I'm generally a bit -1 on rigid taxonomies, but one categorisation I definitely wish books were better sorted into is "Is this book better or worse if I take it seriously while I'm reading it?"
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I'm currently reading Finite and Infinite Games and I'd previously have assumed that the answer was "better" but literally everything in it is wrong and people seem to still get a lot out of it so I guess it must have been a "worse" after all.
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I have thought seriously about writing a dissective denunciation of it. It uses a rhetorical trick to seduce unwary readers, and someone needs to warn.
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I’d love to read this. It’s been a while since I read it and I can’t remember many of the specifics, but I’ve always handwavily associated the idea of getting too engrossed in a finite game with what you might call an eternalistic stance toward purpose.
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Yeah I think the appeal of the book is that he does vaguely wave at a bunch of phenomena that are important and neglected. But his explanations of each of them is totally wrong.
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It's one of the rare books I didn't finish. The dichotomies were often too squishy and levels of abstraction often didn't stack.
You made my day with this. The book is adored by so many I respect that I've doubted my comprehension at times.
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This is a bit like saying Jurassic Park gets dinosaurs wrong. I think you guys are looking for praxis in a work of poiesis. Carse cannot be dissected like philosophy. He is best experienced as ecstatic poetry and paired with analytical writers on his themes (Arendt pairs well)
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I am not objecting to it being a source of inspiration.
I am objecting because people very much do treat it as a work of philosophy: it becomes a cited premise in logical arguments.
Those who actually accept it as no more than a kind of spiritual sermon: may the zen be with you
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Likewise, I think poetic scripture is fine per se. One has to ask “if I take this as poetic scripture, where does it point?” Some of what F&IG points toward (nebulosity, playfulness) I’m on board with.
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Content-wise I think it has the potential to get people unstuck, but also the danger of undermining dev of competence and responsibility. Kind of what I was snarking at with twitter.com/Grow_Wiser/sta
is a bit torn, but OK with this I think? Mediocrity in a mansion ftw?🤔
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When I read stuff like this I hear:
societal broke: Try to build competence and responsibility so we can make the world better.
liberal woke: Try to make individuals feel better by putting them into experience machines.
meaningness bespoke: Descend/ascend into pure solipsism. twitter.com/AskYatharth/st…
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Potentially undermining development of competence and responsibility.
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Ah yes, I’m not torn up about that. It’s not an important problem. Just the usual moral panic.
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