this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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Any topic is good. Don't care about format or where it's published as long as I can access it (substack, random PDF, journal, etc). Looking for deep and rare thought, but essay length for a short reading.

EDIT: Also I am particularly looking for stuff not as much in online or nerd culture.

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[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 12 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 2 points 53 minutes ago* (last edited 48 minutes ago)

This one is excellent, thank you for posting I had been re-looking for that for a while.

I would also suggest God's Debris and I met God on a Train.

All three have a similar idea of questioning the nature of what God might look like. No religious nonsense in any of them.

On a different tack I'd suggest Manna- Two Different Views Of Humanity's Future. Also a very good read but nothing to do with extracorporeal beings.

[–] Flubo@feddit.org 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Stanislav Lem wrote really good short stories next to his amazing books.

In my opinion he is the most philosophical, most intelligent and best in physics among all sciencefiction authors. I think his most famous book is Solaris but everything I read of him was actually really interesting - including the short stories.

Be aware that stories of his early career are more funny while later he got really pessimistic about humans in general.

[–] BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

I had one of his books of short stories when I was a teen (The Cyberiad) and loved it...meaning to read more of his work

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 10 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I highly suggest the Umberto Eco book "How to Travel With a Salmon". It's a collection of short essays on a variety of topics.

[–] BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago

Read this many years ago and enjoyed. Great recommendation in the spirit of this thread (for anyone who has not read it)

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I enjoyed reading Ur-Fascism so it’d probably be nice to read something lighter from him.

[–] MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Foucault’s Pendulum is amazing.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It's the book that kicked the Davinci Code to death and left it bleeding in a gutter.

[–] MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It’s the book Dan Brown was “inspired” by.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

That's actually a complicated story...

It goes back to a book called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" back in 1982.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail

Then you have Foucalt's Pendulum (1988) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_Pendulum

The comic book series "Preacher" 66 monthly issues from 1995 to 2000. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)

Da Vinci Code (2003) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

There is not a lot "light" about Umberto Eco, but How to Travel With a Salmon is one of them.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 7 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

If you're in the mood for nonsensical madness:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Time_Cube

or

https://pdf-library.org/terrence-howard-math-theory.pdf (Yes, this is the actor that played Rhodes in the first Iron Man movie)

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 10 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I suppose that OP didn’t state that the ideas presented must be worth any consideration

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago

OP did not!

[–] trigg@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

Upvote for time cube

[–] SGforce@lemmy.ca 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

You beat me to the cube. Wish the original blog was still around

[–] zout@fedia.io 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

My virus scanner says that last link redirects to a phishing site.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

There's nothing of value there, feel free to look up "Terrance Howard math theory" elsewhere

[–] xapr@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 19 hours ago

Exiting the Vampire Castle, by Mark Fisher (2013): https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle

From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exiting_the_Vampire_Castle):

"Exiting the Vampire Castle" is an essay written by the English theorist Mark Fisher for the online publication The North Star in 2013. It argues for increased leftist solidarity by departing from the phenomenon of online callout culture to instead orient activity around organization of efforts around the accountability of one's economic class, rather than around traits in identity and culture.

Fisher argues that a largely online style of identity-based leftist discourse grounded in "witch-hunting moralism" halts productive leftist discourse and undermines class politics.[1] In particular, the combination of a primary focus on identity and the policing of others' speech is deleterious.[2] Fisher saw the turn from class and materialism towards identity as a move from objective outward-facing goals to subjective inward goals that result in fragmentation of the left's efforts and community.[3]

Fisher defends Russel Brand in the essay, but remember that this was written in 2013, and Fisher died in 2017.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

This one is from 2001 and is about how the pornography trade was getting increasingly violent, interesting to read in a post internet porn world. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/mar/17/society.martinamis1

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago
[–] Glasgow@lemmy.ml 1 points 16 hours ago

Could the genetic diathesis in the stress-diathesis model of disease for both psychiatric and medical illness be staring us in the face?

https://me-pedia.org/wiki/RCCX_Genetic_Module_Theory

[–] ultrahamster64@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago
[–] Nemo 1 points 18 hours ago

If not for the edit, I was gonna suggest Time Cube.

[–] ArtieShaw@fedia.io 1 points 18 hours ago

Have you ever wished that you were personal friends with a 16th century French petty nobleman and diplomat? His essays are more interesting and more accessible than that sounds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne

I trusted my drug dealer's recommendation on that one and was not disappointed, so I'm passing it on.

Also, I will never not recommend Pliny the Younger's account of his uncle's death by volcanic eruption (Vesuvius) and his own story of surviving it. PDF versions are widely available.

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

How about HG Wells talking about mini wargaming in 1912? I think it's fascinating to see proto-nerds inventing the geek stuff that we take for granted a hundred years later.

Little Wars via Project Gutenberg

[–] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

And a subtitle that he probably thought was egalitarian and progressive at the time.

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's pretty bad.

I still think it's an interesting read.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 1 points 1 hour ago

All good. It's something I'd like to play sometime. I just think it's important to acknowledge this shit.

[–] darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 22 hours ago
[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 0 points 21 hours ago
[–] teodor_from_achewood@lemmy.world -2 points 22 hours ago (2 children)
[–] joshcodes@programming.dev 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I love the bit where they just attack the idea of someone saying "Ugh, capitalism" and perform character assassinations (on people they seem to respect?) rather than actually discuss issues in the world. Like yeah, virtue signalling exists. See the companies that ask to work with LGBTQIA+ people specifically in the month of June and no other. We know it happens. You're doing the exact thing you're currently complaining about.

"Y'all can't quote the exact policies that are causing issues" - says the dude who complains about everyone in Brooklyn having 'Ugh capitalism' in their tinder bios. I thought we were talking real issues here? Hard hitting policy that needs to be changed, not horny men using a tactic.

Awful article really.

[–] teodor_from_achewood@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

There’s never any real discussion of detailed fixes in this kind of complaint—because that might acknowledge we can fix the problem without overthrowing the system. There’s never any argument about how under socialism (or some other alternative economic model) public policy tradeoffs, political failures, or scarcity just wouldn’t exist.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 1 points 14 hours ago

There's tons of theory out there that addresses that point. Maybe read some.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

It’s as if “Capitalism” wrote that article.

[–] teodor_from_achewood@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That's certainly a way you can describe something.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 0 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Recuperation would be a better description.