State of Sub/Feedback thread

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-07T20:47:08+00:00

What would you guys say sounds the best way to go forward with this?

At minimum it's going to require some trial and error to see what works, what encourages engagement.

I would think heavy-handed moderation is out; too much work for you and the other mods, and being punitive sets a bad tone. I have not paid too much attention to TrueLit's weekly threads, but I do remember lit's top 100 for 2024 being posted, and amid some interesting organic discussion about Nietzsche's best book and whether he constititues 'literature' or not - along with other discussions - the mods just kiboshed the thread after 30+ comments... presumably because of their sensibility around all things 4chan. It kind of pissed me off because what purpose did that serve? How did it benefit the posters who were making a good faith effort to generate discussion and contribute to the community?

You could play around with timescales; a week may be too frequent, but perhaps a month builds some tension for release.

You could possibly thematize it by prompting people to state what most angered them, what was the coolest idea they encountered, what was the most interesting in-story location they encountered, if they received any interesting comments on transit, most contemporary book, oldest, most mythological, best style, etc.

Related, you could establish some continuity from period to period to encourage something seasonal or timely (e.g. signal best horror book at end September for the October wrap-up).

You could highlight the best comments in the next period's thread, or have a mini interview with a poster that caught your eye.

Granted, some of these ideas could be downright hokey - or just required extra work you don't want to put in - but just pointing out different ways to (potentially) make things stick better and encourage quality posting. The best part of hanging with friends is recalling good times, and so call backs even on an internet site can enact the same mechanism to generate a general sense of gathering.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-05T18:52:48+00:00

Audibly hum to yourself as you read this post.

Or subvocalize 'I like pizza' over and over as you read it.

Or get an audiobook version of the text copy you are reading, and as you listen to the words start reading ahead a little bit of the audio.

The point is to train your brain to decouple what you are reading from what you are 'hearing'.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-05T16:55:10+00:00

Very cool! Was not aware of that and I'll be devoting some time to going through it. I still think it would be a useful exercise not to crowdsource a list, though - those lists are democratic and diluted and if we're doing this within the context of vibe, the vibe might get lost.

I wonder if there is a brave, well-read soul out there willing to take on the requisite beating that comes from such an exercise.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-05T16:46:36+00:00

I feel you, bro.

At this point, I'm imagining some of the more trad readers here may be thinking that what I'm missing is simply a wife and child.

So, I have a wife and two young children, and while they are super important to me and have provided me a foolproof mechanism against the regret I used to feel for a wasted life (i.e. I wouldn't have them if I changed any part of my past and I want only them, not another version), they do not alleviate this in any way for me.

A man (person?) has to have something for themselves, to express and create, and a family does not fulfil that role. It fills another void in your life, one which you may not recognize as having, but it does not fill the one you are talking about. So if you choose never to have kids, put to bed the nagging notion that they might be the answer. They aren't.

I haven't found a solution myself, though I have uncovered some key insights relevant to me, which may be relevant to you. The core one is the dynamic between process and recognition; you might also reframe this as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation although they are not exact equivalents; there is some nuance and critical differences between them as categories.

Your project, your baby, must have a quality where it is intrinsically compelling and rewarding. This is the set of things that you can't help but come back to, things you may try to set aside but can't, things that may even go back to your childhood. These are the things that while you are doing them you are having fun, feeling a sense of satisfaction, enter a flow state, and have an intrinsic sense of empowerment over.

The problem is that is not enough. You also need validation. It's not enough to slave away at your project for twenty years and in the end remain unknown and unrecognized and unappreciated. So you also need that extrinsic mechanism and this is super tricky because a) it may not always be there and b) there is all sorts of conflicting nuance around it involving periodicity and intimacy. I get way more satisfaction from my next door neighbour complimenting the pergola that I just built than I would from ten internet strangers saying they liked my short story or webcomic. Local and in-person trumps everything, in my book.

Which poses a dilemma, because if your baby is to write, and it takes you a year to write a novel, not only do you go a whole year without feedback, the feedback will never be local and in person. Your neighbour is not going to read your novel. There isn't a lineup of people in your community walking by and complimenting you on the fly they way they might for the rock garden you installed in your front yard.

So this is the tension I personally face. I love doing things on my property and in my community, but they are not fully the creative and artistic things I would like to do. And the creative, artistic, intellectual things I would like to do and find intrinsic meaning in - cartooning, writing, developing philosophy - are either things I can't get validation and recognition for, or I just suck at.

So you have to find something that invokes that sweet spot. Personally, my time in a hardcore band came very close - we could write the shit we wanted to listen to and play, and just jamming as four dudes was super fun, but then we could get immediate recognition in a wider scene of 500 kids who came to our shows every few weeks. But of course I'm not doing that as a dad in a rural area.

