On occasion, we here do a thread of random positivity, where we start with a thematic prompt and talk about things that are enjoyable just for the fun of it. Past examples:

We have also had a couple threads of educational-resource recommendations. These are marginally more serious, since they’re about gathering actually good explanations of things that sneerable people like to pontificate ignorantly on. But I’ll list them here because learning is fun:

Feel free to comment in the old threads and/or suggest new ones in the comments here.

  • Soyweiser
    9·
    4 days ago

    At an airport flying back after a nice trip, finally reading Greg Egans Zendegi while waiting for my connecting flight. Have some quotes.

    "Looking at the hollows of his face she could easily have imagined that he was going door-to-door begging for food, but he was wearing a designer-label jacket that probably cost as much as a small car.

    …

    ‘I’m Nate Caplan.’ He offered her his hand, and she shook it. In response to her sustained look of puzzlement he added, ‘My IQ is one hundred and sixty. I’m in perfect physical and mental health.

    …

    ‘I know I look skinny,’ Caplan continued, ‘but I have no lipid deficiencies that would lead to neurohistological abnormalities. I’ve had biopsies to confirm that. And I’m willing to give up the caloric restriction if you make it worth my while.’

    …

    ‘You can always reach me through my blog!’ he panted. ‘Overpowering Falsehood dot com, the number one site for rational thinking about the future—’"

    Gave me a chuckle.

    • BioMan
      5·
      3 days ago

      For more than a decade now Egan has been enthusiastically taking the piss at the rationalists and singulatarians. For more than 20, he has been gently making vague fun of them, or calmly including stuff in his stories that flatly contradict them without commentary in a way you can tell he’s influenced to do so by them.

      • Soyweiser
        2·
        3 days ago

        It is also interesting (but looking at his bsky profile not shocking) how much he predicted re genai like bots. Even if they have a different source in the book. Having bots check bot output for example. Most of the book taking place in modern iran (after a revolution succeeded) is interesting

        • BioMan
          4·
          20 hours ago

          Working in academia I have close friends who were born all over the world. A good friend of mine from Iran has told me that the two things he has read from Egan that take place in Iran - this novel, and a short story in a recent collection in which the main character is an afghan refugee woman trying to go through higher education - capture the essence of life in Iran better than any other english-speaking work he has ever read, to the point he was questioning Egan’s Australian origin to me.