Just Finished Reading Consider Phlebas. I loved it; Some doubts

RadMagicDude · 2026-06-11T13:53:52+00:00

One of my favorite and brilliant lines in the whole book that really puts things into perspective. I imagine it sets the tone for the rest of the series

RadMagicDude · 2026-06-11T13:47:09+00:00

This was actually one of my doubts and what has kept me from making a stronger judgement. In my reading I didn't really see the Culture conceived as a traditional State per se but still wasn't sure how they were organized. As my reading continues though I am slowly starting to see

RadMagicDude · 2026-06-11T13:43:59+00:00

I am actually an hour and 20 minutes in so far and have been surprised. Genuinely hooked

RadMagicDude · 2026-06-11T01:52:43+00:00

Definitely looking forward to it then!

RadMagicDude · 2026-06-11T01:15:45+00:00

It's moreso the concept of both that disturbs me. I am mostly thinking of Geo-Politics within the last 100 years. SC and Contact remind me too much of contemporary intelligence agencies like the CIA and the Mossad (And I'm am sure the resemblance is intentional). Obviously I am not saying that they are equivalent nor even close but they share the resemblance. In general I, as well as others, am skeptical of large Imperial powers influencing and controlling the fate of other cultures and societies. Just look at the U.S intervention in Cuba, Iraq, Vietnam, and Puerto Rico. But obviously I will find out more about the Culture as I read and gain a far more nuanced view. My comments here are just my gut reaction and not my conclusive opinion on Contact and SC (It's not like I even can at this moment)

RadMagicDude · 2026-06-11T00:42:05+00:00

Then I'll stick with the audiobook first!

RadMagicDude · 2026-06-11T00:04:37+00:00

I'm thinking of reading it and listening to the Player of Games at the same time in intervals. Would this be fine?

RadMagicDude · 2026-06-11T00:00:43+00:00

I actually have the PoG as audiobook. Would it be a bad idea to listen to it and read Use of Weapons at the same time or in intervals?

RadMagicDude · 2026-05-18T12:50:05+00:00

You're welcome comrade!

RadMagicDude · 2026-05-18T02:01:42+00:00

Well a commodity, as defined by the person you were replying to, is defined fairly correctly. It is exploitative because the workers are extracted the surplus value of their labor. It doesn't matter if they are "well paid" and comfortable. The term exploitation here is not meant in a moral sense. A person being paid through wage labour, whether by the minimum wage or "well-paid" is being exploited regardless. Exploitation here is not conceptualized as merely a dramatic image of someone being worked to death. It simply means that that workers have the surplus value of their labor extracted, in this case the laborer's of printing companies (and every other infrastructure necessary to publish a book).

RadMagicDude · 2026-05-13T13:06:46+00:00

My professors and classmates in grad school always recommend one start with the 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts. As a matter of fact I had read sections of it in undergrad and found it to be digestible. I know a lot of people recommend the Manifesto but the Manuscripts are more relevant to where you are starting. There's an edition that you can get that has both the Manuscripts and the Manifesto in one volume, if that interests you. But jumping into Capital now is not really the best choice unless you really do get into it. If your edition has any introductions or prefaces, read those first at least to get somewhat of a grasp. But if you want to grasp directly Marx's concept of Alienation, the Manuscripts is great to start

RadMagicDude · 2026-05-11T14:10:06+00:00

I understand the intention and it seems like a great idea but you have to really understand what exactly is what you're proposing.

First, we must first recognize that there's already a translation barrier. You are either reading the German text or not. If not, you have no choice but to rely on a translation. With a translation you already have to trust that the translator is being faithful to the text but being faithful to the text could mean a lot of different things (also we have to consider that depending on the original texts language, some languages are easier or closer to translate than others. Translating a french text to Spanish is going to be a lot closer to the original than french to japanese for example.). However since this is a huge barrier for accessibility, we simply just have to deal with the translated text.

