What Are You Reading?

[TheEconomist]

Considering reading some philosopgy of pop culture books. There's a series that has some books on various games I love like BioShock, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Dungeons & Dragons, etc. No StarCraft though, huh, go figure.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...Culture+Series

Anyone looked into this? Not sure how strong the quality is but I've always wanted to get into philosophy but dry philosophy I have a hard time getting used to due to the general uselessness of it mixed with the drudgery. If I can mix it in with some fun, maybe I can get a foot in the door.

[Gradius]

Anyone bother to watch 'The Expanse' yet?

Can't wait till season 2, though I thought the books were easier to follow than the show. Thanks for telling me about the books!

Gotta finish Revelation Space someday. :P

[TheEconomist]

The books were definitely easier to follow. I liked the characters better too. But, still, always nice to see a scifi show going against the grain and doing something sciency.

Gotta finish Revelation Space someday. :P

Most definitely. I still keep coming back to the trilogy to sort it all out, haha.

Then read Pandora's Star. Then I'll give you some more

Also, random thought of the moment. Just replayed Bioshock Infinite with the DLC. It is the figurative shit. Just wanted to say that.

[Nissa]

Anyone looked into this? Not sure how strong the quality is but I've always wanted to get into philosophy but dry philosophy I have a hard time getting used to due to the general uselessness of it mixed with the drudgery. If I can mix it in with some fun, maybe I can get a foot in the door.

I doubt it. It sounds like it's just not for you. But if you want to try, the analects of Confucious are in a simple format.

Right now I'm reading about Chinese history. It's pretty weird how some of their ancient emperors and philosophers promoted economic policies remarkably similar to communism. Granted, the base idea of communism in execution is government control, so that's probably why.

[Visions of Khas]

Right now I'm reading about Chinese history. It's pretty weird how some of their ancient emperors and philosophers promoted economic policies remarkably similar to communism. Granted, the base idea of communism in execution is government control, so that's probably why.

Wow, you too?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the the Cultural Revolution and how they thought killing or exiling martial artists and teachers, scientists and other scholars was a good idea.

[TheEconomist]

It's pretty weird how some of their ancient emperors and philosophers promoted economic policies remarkably similar to communism. Granted, the base idea of communism in execution is government control, so that's probably why.

Long story short: It primarily stems from the civilization building around the Yangtze River and its loess. Similar to India and Egypt. The one thing large centralized government is good at is marshaling resources. That and the fact that whoever controls the opening of the river controls the whole thing, hence, large, centralized, governments. In the good old days, strong central governments (empires) had an advantage over decentralized governments since the goal back then required large scale economies instead of fine-tuning allocation of resources. Too brain dead to go into anymore detail.

The Chinese also have a fear of decentralizing since, whenever they do, such as during the warring states period or during colonialism. They fear weak governments like Americans might fear government control or theocracies.

The Chinese also had Daoism which was for smaller governments. More with the intent to be in line with nature than industry like capitalism, but, still, not all centralized. Then again, they also had legalism, which is basically the idea that every correct decision by a human behind it requires some legal code to facilitate it.

[Nissa]

Yeah, the book I read went into that a lot.

It was also pretty dull, and basically made a Chinese history summary by quoting various perspectives on Chinese history and letting them confront each other. Which wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't quote so much Marxist revisionism.

[TheEconomist]

I've been subjected to Marxist revisionism myself. I sympathize. The problem with academic echo chambers is that everything devolves into narrower and narrower interpretations of multivariate problems despite the seemingly complex models put forth by the intellectuals.

[Nissa]

I just like plain facts. If we know something, we know it. If person A went to place B and did action C, I want to know that. Don't tell me patterns over time, tell me what happened. If there's a pattern, let me notice it.

[Nissa]

I'm reading the Faerie Path by Frewin Jones. Not because I want to, but because I'm trying to do research on ordinary teenage girls so that I can write better for them. I'm anticipating lots of suck.