Post: #751

Currently reading Fate is the Hunter by Ernest k Gann. Extraordinary book, memoirs of a pilot from the early days of airlines and into the 2nd world war. Really well written and not overly technical for the non flyers.

I got to this book because it was mentioned in a book called Skyfaring; a journey wi a pilot by mark vanhoenacker. Also a good book and an interesting look into aviation in general, however the prose is a bit pretentious.

These aviation books have however, chilled me out on recent flights as I now realise aeroplanes are designed to fly and aren't just waiting to fall out of the sky.

You could skip the modern one but fate is the hunter is one of the best books I've read for years.

Post: #752

(09-13-2016 03:05 PM)Ski pro Wrote:  Currently reading Fate is the Hunter by Ernest k Gann. Extraordinary book, memoirs of a pilot from the early days of airlines and into the 2nd world war. Really well written and not overly technical for the non flyers.

I got to this book because it was mentioned in a book called Skyfaring; a journey wi a pilot by mark vanhoenacker. Also a good book and an interesting look into aviation in general, however the prose is a bit pretentious.

These aviation books have however, chilled me out on recent flights as I now realise aeroplanes are designed to fly and aren't just waiting to fall out of the sky.

You could skip the modern one but fate is the hunter is one of the best books I've read for years.

That's a fantastic book. I still remember some of the stories from it. I think I've read it 2-3 times.

Post: #753

From a Buick 8 by Stephen King. Nearly at the end of the book. A came too know about this novel after learning about its highly contrasting review. Some people say that its a a master class while other says that its King's worst book ever.

This is a different kind of tale. Its a recollection of past events. The story never picks up speed and moves at a steady pace. The narrative style is quite distinct from other fiction books I've read before.

It's a one time read for me.

Post: #754

I was delighted to see that Paul Theroux has written a couple of travel books since I last looked him up. He's one of my favourite writers.

Just started The Last Train to Zona Verde. really good so far, especially devastating in his critique of townships in South Africa and the poverty tourism that they encourage.

Post: #755

I just finished 21 irrefutable laws of leadership by John C. Maxwell. It was a good read. I read one Law per day and I tried to use it in my everyday life.

I just received The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene and the Art of War by Sun Tzu in the mail. That should keep busy for the next few months.

Post: #756

I've just read "The Empire State Of Mind" - the unofficial Jay-Z biography.

Honestly, the book was not very good, it was mostly based on anecdotal evidence and gossip, and didn't have any meaningful lessons inside.

Then again, I'm spoiled by phenomenal writers like Walter Isaacson and Ron Chernow. Compared to the detail they put into their books, this one felt highly superficial.

One cool lesson though was how Jay-Z cross-promoted his businesses. So when he was rapping about drinking Crystal and whatnot, he thought: well, why am I providing them with free advertising?

Then he partnered up with an another champagne manufacturer in the deal that gets him a couple of millions a year for just dropping the name of that champagne in a few of his songs.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Post: #757

Seneca:the life of a stoic.

Post: #758

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein.

Great military fiction about a society ran solely by "citizens" willing to bleed for their beloved land.

Ultranationalism personified. It's fantastic.

Post: #759

(10-08-2016 03:01 PM)Matrixdude Wrote:  Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein.

Great military fiction about a society ran solely by "citizens" willing to bleed for their beloved land.

Ultranationalism personified. It's fantastic.

Not to mention Heinlein's brilliant and subtle critique of universal suffrage and representative democracy.

I'm currently finishing A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel. It's both a great introduction to investing and stock markets, as well as a well-written guide to personal finances and securing one's financial future. Definitely recommend.

Post: #760

I posted this in another thread, great short story by DF Wallace, redpill af back in '97:


