/lit/ - Literature

>>23441870
>be publishing house editor
>get two manuscripts
>have the funds to invest in only one
>the first is from an author you've worked with before, whose prior work sold well and earned a profit
>the second is from somebody you've never met
which is the safer investment?

>>23287026
why would believing in "natural inequality" prevent someone from being a leftist?

>>23287151
most modern-day progressives argue for things like wheelchair ramps and other disability accommodations on the grounds that a person's natural ability shouldn't prevent them from accessing all the fruits of modern society

>>23202814
>>23202834
>[Anti-essentialism] is a form of determinism and can lead to the idea that man or the self does not even truly exist since it isn't causally potent.
That's one way to go, but few believe this. The more common view is that our attitudes are largely, but not entirely, due to our environment. For example, I speak English because I was taught to in school, not because I have an English essence. But I have a different temperament from other English speakers, partly due to my neurochemistry. However, the neurochemistry isn't the thing that makes me "me." It's one element among many, most of which are outside my body.

>You also don't seem to understand social constructionism about gender.
I'm using Judith Butler's concept of gender as performance, which is often confused with the sex-gender distinction. Butler denies that sex is different from gender, and says several times in her work that when people try to distinguish the two, "sex" is "always already gender."

For example, the assertion that "people with ova are, on average, weaker than people with sperm," isn't a sexed/gendered statement. But any statement that seeks to establish distinct social roles for "people with ova" and "people with sperm" is a gendered statement.

Mass belief in such statements then becomes a part of the environment in which people are raised, thereby shaping their senses of self. This offers us an explanation of the high-heel phenomenon. The statement "women wear high heels" became true because pornography brought it into the zeitgeist; it has nothing to do with the "natural" properties of people with ova.

>The problem with "gender" ... being only "presentation" is that you have to explain just what exactly is being presented and how it is socially constructed which you cannot do without excluding someone...
This is exactly Butler's point. Gender is inconsistent, because it's a collage of many different people's incompatible beliefs. You can't define "woman" for the same reason you can't define "hero;" it's shorthand for many different things we equivocate.

>[D]efine woman and trans-woman.
This is tangential, but I'm autistic so I like word games.
>Woman: The social role ascribed to people with ova.
>Trans Woman: A person without ova who inhabits or aims to inhabit the social role "woman."

Obviously this leads into your next question:
>And again, what even is this role?
To which I respond: it's culturally determined. Women wear heels because pornographers found it hot. Men stopped wearing heels because "dandy" became an insult. People LARP their gender, so it becomes social reality.

Finally, you say:
>Social constructionism also cannot say as to whether a smart reactionary should [see someone a certain way].
Which is true. The theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. It only predicts that since you want to conserve the view of womanhood as "person with ova," you'll refuse to accept trans women as women. And you do! What a good theory.

>>23101811
>capital will displace labor after industry is mechanized
>capital will displace labor at the turn of the century
>capital will displace labor in the futurist utopia
>capital will displace labor in the modernist utopia
>capital will displace labor in the space age
>capital will displace labor in the computing age
>capital will displace labor in the AI age (late 1980s)
>capital will displace labor in the AI age (late 1990s)
>capital will displace labor in the internet age
>capital will displace labor in the 3d printing age
>capital will displace labor because web3/crypto/nfts
>capital will displace labor in the AI age (2020s), this time for real guys!
all machines require maintenance and operation. cope and seethe.

t. engineer

>>22900092
it's a trolling tactic, as you can see by this thread. nothing of substance is said. op doesn't even comment on rand herself. in all likelihood, he hasn't read rand. op associates rand's work with an e-celeb, so that people will argue over whether she or the e-celeb is based. iq, too, plays a role, as it's a metric that only mental masturbators give any credence. as you can see by the remainder of the thread, we've devolved into misogyny, debates over the "great man" theory, and shitposting about physiogamy. no one in this thread will learn anything. no one in this thread will even bother to read rand. we'll just post in circles until the whole affair falls off the catalog, and into the dustbin of digital history.

I want to read a book about an adventure in the middle east/arab world, one that involves some mysticism and old world themes in it. What can I read?

>>22759143
TiddlyWiki with online sync but it will chew you up and spit you out.
It is too powerful.