Yet another novel I will no longer write • Hacker News Board

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#151

Post by Udik » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #70

d_burfoot wrote: post #31

[flagged]

You're accusing a Jewish writer of Holocaust denial, which should be a bannable offence.

While I don't agree with the gp's vehemence, saying that a certain statement is "almost literally equivalent to Holocaust denial" doesn't mean accusing someone of Holocaust denial- but of something similar.

Btw, accusing someone of something should or should not be a bannable offence independently from the accused ethnicity or religion. You don't want to have classes of people who can or cannot be accused of something on a "racial" basis, do you?

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#152

Post by paganel » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:50 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #118

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your hypothesis apply to, for example, Mexico? Seems that "eventually" may mean decades, if not longer.

It seems to apply pretty well to Mexico. Every time the cartels reach an equilibrium of violence where there’s a clear chain of command and territories violence drops. Then the Mexican state decides that having para-states on its territory is unacceptable, smashes them and violence increases. You see the same dynamic though not on the same scale in US organized crime history; the Mafia were brutal thugs just like the…

I agree with you 100%, just wanted to add as an extra data point that after reading some of Max Weber's works I realised that he was the one that best described how society works in modern times (not saying that his observations were perfect, just closer to the perceived truth). He is of course the one that re-popularised the "monopoly on violence" [1] term that describes (among other, countless things) Italian Mafia's tactics (which I think Weber even mentions) and today's Mexican cartels' way of doing things.

As such, I highly recommend Weber's "Economy and Society" [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_and_Society

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#153

Post by Udik » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:56 AM UTC

bsanr wrote: post #76

stcredzero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In rhetoric, the revolutionary slogan is "we're going to take money from the rich", but what happens in reality is more like "we're going to take the money from the rich and then murder them". Also: The Kulaks in the Ukraine. Various persons during various Maoist upheavals in China. Everyone has the same illusions to different degrees: "Our side doesn't do these bad things." Then, when the facts come out, "It was jus…

The issue is that this behavior doesn't come out of some inborn bloodthirst, but rather a scenario akin to, "We're taking you're stuff." "I'll kill you if you try." "Well then we must defend ourselves." Inevitably, stuff is appropriated and the mob, in its losses, learns to pull the trigger first. "Society" is this but both sides knowing when to stop before the shooting begins.

I don't think it works like that at all. I think the cognitive process is more like

"they have all the stuff, and we have nothing. They have it because they're stealing it from us. And they know we're starving and they don't care, so they're existential enemies to us, and they deserve to die".

Thus the process is completely one-sided, and there is very little the other side can do.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#154

Post by pjc50 » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 10:13 AM UTC

rapind wrote: post #53

What always bugged me about zombie movies is that no one seems to figure out a way to take advantage of it beyond total anarchy. I would expect enterprising individuals to see zombies as a potential tool. Like maybe figure out what makes them tick (they never seem to possess intelligent thought) and leverage them for a labour force or army. What are they fuelled by? Can they be taught to perform complex tasks through…

The Alien series, while not being precisely zombies, have as a major subplot the desire to weaponise something that eats humans. And this inevitably turns on those who think they can control the aliens.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#155

Post by Gravityloss » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:30 PM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #142

XorNot wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Person 151 is not a non-person, they're just a member of another group, who's leadership will include the other groups within the 150 monkey-sphere hence the basis of hierarchical human societies. The dumbest thing about most "preppers" is that they invariably develop absurd ideas about how their fortress will beat back the hordes they imagine to descend (sound familiar?) yet pay basically no attention to their local…

Reminds me of the Subgenius advice for the faithful. In the end times don't be a sap holed up waiting for defend yourself against marauding gangs. Join a marauding gang as soon as possible.

I guess creating an apocalypse simulator game where you could play it very differently would be very hard to create (agent simulation) and might not be fun at all to play...

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#156

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #129

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the term “elite panic” is lie. FYI, there is at least one book written on the subject based on research of real-world disasters https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/books/21book.html https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6444492-a-paradise-built... Cory Doctorow writes about it as well: https://boingboing.net/2013/04/14/elite-panic-why-rich-peopl... https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/cor... I…

A widely spread and aged idea doesn’t make it any less wrong.

Sure, though a comment on HN by someone who first heard the term 20 minutes ago and misses the main point of it, _really_ doesn't make it wrong.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#157

Post by Cyberdog » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 1:15 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #56

rpiguy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His observation is wrong. In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Witness Africa, South America, Burma, and the middle Eastern countries in which we have removed the “dictators.” Asia after WW2 was different because the West essentially sponsored state corporate Facism in Japan and Korea until they had 30-50 years to evolve into something resembling a true democracy. Even the term “elite pa…

> In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Such gangs are the basic form of government. They have command structure, and a population base they exploit. Over time, as gang grows, it comes into conflict with other gangs and one eventually emerges as the dominant. Once in command over a big chunk of population, it either splits into many smaller bands, repeating the cycle, or it evolves to be…

Reminds me very much of this video, which I like to rewatch every couple of months or so for the sheer brilliance of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbNFJK1ZpVg

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#158

Post by reificator » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #148

cgriswald wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not, in the end, a fan; but to me, that was the entire point. In the face of this crisis, their petty wants and desires, and even the more pressing matters of who and how they should govern themselves were irrelevant in the face of an ultimate threat, no matter how important they felt to those people or to the audience. The one person who held out against letting those lesser things go even temporarily was comple…

To me that's like setting up a complex and interesting WW2 story, and then just smiting the earth with an asteroid. Lazy and boring. Never mind recycling all the usual zombie tropes. Oh, and throw in the usual Star Wars trope of the mass enemy has a single weak spot that one person can attack to wipe it all out. Zzzzzz.....

Is the asteroid something that's known to the audience and characters involved from the beginning of the story? Is the asteroid something they could unify against and push back if they'd just get over their differences? Is the asteroid something that experts are claiming is coming but laypeople deny first as a fairy tale, then as not as big a deal as people claim, right up until it meaningfully affects their own lives?

It's an important story to tell, and I think your dismissals are indicative of the same flaw as the characters: thinking the petty struggles they face are more important than the survival of the species.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#159

Post by Applejinx » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #90

mcguire wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therefore, the sane person lives inside a secured enclosure with military-grade defenses, with the potential threats making of their important decisions for them.

That's the default. For most of history that was how it worked; anyone who could afford to do so built a secured enclosure and hired military-grade defenses. We've managed to establish more peaceful norms, where most people's threat models don't need to include roving bands of soldiers or brigands on the highways. But these norms aren't infinitely resilient, and can be broken by sustained periods of disorder, as we'v…

Define 'afford to do so'.

If you mean 'anyone who has exploited the community around them to the point that they themselves come off as a predator and danger to the community', this would very likely explain why they could 'afford' to build a castle, but might also shed some light on WHY they might practically require a castle, or soldiers.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#160

Post by erikbye » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

His previous novels had many tropes. In fact, most stories do, and it should probably not stop one from writing them. You will be hard-pressed to find stories without numerous familiar tropes.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Rule34

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/HaltingSta...