Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 3527. page

>>8209730

I recommend you to fuck off and read.

Fuck off, NYRB shill.

celine, williams, pessoa, cioran, mcelroy and gaddis are good

mecken is kinda reddit but also good.

bely is supposed to be good but finnegans wake tier in comprehensibility

Horrible writing, special snowflake philosophy, B-list actor author who never read a boo-FUCKING KILL YOURSELF.

Read it. People bash it and Rand for stupid things but politics and philosophy aside the novel itself is pretty good and unique. You could do a lot worse and some of the meme books that get suggested here often are in fact worse than Atlas Shrugged.

It's a decent book, really long though.

Blood Meridian

A Clockwork Orange

American Psycho

Sup

>>8209618
Fuck off, you filthy beggar.

The search continues...

One of my fundamental realizations in life is that popular media in the 20th and 21st century is no better at conveying information than the “yellow journalism” of the Robber Baron era. A corollary to this is that most popular science “experts” are clowns. I realized this almost immediately in physics, as I had the good fortune to meet a couple of the charlatans I admired as a youth. It would be incredibly solipsistic of me to assume that this was only true in physics, but that is in fact what I assumed. Until I gained enough expertise in other fields to see through the impostures.

The most popular pop-writer in quantitative finance at present is Nassim Taleb. His latest screed in the Financial Times is what spurred me to write this post. The article wasn’t entirely written by Taleb -though I guess the other guy is his fund partner, so it is no surprise that it suffers from all the mush headed absurdity of Taleb’s other articles and books. I won’t pick on the other guy; or even mention his name: he’s got a job to do, and he has the good manners to not make himself a public figure.Taleb, on the other hand, is sort of the Paul Feyerabend of quantitative finance. Like Feyerabend, he is well read, a good writer and quite charming. Like Feyerabend, Taleb seems to earn his daily bread by showing up and being kind of witty. Finally, both Feyerabend and Taleb are very much Against Method. This means, effectively, they’re both intellectual nihilists. Feyerabend thought we couldn’t know anything for various reasons too silly to get into right now. Taleb thinks all of quantitative finance is nonsense and we should do away with quants. I am guessing the former’s delusions had something to do with drinking the same Berkeley tapwater in the 1960s which made everyone else believe in crazy things, but Taleb was a trader, and it’s a common prejudice of traders to dislike quants for cutting into their P/L.

A lot of what Taleb says is kind of sensible, and even obvious. Many models used in quantitative finance are bad models. Virtually all models used in quantitative finance are nowhere near as statistically sound as, say, models in physics, or even models in a subject as squishy as psychometry. That is no reason to discard the idea of models, yet it seems to be something Taleb repeatedly suggests. If you can’t be bothered to register for Taleb’s FT diatribe, I will regale you with a few choice quotes. It’s a disjointed and bizarre screed, though at least he nails “excessive debt” as the root of the present crisis -this is correct and has plenty of historical precedent. But then, as Taleb generally does, he takes a fairly reasonable statement and uses it as an excuse to careen off into cloud cuckoo land:

>>8209600
Taleb: “…homeowners and others have been recklessly amassing debt. Such non-linearity makes the mathematics used by economists rather useless. Our research shows that economic papers that rely on mathematics are not scientifically valid. Not only do they underestimate the possibility of “black swans” but they are unaware that we do not have any ability to deal with the mathematics of extreme events..”

Um, where did the nonlinearity come from? I’m assuming from a bad editing job. The larger issue is rather more alarming: one rather wonders if he used mathematics in his research on the scientific validity of these “economics papers that rely on mathematics.” I agree that many economics papers are silly. Since economic papers often involve math, his reasoning seems to be something along the lines of “we must do away with mathematics and instead base economic policy on chicken entrails and pixie dust.” It seems to me, sticking some well motivated error bars on economic models is going to get you farther than the chicken entrails approach. Sure, a lot of it will end up as chicken entrails anyway, but it seems utile to use models as a sort of starting point for understanding the world rather than, you know, actual chicken entrails. You can argue about the validity of a mathematical model -if you’re just using chicken guts, there is little hope. Perhaps a more reasonable approach to doing away with bad economics papers would be to insist all economics papers be written in High Church Latin, since most of the bad ones are presently written in English. Restricting economics papers to people who are familiar with the classics would filter out a lot of shallow thinkers. While I can’t prove this is a more “scientific” approach by Taleb’s lights, I’m pretty sure “write economics papers in Latin” is going have a lot more win than “no more math for economists.” If nothing else, latin means less people will read them, which ought to cure some of Taleb’s dyspepsia.

