/lit/ - Literature

Reading philosophy and discovering this place fucked me up
I used to be sure about my beliefs and enjoy life, now I'm in a constant state of existential crisis. I just want things to be simple again

>Once upon a time would just walk into book stores, grab something with a neat cover, and walk out
>Now meticulously research whatever I stumble across and 99% of the time pass it up if I find so much as a single review that rubs me the wrong way
Autism is a hell of a drug, I wish I could just randomly jump into shit again.

>>14784152
Sarcasm doesn't really work anymore, as the young will interpret it through the lens of neo-sincerity. Bad Religion made this mistake when they tried to use sarcasm against the alt-right and accidentally produced an alt-right recruiting video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hES9IBTPbcw
To speak to your point more generally, yes people of moderately high IQ will be early adopters of new rhetoric. Traditionally this allowed high IQ priest castes to project soft power and direct society from above. Improvements in information technology disrupt their ability to maintain the gatekeepers. The internet will do to the academy and media what the printing press once did to the church.

>Spend months and even years world building the politics, religions, factions, history, and major events/characters of a setting
>Do absolutely nothing with it, they live and die entirely in my head
Shieeet

>>13063111
Neuromancer is a notoriously confusing book to read, as pretty much a novice book reader it's probably one of the worst books you could use to jump into the genre.

>>11783606
Londonfrog, you will never know how much I love these small posts of yours. It feels like I have a friend. How sad is the affair of man; every hour spent in company with those who would gladly see you starve for another few morsels for themselves. Every day a slave to our base drives, trapped in body, trapped in society, trapped in existence. I would kill myself were it not for fear of God.

Someone convince me on learning a dead language that is Latin. I'm on the verge of learning it, I need a good reason. Any volunteers?

>infp

>>8970954
Yeah I can't say that I feel any reason to be a contributing member of society anymore. There doesn't seem to be a purpose. But I don't want to delude myself into thinking the world is better than it is. I've found a good way to cope is to play some romance visual novel every so often, as they are able to deliver an extreme cathartic experience. I'll be depressed for weeks afterward but the whole thing will eventually make me feel better for a while and be able to enjoy hobbies (like reading) again. I'd use something other than weeb crap but I haven't found anything else that will do the same job.

>>8963506
>I don't mean it as a form of presentation like a persona, but sincerity is tied closely with expression in art forms too.
Yes, I meant presentation in the arts as well. Both work similarly. Take for example

>The matter is how to discern if something like an artwork or book is being earnest for its own sake or being clever for its own sake, or something else, and for some other reason.

I could take this as a test on sincerity. Were you being sincere when you said this, or is there a hidden meaning behind it? Similarly you can look as far back as Plato and wonder if he didn't write the third dialogue Philosopher because the two preceding dialogues Sophist and Statesman made a case that being a philosopher meant philosophizing, and the reader working through the first two dialogues meant the third was no longer needed. By the act of doing philosophy, they didn't need to be told what a philosopher is.

All of that, and you can just discard it. It is simply unknown. Plato may have planned to write the third dialogue and just never did. You can also look at a more favorable candidate like Machiavelli's The Prince and wonder what is actually well intended advice.

The major point is the problem of hidden meaning has been around for ages and it will never be solved because I can always question your intention, even when it is as mundane as a fairly straightforward 4chan post.

A art movement concerned with sincerity, I would hope, would see this fairly obvious point. The game of rhetoric is never certain, but being sincere with oneself possibly is, therefore, you either have art that deals with the game of rhetoric and creates petty tragedy because of the conflation of not being understood and "sincerity", or nearly anything else ever written sincerely about whatever

>>8613079

please, for the sake of /lit/, continue posting here.

>>8572952

was this your first rejection? are you 16? stop being such a whiny bitch and try again, jesus fuck.

>>8556230

I don't know man I've spent a lot of time around new age hippies in the midwest and this stereotype is continually reinforced/propagated almost everyday in my experience.

I'd say the reason it's associated with the new-age/occult crowd is its history in the counter-culture movements of the 60s-70s. These movements haven't really faded away where I'm from and I have to shake my head at batshit people who buy into the magical healing power of crystals ad infinitum on the daily.

>>8503368
I fear that may be true.

>>8432537
If you liked The Tartar Steppe, you should read The Opposing Shore. The author, Julien Gracq, was clearly influenced by Buzzati, but unlike Buzzati, Gracq had great prose. Not to say Buzzati isn't great but the prose did seem stilted at points. Either way both books gave me feels.

1) You can count on one hand the number of good books written after 1900

2) You can count on one hand the number of good books written before 1800

3) Every popular piece of Russian literature is, in essence, glorified Bible-bashing

4) The study of metaphysics has done nothing (or even, more harm than good) to address the fundamental problem that metaphysics raised.

5) We could lose the entire French literary tradition, and be no poorer for it. Dare I say, richer even.

6) Erotica requires more talent/skill than any other genre.

That's all I got, for now.

>>8100306
Video games don't have actual stories, only faggots think this and they bring up examples like
>the last of us
>mass effect
Only nobody brings up Mass Effect after the shitfest that was ME3. See, games have inherent disadvantages that books don't have. If you want to write about a green dragon that ruins the realm and how men killed it, you go ahead. All you need is a pencil and paper or a cheap laptop and sit your ass on the beach or some cafe. If you want to do this in a game you need
>tons of money
>tons of people
And whenever something needs to make money they all bring down whatever could be interesting about the story itself. So gamers say games like the last of us have a great story but what is it about, really? The entire game is one long fetch quest with a tag-along kid that talks about
>hurr i've never seen trees before
>i can take care of myself johnny boy
>david no rape plz
The whole game is shooting zombies in the face. That's not a real story, it's just a game. Games can't tell stories. Even RPG games are filled with fetch quests and grinding. All those games and movies are filled with pandering, making them easier and dumber than ever and story doesn't even enter into it. If you wanted to write an actual story, the best way to go is to write a book. Every other medium is inferior to literature for these reasons. 100 years of cinema and what have they accomplished? They write books with titles like "1000 movies you should watch before you die" but only a handful are worth watching.

The concepts portrayed in the communist Manifesto seem be good but sadly not practical. The change we would have to under go as a whole inside this corrupt organism might be too much to happened quickly and the concept is unable to undergone too quickly either.

Is it possible? Why hasn't it be done recently?

>>7987822
Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene."
Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine."
Abel Chris's "The Extended Self."

Just Google "books about memes."

At what point does a man become truly morally irredeemable.

>>7798513

>Tfw I'm considering writing an 80s-style cyberpunk work once I'm finished with my current work

Because I like being able to make footnotes/annotations/highlights/etc.

I actually study most of what I read in great detail; which sometimes spoils the magic, but that's what you get for studying linguistics.

Until E-Readers/Kindles/etc allow me to copy and paste on my laptop/etc, it's frankly far faster for me to use my physical copies.

>not realising the AI will be the philosopher king

What are some good books on death? Philosophy, fiction, nonfiction, whatever. So far I have
>The Death of Ilya Ilyich
>Phaedo
>the lyrics to UGK's 'One Day'