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/lit/ - Literature

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475484 No.475484 [Reply] [Original]

Project make me smart!
Give me all the good books you must have read to consider yourself as a smart kid.

>> No.475490

>>475488 All the classics
Such as?

>> No.475488

All the classics

>> No.475498

inb4 ayn rand

>> No.475499

nothing, just think

>> No.475495

>>475490
Bunnicula

>> No.475503

What about science books?

>> No.475505

The basics would include
- The Russians (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky etc)
- Renaissance stuff (Dante, Shakespeare, bocaccio)
- Some of the great philosophers
- The roman and greek classics (Plato, Homer, Cicero etc)
- Some modern classics like Proust, Faulkner and Joyce

>> No.475511

Reading a book doesn't make you smart. That is a truth that the fools in /lit/ haven't figured out yet. Having a big bookshelf full of classics to show off doesn't make you intelligent. Learning to think and analyze for yourself makes you smart. Books just give you a pool of knowledge to draw from.

>> No.475512

thanks 4 the posts
> bunnicula sounds interesting

>>475503
I need some basic science also

>> No.475517

>>475505
No one actually reads Proust though.

>> No.475519

>>475511
So what? Stop reading?
Reading is always good. Even if someone only gets 10% out of a book of you get its still something positive.

>> No.475524

>>475505
>modern classics
>Faulkner
so you're an Amerifag, right?

>> No.475523

>>475519

Never said you shouldn't read. I just said that reading alone doesn't make you smart and thinking that you're smart because you've read some books makes you stupid.

>> No.475522
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475522

>>475517

>> No.475527

>>475524
No, still i consider Faulkner as one of the great 20th century authors

>> No.475528

Claim that you have read Moby Dick.

Such a horribly bland book will make you look like a real intellectual.

>> No.475530

>>475523
It wasn`t meant like that!
But I think it´s more stupid to try to compete with people like you do. Call me paranoid. But I´m not.

>> No.475535

The case of Charles Dexter Ward

>> No.475539

Isn´t somebdy into science in here?
I need some science basics!

>> No.475537 [DELETED] 

>>475511
Reading will make you smarter, reading the classics will make you even smarter. By reading a lot, and preferrably good books you will learn to think and analyze in new ways

>> No.475549

>>475539
A Breif History of Time - Stephen Hawkings

>> No.475552

>>475549
Brief

>> No.475563

>>475556
huh?

>> No.475556

>>475539
your science textbook

>> No.475555

>>475549
Nice!

>> No.475559

>>475484
>> implying reading novels and fables makes someone smart

If you want to be considered smart you have to read critical analysis, philosophy, and science

if you don't know math, science, and philosophy you aren't smart

>> No.475583

>english lit
>smart
pick one

>> No.475587

My science picks are Faster than the Speed of Light and The Demon Haunted World and The Elegant Universe and The Lucifer Principle. Maybe Selfish Gene and The Naked Ape for kicks.

>> No.475588

>>475559
Yeah, that.

>> No.475597

>>475559
Fuck you, you don`t have to read science and maths to be smart

>> No.475599

>>475559
Most classics would at least fulfullthe classics and analysis part

>> No.475603

True >>475559 But it´s not important to me that people´ll say, he´s smart (actualy most people´ll start to hate you if you blast them with wich books you already have read).
But it´s interesting to get smarter.

>> No.475610

>>475597
I should have asked wich books are interesting and make you smarter.

>> No.475660

>>475597

Lol how can you be smart if you dont know how the fundamental forces of world work (science) and you don't know how to express them mathematically (math)....and you dont know what implications they have (philosophy)

???

sorry, no one is smart for having read joyce or homer, fiction just gives you a tiny bit of insight on sociology and psychology, which are a fraction of the world we inhabit

>> No.475671

A smart person doesn't need to be told what to read. They just read.

>> No.475674
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475674

/sci/fag here

agree, if you don't know basic things about the world, how electricity works, how microwaves work, how antibiotics work, how temperature works, how light refraction works, how sound propogates, how waves travel, how to calculate changes in acceleration, how to do basic calculus and how to do basic sciences then you dont know shit about the world.

basically if we sent an English PHd back in time he would be totally useless to the society, unable to contribute anything, unable to give them electricity or explain germ theory

if we took a physics/chem PHd and sent him back in time, he would advance their society at an exponential rate..they would get electricity, phones, cars, computers, a periodic table of elements, a proper germ theory, etc etc....

he would actually contribute to progression and help them understand their world

the best thing an avid fiction reader would do is maybe add some analysis of poetry or fiction which no one would give a shit about and would have no impact on society....

>> No.475679

YOU ALL NEED TO STOP BITCHIN´ ABOUT WHAT´S SMART OR NOT

>> No.475683

>>475674
Nice!

>> No.475689

>>475679

English/Lit Majors will always be insecure about their intelligence because they don't know how to do math/sci.

If anyone asks them how a light bulb works they'll shit their pants.

>> No.475691
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475691

>>475674
If you were a real /sci/entist, you'd know that all the "advancements" a time traveling physician/chemist would do would butterfly effect the world into an oblivion. Ray Bradbury figured that out.

(Of course, that's assuming they don't quarter you for being a heretic know-it-all who preaches witchcraft voodoo science.)

Good job fucking up the space time continuum and getting tortured in a time era that wouldn't even want to listen to you.

>> No.475702

>>475674

Funny, the same thing is true regardless of time-travel.

Put an English PHd in a society, he wil contributes virtually nothing.

lol

>> No.475704

>>475674
I don't agree. Philosophical advancements like the ones made in literature can be easily as important as scientific ones. Look at Christ and the Buddha and so many other big names who didn't provide civilization with electricity, but helped people to become more self-realized.

>> No.475705

>>475674
lies. A modern day PhD is dependent on his equipment, and he doesn't know how to build it. You can't run to the hardware store to buy more wire in the middle ages.

>> No.475724

>>475705

to make very advanced things but to make basic things he just needs basic equipment...plus he has the "THEORIES" in his brain which are valuable in themselves

>> No.475733

>>475704

except philosophical advancement is due to philosophers, lit/english writers are just reporters who leech ideas from philosophic thinkers...

plus the impact they have is very small and takes gradual steps and depends on a majority of people changing their ideologies, it also depends on technological advancement in many cases

>> No.475734

>>475724
yeah i'm sure the "THEORY" of flight won't get him burned at the stake

>> No.476289

>>475702

People pay them to do what they do.

Therefore they are valuable to society.

You can't just set up your arbitrary personal standards of what's "valuable" and what's not. What's valuable to a society is what the society considers valuable.

Thank God faggots like you don't have any influence outside of 4chan.