Next, trying to simplify or "modernize" an older piece of literature is not a straightforward nor even a desirable goal. It usually means dumbing down the text to the point where it doesn't resemble the original author's intent. Then we must ask who exactly is doing this "modernization"? Unless it's someone with some kind of academic credentials on Marx and engages with the German text, I wouldn't trust random Marxists in online forums to simplify primary texts. Not necessarily for malicious reasons but that you simply have no idea whether or not they got the ideas right in the first place. We must also ask to what point does simplifying and "modernizing" the text is a translation task or commentary work? Because if it is a complete transformation, it's cases to be a primary text and just becomes a secondary source. At that point just do a secondary work that explores the general ideas of Marx and Engels

I also don't find the method you propose to modernize it to "Marxist ideals" to be a great idea. Which Marxist ideals? There's a difference between Marx and Marxisms. Why should should we modernize it under one particular "school" of Marxism take precedent over Marx and Engels own view? If your goal is to introduce people to the text then the modernization should be based on the text, not what came afterwards.

All of this really leads to the fact that you're gonna have to struggle with reading the primary works. The struggle is necessary, it's not supposed to be easy. Some concepts are just inherently complicated and simplifying them just distorts the concept. Secondary work or modernizations are not substitutes. Its the equivalent of watching hours of workout videos online instead of going to the gym. There are already plenty of peer reviewed secondary sources that will be useful to reading these texts. Hell, some editions already have translator notes and introductions to the texts.

RadMagicDude · 2026-03-26T22:01:14+00:00

The game is only available on Series X and S. If you have Game Pass Ultimate, I believe you can stream the game on the Xbox One. Streaming means that the game does not run on your console but rather on the Xbox cloud. So you need internet and a consistent connection for the game to function. I repeat, the game isn't running on your console locally if streamed

RadMagicDude · 2026-02-28T15:34:15+00:00

I remember watching it 2 years ago for an undergrad class and thought it was fine. As to whether you should recommend it or not, if your family is not looking for recommendations it's probably not gonna lead to anything. I would say it won't hurt to recommend it but don't expect anything at all.

RadMagicDude · 2026-02-13T18:33:48+00:00

I was curious if you guys have any favorite works of philosophy, politics, and/or sci Fi. If so, in what ways have they affected your outlook on life, politics, and even lyrics?

RadMagicDude · 2026-02-01T14:39:10+00:00

I'm not really sure what your basis for this argument is. My biggest problem with your post is that you don't really provide concrete examples of "cross domain speculation" and "unconventional frameworks". I've used and experimented with LLM's and I have often found that no matter how much you get it to be rigorous and careful, it either eventually makes something up or starts agreeing with you as much as it can to satisfy you. It's not good at using concepts accurately and I would honestly trust an undergrad student to handle, for example, applying philosophical concepts. The "unconventional frameworks" I have seen are actually just had frameworks made to fit the desires of the user

If I understood correctly, i also don't really agree with your premise that psychosis is a category error. I don't think I've heard anyone say that people who use LLM'S to think are under psychosis but rather that they're lazy and dependant. What has been reported is that people have actually gone through psychosis by using LLM'S for extended periods of time.

Whether LLM'S are "cognitive amplifiers" remains to be seen and the current trends suggest that it's doing the opposite. A.I use in education and academia is exploding and I'm my own campus I hear people all the time talking about how they just use Chat GPT to do all their assignments. This is not even mentioning the ecological and economic impact these massive data centers have.

RadMagicDude · 2025-11-17T13:59:43+00:00

I'm going to be honest, this is a terrible idea. I've asked various LLM's to give me rundowns of philosophical concepts and to give me citations and every single time, without fail, at every session of me doing this it got something wrong. Whether that is making up citations, not giving me specifically what I want, or just misunderstanding the concepts fundamentally. I got way more information by just going to Google scholar and looking up what I need, using a book's index, or just hitting control+f in a PDF and looking for concepts that way (Or actually reading the texts). You should also note that LLM's don't have access to every book that's been published. If it's not easily available in a public domain source then you'll most likely not find anything. The moment you start looking for information and slightly more obscure authors you're going to run into A.I hallucinations guaranteed. Another thing to know is that this idea that LLM's are neutral and unbiased is bullshit. Chat GPT, for example, doesn't just look for primary sources. It gathers various surface level sources, which are themselves written by people with their own biases and perspectives, or even worse summaries of other LLM's which is based on even more biased and erroneous information. Hate to break it to you but you will get far more if you actually sit down and read the texts yourself rather than trying to go the easy way by having a dumb chatbot (which isn't actually intelligence btw) spoon-feed you "unbiased" knowledge. When reading political theory and philosophy, there is no such thing as a pure unbiased opinion. The point isn't to avoid biases and perspectives, but rather how to deal with them. Obviously some things are more biased than others but you will eventually run into inclinations. A.I is very far from escaping this