B.I. #28 02-97
YPSILANTI MI [SIMULTANEOUS]
K——:‘What does today’s woman want. That’s the big one.’
E——:‘I agree. It’s the big one all right. It’s the what-do-you-call….’
K——:‘Or put another way, what do today’s women think they want versus what do they really deep down want.’
E——:‘Or what do they think they’re supposed to want.’
Q.
K——:‘From a male.’
E——:‘From a guy.’
K——:‘Sexually.’
E——:‘In terms of the old mating dance.’
K——:‘Whether it sounds Neanderthal or not, I’m still going to argue it’s the big one. Because the whole question’s become such a mess.’
E——:‘You can say that again.’
K——:‘Because now the modern woman has an unprecedented amount of contradictory stuff laid on her about what it is she’s supposed to want and how she’s expected to conduct herself sexually.’
E——:‘The modern woman’s a mess of contradictions that they lay on themselves that drives them nuts.’
K——:‘It’s what makes it so difficult to know what they want. Difficult but not impossible.’
E——:‘Like take your classic Madonna-versus-whore contradiction. Good girl versus slut. The girl you respect and take home to meet Mom versus the girl you just fuck.’
K——:‘Yet let’s not forget that overlayed atop this is the new feminist-slash-postfeminist expectation that women are sexual agents, too, just as men are. That it’s OK to be sexual, that it’s OK to whistle at a man’s ass and be aggressive and go after what you want. That it’s OK to fuck around. That for today’s woman it’s almost mandatory to fuck around.’
E——:‘With still, underneath, the old respectable-girl-versus-slut thing. It’s OK to fuck around if you’re a feminist but it’s also not OK to fuck around because most guys aren’t feminists and won’t respect you and won’t call you again if you fuck around.’
K——:‘Do but don’t. A double bind.’
E——:‘A paradox. Damned either way. The media perpetuates it.’
K——:‘You can imagine the load of internal stress all this dumps on their psyches.’
E——:‘Come a long way baby my ass.’
K——:‘That’s why so many of them are nuts.’
E——:‘Out of their minds with internal stress.’
K——:‘It’s not even really their fault.’
E——:‘Who wouldn’t be nuts with that kind of mess of contradictions laid on them all the time in today’s media culture?’
K——:‘The point being that this is what makes it so difficult, when for example you’re sexually interested in one, to figure out what she really wants from a male.’
E——:‘It’s a total mess. You can go nuts trying to figure out what tack to take. She might go for it, she might not. Today’s woman’s a total crap-shoot. It’s like trying to figure out a Zen koan. Where what they want’s concerned, you pretty much have to just shut your eyes and leap.’
K——:‘I disagree.’
E——:‘I meant metaphorically.’
K——:‘I disagree that it’s impossible to determine what it is they really want.’
E——:‘I don’t think I said impossible.’
K——:‘Though I do agree that in today’s postfeminist era it’s unprecedentedly difficult and takes some serious deductive firepower and imagination.’
E——:‘I mean if it were really literally impossible then where would we be as a species?’
K——:‘And I do agree that you can’t necessarily go just by what they say they want.’
E——:‘Because are they only saying it because they think they’re supposed to?’
K——:‘My position is that actually most of the time you can figure out what they want, I mean almost logically deduce it, if you’re willing to make the effort to understand them and to understand the impossible situation they’re in.’
E——:‘But you can’t just go by what they say, is the big thing.’
K——:‘There I’d have to agree. What modern feminists-slash-postfeminists will say they want is mutuality and respect of their individual autonomy. If sex is going to happen, they’ll say, it has to be by mutual consensus and desire between two autonomous equals who are each equally responsible for their own sexuality and its expression.’
E——:‘That’s almost word for word what I’ve heard them say.’
K——:‘And it’s total horseshit.’
E——:‘They all sure have the empowerment-lingo down pat, that’s for sure.’
K——:‘You can easily see what horseshit it is as long as you remember to start by recognizing the impossible double bind we already discussed.’
E——:‘It’s not all that hard to see.’
Q.
K——:‘That she’s expected to be both sexually liberated and autonomous and assertive, and yet at the same time she’s still conscious of the old respectable-girl-versus-slut dichotomy, and knows that some girls still let themselves be used sexually out of a basic lack of self-respect, and she still recoils at the idea of ever being seen as this kind of pathetic roundheel sort of woman.’
E——:‘Plus remember the postfeminist girl now knows that the male sexual paradigm and the female’s are fundamentally different—’
K——:‘ Mars and Venus. ’
E——:‘Right, exactly, and she knows that as a woman she’s naturally programmed to be more highminded and long-term about sex and to be thinking more in relationship terms than just fucking terms, so if she just immediately breaks down and fucks you she’s on some level still getting taken advantage of, she thinks.’
K——:‘This, of course, is because today’s postfeminist era is also today’s postmodern era, in which supposedly everybody now knows everything about what’s really going on underneath all the semiotic codes and cultural conventions, and everybody supposedly knows what paradigms everybody is operating out of, and so we’re all as individuals held to be far more responsible for our sexuality, since everything we do is now unprecedentedly conscious and informed.’
E——:‘While at the same time she’s still under this incredible sheer biological pressure to find a mate and settle down and nest and breed, for instance go read this thing The Rules and try to explain its popularity any other way.’
K——:‘The point being that women today are now expected to be responsible both to modernity and to history.’
E——:‘Not to mention sheer biology.’
K——:‘Biology’s already included in the range of what I mean by history.’
E——:‘So you’re using history more in a Foucaultvian sense.’
K——:‘I’m talking about history being a set of conscious intentional human responses to a whole range of forces of which biology and evolution are a part.’
E——:‘The point is it’s an intolerable burden on women.’
K——:‘The real point is that in fact they’re just logically incompatible, these two responsibilities.’
E——:‘Even if modernity itself is a historical phenomenon, Foucault would say.’
K——:‘I’m just pointing out that nobody can honor two logically incompatible sets of perceived responsibilities. This has nothing to do with history, this is pure logic.’
E——:‘Personally, I blame the media.’
K——:‘So what’s the solution.’
E——:‘Schizophrenic media discourse exemplified by like for example Cosmo—on one hand be liberated, on the other make sure you get a husband.’