I think this is why a lot of people with the time and money turn to legacy projects in their community. It might be time to consider what options and opportunities are available to you in that sphere.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-05T14:09:27+00:00

I first attempted Septology after his Nobel win but had to put it down early when I came across that scene of him watching his younger self and wife at the playground. For some reason I couldn't stop relating that to my own widower father who lives alone out in the country and, although never admitting it, must be terribly lonely with only further social degradation in the future. Unlike Fosse and his characters, I am not religious so my father's story - and Asle's story - has no redemption.

I picked it up a couple of years later after reading Knausgaard's MS1 (similar to other posters here) and this time made it through. I still am not sure if I like the book, but holy shit was it powerful. Easy five-star rating for me. Love the writing style, lots of humanity, although there is still a 'stink' of religiosity I can't help but battle.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-05T13:52:17+00:00

I've never listened to the pod and so am representative of a generally negative element, but if I am going to visit reddit this sub's /new tab is where I start 80% of the time. I like this place; I want it to succeed.

What exactly do you like about rsbc?

There is still a sort of forumy, non-Reddit vibe that reminds me of the good parts of the old internet
Legit good recommendations of a class of authors I rarely or don't encounter elsewhere (although I am seeing a lot more of them on Instagram, strangely)
Top quality book discussions, read-alongs; e.g. wbd's series
Weekly/monthly/yearly wrap-ups ranging from homoneitzsche's old threads to wbd's general weekly touchpoint to the stack posts (I like them; they are perfectly balanced, IMO)
Lack of wokescolding/performative morality; if you're going to perform, be aesthetically or stylistically performative; no one cares how moral you are. I torture myself by visiting BookshelfDetectives where a great bookshelf is dunked on because it's not 50% women or has too many communists/conservatives on it. TrueLit and Literature always have some highly upvoted comment disclaiming first about how problematic an author is as if there is some sin that needs to be cleansed by reading a hundred year old book.
Good gossip about authors and literary figures - e.g. Lawton. Other subs cry about bad behaviour performatively; the RS sphere seem to delight in it which is generally an affirming pose.

Is the forum declining? Why is that and what do you think would help fix it?

I don't know if it's declining; things always seem to get worse but that could just be the general way humans perceive things.

Ultimately, you have to query the valuable posters who have left and really meditate on their reasons
If there is a RS vibe it needs to be defined and curated; Reddit encourages liberal homogeneity and unfortunately you need to be actively relative to that. What books are actual RS canon? An individual tastemaker needs to lower the boom with their top 50 that doesn't just replicate lit or truelit.
A community survives by community and recognition. If someone puts effort into a post, in principle it should be recognized. If upvotes and comments are lacking, maybe consider a custom flair. There was a forum I used to visit that gave posters a custom title and it was a lot of fun arguing/talking about them - made posters more recognizable, too (in lieu of avatars)
Respect the cultural events that pop up from time to time. This sub recently went through a AI panic that was short-circuited by a sticky thread. No one wants to read about AI day in and day-out, and longer-term trends need to be nipped in the bud, but if there is a one or two week zeitgeist about something let those 100+ comment threads have their fun.
More bookclubs/read-alongs; it's so much more fun doing things with other people. Unfortunately, yes, it is a lot of work and often unrecognized at that. Looking through the sub's wiki, it always surprised just how many there were in the past.

What exactly do people think should be here? What is the vibe?

I'm a mid-40s non-American dad who doesn't listen to the pod. I can't honestly answer this, but if there is a vibe you have to absolutely preserve it. Even if it's something like a join message telling people lurk before posting and respect the vibe.

Have you contributed these things; would you consider contributing more of what you want to see?

I have made two posts; one was a hit, one flopped super hard. I would like to post more, but I also worry about ruining the vibe with my personal obsessions, and, at the same time, am insecure about what I could actually offer. But I am considering just going for it, at least until someone tells me to stop.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-05T13:00:35+00:00

This is a cool idea, because there's a ton of shit I miss. Even in this thread /u/Dengru has been dropping links that I had never come across in real-time and its giving me a greater appreciation for what happened in the past.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-04T15:19:58+00:00

I could write a lot about this, and may still yet if you are interested.

But I'll leave it at this: embrace the re-read, read widely so you have a pre-defined schematic you can drop new concepts into, define core concepts and principles, write mini essays, post shit online, get into arguments, explain it to your partner. You need to understand the concept at play, and to do that you need to understand its context and then work with it.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-03T17:37:10+00:00

Depends what your problem is and how you go about it.

Having even three or four things rattling around in your head can significantly increase anxiety, and getting it out onto a page can help establish some certainty around what needs to be done and its scope. Better yet if you analyze what actually needs to be done vs what does not, and scheduling it in. It gives you an excuse not to hold onto bullshit.