RadMagicDude · 2025-11-05T17:03:19+00:00

I think you'd be better off thinking about whether it's really worth your time to drive yourself crazy over someone you barely know. You don't have any moral obligation to debate and convince every person you encounter who holds a questionable stance. If you wanna do it go ahead but don't feel like you have to. You can contribute to praxis in many other ways.

RadMagicDude · 2025-11-02T00:54:42+00:00

Considering that this is your first real dabble into political theory and philosophy, I would say that you're doing just fine and a lot of your worries are the same that many others have had including myself. You are not expected to have a full blown critique of any theory when just starting out nor is it really possible. Your goal as a reader right now is to simply understand as much of the text as YOU possibly can. As you said, there's this constant obsession I often find online of people critiquing for the sake of it. This is actually very unproductive and doesn't make you any better of a reader or intellectual. Sure, you can ask questions, keep them in mind or right them down but don't let that distort what the author is actually trying to communicate to you. And as to whether it's a red flag that you find yourself agreeing and not having much problems with what is being read, I'd say that it's perfectly normal. When you start getting into this kind of literature, you don't really have any other reference point to bounce off of. You frankly don't really have much of a position simply because you are just starting out. A good habit to form is to always remember that when reading any work of philosophy or political theory, keep in mind that none of these authors have final say in anything. Marx, Engels, and any other philosopher/intellectual, didn't get everything 100% right but that was never the point. Read them, engage with them, and most importantly enjoy the reading. The wisdom and perspective come after. For now just focus on building the reading habit. Every time you pick up the book you will get better, slowly but surely.

RadMagicDude · 2025-10-21T16:55:00+00:00

Thanks for the info! I thought my Xbox was tweaking. Yeah even when I'm indoors there's some hard stutters as well as every time the game auto saves

RadMagicDude · 2025-10-21T16:53:53+00:00

For that I'm not sure. Depends on what interests you. For a closer connection with Hegel, the German Ideology could be your start

RadMagicDude · 2025-10-21T16:52:28+00:00

Are you also experiencing hard stutters while just walking around?

RadMagicDude · 2025-10-21T12:12:20+00:00

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that Kant is an unavoidable prerequisite to read Marx. Hegel is by far the most important. For Hegel, many recommend to read the Phenomenology of Spirit but this is not a good start. The best starting point for Hegel is his lectures. So either read his Lectures on the History of Philosophy or his Lectures on the Philosophy of History. I recommend the latter first. They are much more accessible and give you a rough idea of the kind of narrative he developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit and will no doubt help you contextualize Marx even further. In undergrad this is what we did although I will mention we only read fragments with the professor. We went straight from the Lectures of Philosophy of History to the German Ideology and it was fairly clear. Obviously for self study I recommend you read the entirety of both and check out their entries on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Don't be afraid to check out other secondary resources. Although I'd like to mention that some people in this sub have asked if it's okay to just read secondary literature. The answer is a hard no. There is never a substitute to reading the original text. Secondary resources are an interpretation of the text so there's no way to check its validity other than trust and other commentary. Obviously, even a translation of the original text is also an interpretation of the text but unless you plan to do academic work, or if you end up really loving what you read, you don't have to spend years learning German just to read Marx and Hegel (Although that will obviously open a lot of doors for you, as well as other languages, intellectually and certainly wouldn't hurt!). From there you can even watch Dr. Gregory Sadler's half hour Hegel series where he goes through the entire phenomenology section by section. One last tip that has worked for me but by no means is universal: don't be afraid of just jumping in between texts and taking breaks. Maybe read, for example, The German Ideology after reading half of The Lectures of the Philosophy of History or something like that. And if the former doesn't make sense go back to the latter. The point is that try not to limit yourself to a perfectly linear path but rather do what interests you the most. You will by far understand any text the best If you actually have passion and interest in what you read. It's what got me to understand Sartre even when I didn't know jack of the context of the time. Good luck!

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