K——:‘The solution is to realize that today’s women are in an impossible situation in terms of what their perceived sexual responsibilities are.’
E——:‘I can bring home the bacon mm mm mm mm fry it up in a pan mm mm mm mm.’
K——:‘And that, as such, they’re naturally going to want what any human being faced with two irresolvably conflicting sets of responsibilities is going to want. Meaning that what they’re really going to want is some way out of these responsibilities.’
E——:‘An escape hatch.’
K——:‘Psychologically speaking.’
E——:‘A back door.’
K——:‘Hence the timeless importance of: passion.’
E——:‘They want to be both responsible and passionate.’
K——:‘No, what they want is to experience a passion so huge, over-whelming, powerful and irresistible that it obliterates any guilt or tension or culpability they might feel about betraying their perceived responsibilities.’
E——:‘In other words what they want from a guy is passion.’
K——:‘They want to be swept off their feet. Blown away. Carried off on the wings of. The logical conflict between their responsibilities can’t be resolved, but their postmodern awareness of this conflict can be.’
E——:‘Escaped. Denied.’
K——:‘Meaning that, deep down, they want a man who’s going to be so overwhelmingly passionate and powerful that they’ll feel they have no choice, that this thing is bigger than both of them, that they can forget there’s even such a thing as postfeminist responsibilities.’
E——:‘Deep down, they want to be irresponsible.’
K——:‘I suppose in a way I agree, though I don’t think they can really be faulted for it, because I don’t think it’s conscious.’
E——:‘It dwells as a Lacanian cry in the infantile unconscious, the lingo would say.’
K——:‘I mean it’s understandable, isn’t it? The more these logically incompatible responsibilities are forced on today’s females, the stronger their unconscious desire for an overwhelmingly powerful, passionate male who can render the whole double bind irrelevant by so totally over-whelming them with passion that they can allow themselves to believe they couldn’t help it, that the sex wasn’t a matter of conscious choice that they can be held responsible for, that ultimately if anyone was responsible it was the male.’
E——: ‘Which explains why the bigger the so-called feminist, the more she’ll hang on you and follow you around after you sleep with her.’
K——:‘I’m not sure I’d go along with that.’
E——:‘But it follows that the bigger the feminist, the more grateful and dependent she’s going to be after you’ve ridden in on your white charger and relieved her of responsibility.’
K——:‘What I disagree with is the so-called. I don’t believe that today’s feminists are being consciously insincere in all their talk about autonomy. Just as I don’t believe they’re strictly to blame for the terrible bind they’ve found themselves in. Though deep down I suppose I do have to agree that women are historically ill-equipped for taking genuine responsibility for themselves.’
Q.
E——:‘I don’t suppose either of you saw where the Little Wranglers’ room was in this place.’
K——:‘I don’t mean that in any kind of just-another-Neanderthal-male-grad-student-putting-down-women-because-he’s-too-insecure-to-countenance-their-sexual-subjectivity way. And I’d go to the wall to defend them against scorn or culpability for a situation that is clearly not their fault.’
E——:‘Because it’s getting to be time to answer nature’s page if you know what I mean.’
K——:‘I mean, even simply looking at the evolutionary aspect, you have to agree that a certain lack of autonomy-slash-responsibility was an obvious genetic advantage as far as primitive human females went, since a weak sense of autonomy would drive a primitive female toward a primitive male to provide food and protection.’
E——:‘While your more autonomous, butch-type female would be out hunting on her own, actually competing with the males for food.’
K——:‘But the point is that it was the less self-sufficient less autonomous females who found mates and bred.’
E——:‘And raised offspring.’
K——:‘And thus perpetuated the species.’
E——:‘Natural selection favored the ones who found mates instead of going out hunting. I mean, how many cave-paintings of female hunters do you ever see?’
K——:‘Historically, we should probably note that once the quote-unquote weak female has mated and bred, she shows an often spectacular sense of responsibility where her offspring are concerned. It’s not that females have no capacity for responsibility. That’s not what I’m talking about.’
E——:‘They do make great moms.’
K——:‘What we’re talking about here is single adult preprimipara females, their genetic-slash-historical capacity for autonomy, for as it were self-responsibility, in their dealings with males.’
E——:‘Evolution has bred it out of them. Look at the magazines. Look at romance novels.’
K——:‘What today’s woman wants, in short, is a male with both the passionate sensitivity and the deductive firepower to discern that all her pronouncements about autonomy are actually desperate cries in the wilderness of the double bind.’
E——:‘They all want it. They just can’t say it.’
K——:‘Putting you, today’s interested male, in the paradoxical role of almost their therapist or priest.’
E——:‘They want absolution.’
K——:‘When they say “I am my own person, ” “I do not need a man, ” “I am responsible for my own sexuality, ” they are actually telling you just what they want you to make them forget.’
E——:‘They want to be rescued.’
K——:‘They want you on one level to wholeheartedly agree and respect what they’re saying and on another, deeper level to recognize that it’s total horseshit and to gallop in on your white charger and overwhelm them with passion, just as males have been doing since time immemorial.’
E——: ‘That’s why you can’t take what they say at face value or it’ll drive you nuts.’
K——:‘Basically it’s all still an elaborate semiotic code, with the new postmodern semions of autonomy and responsibility replacing the old premodern semions of chivalry and courtship.’
E——:‘I really do have to see a man about a prancing pony.’
K——:‘The only way not to get lost in the code is to approach the whole issue logically. What is she really saying?’
E——:‘ No doesn’t mean yes, but it doesn’t mean no, either.’
K——:‘I mean, the capacity for logic is what distinguished us from animals to begin with.’
E——:‘Which, no offense, but logic’s not exactly a woman’s strong suit.’
K——:‘Although if the whole sexual situation is illogical, it hardly makes sense to blame today’s woman for being weak on logic or for giving off a constant barrage of paradoxical signals.’
E——:‘In other words, they’re not responsible for not being responsible, K——’s saying.’
K——:‘I’m saying it’s tricky and difficult but that if you use your head it’s not impossible.’
E——:‘Because think about it: if it was really impossible where would the whole species be?’
K——:‘Life always finds a way.’

