely pull the wrong string and get stabbed in the eye. Which never happens, apart from the one character who portrayed as mad/crazy (loving the brown brown earth eh?). That stuff sounds good in theory but it really doesn't work, humans are super contrary. All your questions will be answered, just continue onward. Let Bakker's bear trap embrace you! Boing posted:The second trilogy ('trilogy') addresses pretty much all of those things, and represents a big shift in tone, but I think honestly if you're not enjoying the books so far you might not enjoy the next ones either. I was hooked pretty much from the beginning because I'm a sucker for cool world building and introspective philosophising. To be honest, I liked the first trilogy the best, the second is, while overall still good, bordering on farce sometimes. Also from my viewpoint the series basically is sci-fi.
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Jan 19, 2017 22:40
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Collateral posted:It's like Richard read that GQ article about PUAs and made a character based on their bullshit claims. Sure you can read micro expressions but if you don't have any context you very likely pull the wrong string and get stabbed in the eye. Which never happens, apart from the one character who portrayed as mad/crazy (loving the brown brown earth eh?). That stuff sounds good in theory but it really doesn't work, humans are super contrary. Pretty much half the book is Kellhus loving up because he didn't have appropriate levers to use on people. He almost blows his cover when Skeaos freaks him out, is forced into an insane gamble to win Saubon over, and only manages to shoot down Conphas' objections when Cnauir steps in. The rest is pretty much cold-reading - look at his sermon to the distraught knight about the dead girl. He finds a guy visibly torn up about something, throws out some vagueness about "she speaks to you" (which we wouldn't even fall for if Derren Brown was doing it) and splashes out some high school level criticism about the meaning of grief. It's once he gets those levers that he moves into superpower territory, quite often by knowing which way you'll jump when you decide to be super contrary.
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Jan 19, 2017 23:20
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It's worth noting that the reader scoffs at Kellhus because we come from an enlightened era where the average reader has probably read about the chemical makeup of star matter and are hardened against manipulation by a lifetime of exposure to advertising and the farce of religious dogma. As such, his methods come across as hammy. However, Kellhus operates in a medieval era where the average man cannot read, the gods are a daily terror, and crafting a crusade requires little more than an uncanny ability to manipulate the willing. Someone who comes along and says some deep poo poo which feels right and sounds profound will go exceptionally far in the latter world, and did so multiple times in our own history. Then again, we have Trump so maybe modern society isn't as impervious to really ham-fisted manipulation as the intelligentsia would like to believe.
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Jan 20, 2017 00:33
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Collateral posted:I guess this may get answered in later books but the Dunyain don't make a jot of sense. I'm not sure if your post is intentionally obtuse, but the metaphysics of Earwa is: Damnation is literally real, Hell genuinely exists, collective belief is able to shape reality and gods (to limited degrees). The Dunyain are explainable within the setting's rules. Rime posted:It's worth noting that the reader scoffs at Kellhus because we come from an enlightened era where the average reader has probably read about the chemical makeup of star matter and are hardened against manipulation by a lifetime of exposure to advertising and the farce of religious dogma. As such, his methods come across as hammy. Modern understanding of cognition and neurology is not that old. It also strongly contradicts many ancient/classical/medieval beliefs and if you went back in time and told philosophers what we know now, they'd tell you to gently caress off. Corvinus fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 02:03
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Also Kelhus gets the benefit of conditionned ground by daddy.
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Jan 20, 2017 02:10
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Corvinus posted:Hell genuinely exists, collective belief is able to shape reality and gods (to limited degrees). I'm pretty sure the last part is wrong. Believe doesn't change reality.
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Jan 20, 2017 13:26
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genericnick posted:I'm pretty sure the last part is wrong. Believe doesn't change reality. You're probably right, though I was too vague. The 100 gods didn't always exist and are possibly fragments of the Zero God that took aspects and traits from humans. Then there is the Judging Eye, which shows Mimara the seemly objective fact that females are less than, and subject to, males. I'm assuming this is due to widespread dominance of patriarchal societies, collective belief in male superiority, but I could be wrong.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:08
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Or it could be based on real world biological sex differences and distributions of various traits.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:16
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Or it could be based on real world biological sex differences and distributions of various traits. 
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Jan 20, 2017 23:19
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If you believe that more strength and endurance are better than less and that a better chance of being a genius outweighs a better chance of being a retard despite similar means, then males are objectively better than females. I don't think there's a good argument for the second, but the first principle surely isn't controversial?