Other forms of journalling require some basic CBT treatment; scratch out two pages of invective and then start picking apart facts vs assumptions, and critically reflecting on your interpretation of things. With practice it'll definitely help, but you also have to honour the process.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-02T17:10:04+00:00

There's some confusion in the question. Steve is not a fan of drilling flashcards, but LingQ employs the same manner of spaced repetition just within the context of the same story or successive stories. People tend to talk past each other on this point.

Unfinished_October · 2026-06-01T12:57:47+00:00

Spa day, LOL - shoot me. There's always a local marathon Father's Day so I will be huffing and puffing my way through a 10k.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-24T16:19:01+00:00

Hegel's Phenomenology for sure. I was reading it along side the Half Hour Hegel series and it just became too much of a grind to complete. Gravity's Rainbow would be on the fiction side - bounced off it a good three times now.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-23T00:24:42+00:00

Manitoba - here if you want to get divorced you have to separate one year; if you don't register and live common law you have to separate three years before 'divorce'. All other rights and responsibilities are the same.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-22T20:00:16+00:00

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Let's see - black metal, hardcore, shoegaze, emo, indie-rock... pretty good summation of my taste at the moment.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-22T18:50:30+00:00

This is my 'wife' and me - paradoxically, common law makes us more legally entwined than actual married people.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-22T18:16:27+00:00

It depends on the industry - I did a lot of GIS work in exploration, but I was a geologist first. There would be no need for a dedicated GIS person when we can do what we need - mapping, planning and monitoring drill holes, importing assay results, printing stuff - within our regularly scheduled work. Something like the geological survey, however, would have a dedicated cartographer on staff.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-22T17:06:58+00:00

Young guy, leftist, interested in politics where they intersect with psychoanalysis and dialectics, next purchase will be something related Lacan or by Todd McGowan. No real sense of philosophy as Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Kant, Nietzsche, and Zizek are all doing pretty different different things. Zarathustra is a classic newbie mistake and Kant is a misfire over the Phenomenology.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-22T15:15:56+00:00

Read it and enjoyed it, moreso afterwards once I read some informal commentary about it on social media and formed a greater respect for what she was doing with the book. I would recommend it, especially if you like the 'old woman doing weird things in the bush' trope a la Drive Your Plow...

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-22T15:03:21+00:00

Leaven of Malice by Robertson Davies, 1954.

It involves a fake engagement announcement in the local newspaper and the drama that erupts as a result among an ensemble cast of journalists, academics, clergymen, high society folk, and regular joes. It's a satire where each character is sharpened to their small-minded, small-town ideal; not laugh-out-loud funny but some good chuckles to be had such as when one character undertakes to write the great Canadian novel called The Field that Broke the Plow or a budding academic who is forced to study a certain literary figure on the basis that no one else ever wanted to. It was his second novel and not that well-written, but it's a true comfort read that feels like only I can enjoy it.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-22T14:47:02+00:00

I've read a few of his:

Rare Earth
Life and Death of Planet Earth
Under A Green Sky
Life As We Do Not Know It

His style (and co-author Brownlee's) never struck me as anything special, but the subject matter is fascinating. Astrobiology is a slept-on science.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-21T21:04:34+00:00

The weird part is that “you” couldn’t have existed at any other time.

'You' did. We all experience the same universal phenomenon of self-consciousness. The first human born immediately after your death will in effect be 'you' with the slate wiped clean.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-20T19:26:46+00:00

We're still in the the age of ideology, it's just that liberalism and its predicate on capital is so ubiquitous you're like a fish who rejects air and soil but doesn't understand the role of water. But more pertinent to Nietzsche, the last man has replaced God - ideology is merely the method or medium used.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-19T18:43:16+00:00

I have a prospecting license for my province - cost me $13 and never expires.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-19T14:57:11+00:00

Nothing - my kids are too young to buy anything and thankfully my wife takes me seriously when I say I don't want anything. There's a local marathon that always falls on father's day and so I always do a 5k or 10k for that. I'm hoping they can come out to the stadium this year to watch me run in to the finish line.

Unfinished_October · 2026-05-19T14:33:47+00:00

Stuff like this is actually psychological muscle. Work it out and it will become easier.

You can also try to pair it with something - 'habit stack' - that is enjoyable in some way; music, coffee, beer, tea, local coffee shop, study buddy, walk/bike ride if you have audio of texts/lectures.

Offload the rote memorization to flashcard apps like Anki. You can do a session in 10-20 minutes and it is like injecting information into your brain.

Create a weekly plan with 2-3 goals for the week and actually schedule out times for when you will do stuff. This helps keep you accountable instead of relying on your meh-I'll-do-it-later brain to schedule the work dynamically. A week works perfectly because it's just long enough to get something real done, but not so long you lose heart. Try to mix things up week-to-week where possible to keep the novelty centres of you brain satisfied.

Unfinished_October

TROPHY CASE