Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

stephendiehl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 243 posts

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#191

Post by woolion »

I have been thinking a lot about a notion of self-paradoxical knowledge, meaning knowledge that actively makes your reasoning worse. For example, knowledge of extremely rare diseases causes the mind to over-evaluate their importance by many orders of magnitude (there are many variants of this effect). Or trying to explain some concepts of the object/subject construction tend to use a language that is grounded on the concept of a shared objective reality that furthers from the concept true understanding -- in other words, "the tao that can be named is not the tao".

I didn't think "There Is No Antimemetics Division" did very well with its premise, but the premise is quite fascinating, and it's the closest I've seen to this concept. Are there other explorations of similar ideas?

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#193

Post by Angostura »

gravypod wrote: post #129
mjg2 wrote: post #87

I just finished this book and complained about it the whole time. The prose is amateur and peppered with cliches (e.g. you should be fined for publishing the phrase "their suit was so sharp it could cut"). His attempt to write about the inner thoughts of the characters was pretty simple. The descriptions of violence and horror also felt child-like, especially the dialogue during those moments (e.g. Redd's introductio…

Do you have any recommendations for science fiction books that explore interesting ideas? There is no Antimemetics Division was really interesting in how some of the scenarios play out. I don't read much but I've been trying to do that more. I really liked the book. Things like the memory consuming entity, async research, etc I enjoyed.

I'd try Ted Chiang's anthology of short stories: Stories of Your Life and Others.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#194

Post by Angostura »

brookst wrote: post #174
gravypod wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any recommendations for science fiction books that explore interesting ideas? There is no Antimemetics Division was really interesting in how some of the scenarios play out. I don't read much but I've been trying to do that more. I really liked the book. Things like the memory consuming entity, async research, etc I enjoyed.

Gnomon by Nick Harkaway has some of the same “unreliable world” aspects with great writing to boot.

I enjoyed Gnomon, but boy I didn't find it an easy read

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#195

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

krackers wrote: post #102

Are there any real-life examples of antimemes? How would antimemes even propagate given that they'd "die out" immediately?

The Epstein Files - everyone seems to forget about the world's richest people being involved in sex trafficking, rape and murder.

How many people have been arrested for their involvement, again?

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#196

Post by ljm »

mjg2 wrote: post #87

I just finished this book and complained about it the whole time. The prose is amateur and peppered with cliches (e.g. you should be fined for publishing the phrase "their suit was so sharp it could cut"). His attempt to write about the inner thoughts of the characters was pretty simple. The descriptions of violence and horror also felt child-like, especially the dialogue during those moments (e.g. Redd's introductio…

I'm a huge fan of SCP, or at least early day SCP. The problem I've found with a number of the longer form sagas is that they tend to rely on world-ending apocalyptic events (which really does get boring, it's not high stakes any more) and are heavily anime-coded.

The authors do put in a great deal of effort, which is laudable, but it does make me wonder if the writing style and story telling is a deliberate choice, or if the authors simply watch anime more than anything else and thus the universe-saving power fantasy is the only thing they know how to write.

Personally I enjoy the more 'grounded' and mysterious stuff.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#197

Post by lloeki »

ggerules wrote: post #172
mindcrime wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glasshouse[1] by Charles Stross Permutation City[2] by Greg Egan We Are Legion (We Are Bob)[3] by Dennis E. Taylor Halting State[4] by Charles Stross Singularity Sky[5] by Charles Stross Dungeon Crawler Carl[6] by Matt Dinniman Zero World[7] by Jason M. Hough The Shockwave Rider[8] by John Brunner [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel) [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City [3]: https://ww…

Also Accelerando by Charles Stross Fantastic book!

Very personal counterpoint: I find Stross writing extremely bland, contrived, and badly paced.

I really really disliked Accelerando in particular, finding it completely vacuous, the sciencey namedrops is self-aggrandising and sound like attempts at reader flattery, the entire plot is telegraphed, characters are generic and perfectly forgettable.

It was several friends recommendation and I only got reading through the whole ordeal because whenever I asked "well I'm about there and it doesn't click" they answered "no spoiler, just a dozen pages and you'll see!"

Not a critic, again this is my personal experience of it. If people enjoyed it, more power to them.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#198

Post by endymion-light »

mindcrime wrote: post #147
gravypod wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any recommendations for science fiction books that explore interesting ideas? There is no Antimemetics Division was really interesting in how some of the scenarios play out. I don't read much but I've been trying to do that more. I really liked the book. Things like the memory consuming entity, async research, etc I enjoyed.

Glasshouse[1] by Charles Stross Permutation City[2] by Greg Egan We Are Legion (We Are Bob)[3] by Dennis E. Taylor Halting State[4] by Charles Stross Singularity Sky[5] by Charles Stross Dungeon Crawler Carl[6] by Matt Dinniman Zero World[7] by Jason M. Hough The Shockwave Rider[8] by John Brunner [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel) [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City [3]: https://ww…

Disagree for dungeon crawler carl & any of the Bobiverse - while they're fine books, wouldn't class it in the category of interesting ideas, it's just pop fiction.

I'd look at the following:

Hyperion Book One (For the book style + ideas throughout the short stories - you only need to read book one)

Solaris, Lem (What would an alien intelligence truly look like, especially in planet size scales, really interesting theories)

House Of Leaves (Classic for exploration of horror - not sci-fi, but within the wheelhouse)

Maxwell's Demon (Hated the ending, but the first half of the book explores some interesting ideas)

Children of Time (Good sci-fi based book exploring morality + intelligence)

Annihilation (Sci-fi, no spoilers but great book)

Venemous Lumpsucker (near future sci-fi, fantastic as a set of vignettes within the story)

Closest to Antimemetics divison personally would be Maxwell's Demon + House of Leaves.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#199

Post by interstice »

renjimen wrote: post #144
bluewin wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annihilation By Jeff VanderMeer Diaspora by Greg Egan Anathem by Neal Stephenson (this one is a bit like doing homework but worth it imo) If you vibe with short stories Exhalation by Ted Chiang Crystal Nights by Greg Egan isn't bad either

I love all these. I'd add Blightsight by Peter Watts to the list. It has the creepy, psychological bent of Annihilation combined with the hard science elements common to qntm's, Neal Stephenson's and Greg Egan's books.

Would love to find more books like Blindsight, something about the way it described agency without consciousness was both creepy and extremely memorable.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#200

Post by rbanffy »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #184
yaky wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blindsight by Peter Watts explores interesting ideas about conscience and intelligence, but these ideas are wrapped in a mediocre action movie plot that becomes nonsensical by the end.

with vampires!

You really start wondering when they are introduced and it all kind of clicks at the end, when we realize we had the rug pulled from under our feet when the book started, and we only know it by the point we land on our faces.
Post reply on HN