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Jan 20, 2017 23:24
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Or it could be based on real world biological sex differences and distributions of various traits. That might uuuh kinda explain "subject to" but certainly not "less than"
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Jan 20, 2017 23:24
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I bow before the collective horror of SA before too much reality, but I did predict something like the whale mothers role for female dunyain because it seemed the logical outgrowth of their philosophy applied to our current reality. It's faster to breed your super race if you divide roles like that, I just wasn't sure Bakker would have the balls to do it. Kudos for that, even if the physical sexual dimorphism went into WTF LOL territory.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:30
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Number Ten Cocks posted:If you believe that more strength and endurance are better than less and that a better chance of being a genius outweighs a better chance of being a retard despite similar means, then males are objectively better than females. I don't think there's a good argument for the second, but the first principle surely isn't controversial? Hahaha ok dude. I'm sure men are objectively better at everything and it makes sense women would serve them, after all there's a fractional and barely statistically detectable difference in intelligence distribution and men are better at physical tasks that aren't childrearing, surviving with scare resources, getting old (grandmothers are literally the reason humans have long lifespans), enforcing social norms and peacekeeping as they do in most premodern societies, or any of that useless poo poo. "males are objectively better than females" 
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Jan 20, 2017 23:33
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Number Ten Cocks posted:I bow before the collective horror of SA before too much reality, but I did predict something like the whale mothers role for female dunyain because it seemed the logical outgrowth of their philosophy applied to our current reality. It's faster to breed your super race if you divide roles like that, I just wasn't sure Bakker would have the balls to do it. Kudos for that, even if the physical sexual dimorphism went into WTF LOL territory. It's super logical and also what makes them effectively horrific, I guess... e: logical in the sense that it fits within the universe of the books, not like, objectively Sitting Here fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 23:35
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Number Ten Cocks posted:I bow before the collective horror of SA before too much reality, but I did predict something like the whale mothers role for female dunyain because it seemed the logical outgrowth of their philosophy applied to our current reality. It's faster to breed your super race if you divide roles like that, I just wasn't sure Bakker would have the balls to do it. Kudos for that, even if the physical sexual dimorphism went into WTF LOL territory. It isn't remotely faster and makes no sense because (sorry if I shock you with too much reality) men's and women's brains are so close to identical that we neuroscientists can't even agree if there are detectable differences. Good luck breeding your super race without active, agile, socially engaged women - you'll all end up loving morons.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:36
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The curse of Bakker threads is people who go full  without a lick of actual training in neuroscience or evopsych.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:37
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It's lucky that women have a special woman chromosome onto which we can load the genes for being super fat and fertile without tainting our blond blue eyed sons. Wait poo poo hang on
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Jan 20, 2017 23:39
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General Battuta posted:It isn't remotely faster and makes no sense because (sorry if I shock you with too much reality) men's and women's brains are so close to identical that we neuroscientists can't even agree if there are detectable differences. Good luck breeding your super race without active, agile, socially engaged women - you'll all end up loving morons. Of course it's faster if you keep the women pregnant constantly to maximize your choice of candidates to cull every generation. And it's more efficient to spend most of your training and assessment resources on the males who aren't pregnant all the time. But yes you'd need to screen your female breeding stick for desirable traits. You just don't need to train them because then they won't want to be brood mares and slow your one hundred generation project down.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:46
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It's not faster at all. Let me be clear: the reason it works for the Dunyain is because Bakker wanted it to work. That's it. You are trying to make this work in real life and it doesn't: it topples into farce at the slightest logical examination. Set aside the fact that men and women are near identical and you couldn't possibly breed one sex into a sessile tank without doing it to the other. You actively would not want to. But first let's take a step back here: you aren't talking about a eugenics program. You said that the objective moral inferiority and subjugation of women was justified in the real world due to the (again) objective superiority of men. Do you stand by that?
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Jan 20, 2017 23:51
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I suspect that what Bakker is trying to hammer home is that the Dunyain simply aren't human anymore. They can barely hybridise with regular humans, they've developed some much greater sexual dimorphism, they're wired in completely different ways. The unrealistic part of that is that it's only been 2000 years of breeding and actual speciation probably takes much longer (without genetic engineering or some Earwean Lamarck crap). We've bred some pretty weird fuckin dogs over the course of human civilisation but I think they're still one species, even if the logistics of a chihuahua loving a great dane are prohibitive. As for the 'men are objectively better than women' thing - Bakker clearly doesn't think this. The metaphysics of Earwa is basically "what if all that proscriptive bullshit in the Bible was real" and seeing the kind of hosed up world it produces. If you do certain things you get sent straight to hell and, welp, that sucks for you and it's not fair, but that's the way the world works. Women should shut up and know their place because only men have pure souls. Like us, the people of Earwa followed the scriptures and believed these things for a while, but gradually began to think of those concepts as unfair - unlike us, that poo poo is all real and men really are better and you can go to hell for being a slut. Which is a chilling existence.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:58
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