Later, Taleb, presumably unencumbered with any troublesome mathematical thought, informs us he has come up with a solution to the economic crisis:

Taleb: “The only solution is to transform debt into equity across all sectors, in an organised and systematic way. Instead of sending hate mail to near-insolvent homeowners, banks should reach out to borrowers and offer lower interest payments in exchange for equity.”

I'm laughing at 4 plates reading Ulysses so no worries baby

That choice of music would fit more with Crying of Lot 49.

GR usually stays in the 30s to 40s except for like two parts.

>>8209569
KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo35O1AJOfg

I GOTTA RAISE A FUSS I GOTTA RAISE A HOLLER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU5uDozoSSM

>>8209821
This was meant for >>8209635 And the 60's.

succ

Don't bother it's not worth it. Watch netflix instead. Same content, but better delivery.

>Watching movies and TV is for plebs; it rots your brain
>Reading novels is for patricians; it's gentlemanly and learned

Is there any truth to this meme? (And if so, then what of audiobooks?)

Is the distaste for "merely watching TV/Movies" simply a modern development; a reaction of the disgust reflex against the media addiction that goes hand-in-hand with (and arguably supports) our objectively measurable intellectual and social development? After all, given the choice of reading a novel and watching a film with the same content, most will opt for the film if only because it will take a fraction of the time and energy.

Aren't reading and "watching" both just passively absorbing narratives? On what grounds can we put one on a pedestal and the other in the gutter? Because reading is less efficient it's "better"?

And if we accept that reading is "mere consumption" as well, isn't the critical fault-line actually that between creating new ideas and passively absorbing existing ideas?

>>8209534
>reading fiction

>>8209522
>reading outside
>posting this on /lit/
>desu and basically you are fucking stupid

Are you seeming to be something you're not?

In your heart of hearts, are you?

I can tell you, when I walk up the road with a can of lager in one hand and a copy of Megahex in the other I'm perfectly at ease with myself even as I run into the swarm of children walking back from school and they inevitably start yelling to me and asking what I'm reading.

This is because I am not thinking about anything but what I'm doing - because I enjoy it to the extent that the judgement of others is an irrelevant speck.

However, some people find it hard to enjoy anything without it being tainted by their own anxieties.

These people, perhaps they are crippled by their concern over what others think and should habituate themselves to a more indifferent mindset in order to achieve contentment.

>>8209721
>>>/Reddit/

>Stasis
>Trigger
>The quest
>Surprise
>Critical choice
>Climax
>Reversal
>Resolution
This is the tracklist to my new album

>>8209518
How much is it worth to you, to get into medical school?

A hundred thousand in fees, and a future career in medicine?

Surely that's enough to splash out a few hundred bucks on a professional personal statement writer.

Google is your friend.

>>8209518
If you can't write a convincing personal letter you don't belong in med school. The fact that your have to write one implies your marks were barely enough for them to even consider you.

>>8209497
celine

>>8209513
>celine
does he have more segmented autobiographical or philosophical stuff like pessoa and cioran, or does he just have stories like journey to the end of the night?

>>8209497
albert caraco

>>8209496
why is it at a 90° angle and gilded

Sorry, bad photo

It's okay. Not too cringeworthy but it doesn't scan and totally falls apart towards the end.

File: l6pkTGc.png (362KB, 523x592px) Image search: [Google]

362KB, 523x592px

>>8209309
>as an agnostic

>>8209309
>Is atheism intellectually satisfying?
define intellectually satisfying

also it depends, some people will find it so and others won't

>>8209309
>le alt-right strawmen line drawing meme

>ageraphobia
It's called depression, m8. See medical help.

go see a therapist. you can't just expect books to solve all your problems. that's retarded

>>8209286
>>8209287
I have...Meds and exercise do only so much

Does anyone else feel like this? Not depressed, not anxious, just some kind of mental pain.

:\

>basic
For survival you need ~20 words

>>8209305
uga uga krah krah

Non-native speaker that considers himself about 80% fluent and i have no idea what blimp means. It didnt show up in books i have read and neither in other parts of english culture.

Hesse and Wilde have some good more recent ones.

>>8209239
Sounds interesting, thanks.

Yates and his irish folktales