Post: #761

im reading the Siberian Education
very nice book,talks about family and friendship

Post: #762

Currently I am reading Gerry Spence’s Win Your Case: How to Present, Persuade, and Prevail (Every Place, Every Time).

It is book 3 out 12 in Chapter 4 of Scott Adams’s Persuasion Reading List.

The author is one of the most renowned lawyers in America and even if you are not a lawyer I advise you to get a hold of this book.

It teaches you how to deal with Power Persons i.e. those who make decisions that can affect you in a positive or negative way by teaching you how you to deal with yourself first.

A bit dense but it flows if you give it enough time per session.

Post: #763

Frank Herbert's Dune. For about the third or fourth time. Origin of the litany against fear
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Book is complex and pretty damn red pill I'd say.

More quotes -
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”

“There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.” Yeah...heh

“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” Really like that one.

“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.”

“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”

Post: #764

I've just finished Eastern Approaches, by Fitzroy MacClean. This guy had a hell of a life. He was a British diplomat in Moscow between 1937-39, undertaking numerous solo trips through the forbidden zones; he quit the Foreign Office to become a founder member of the SAS, operating with David Stirling out in Egypt and Libya, and then was dropped into Yugoslavia as leader of the British Mission to Tito's partisans, ultimately taking part in the liberation of Belgrade. It's a great book, and a fascinating insight into the individual experience of a brilliant man during the war.

Post: #765

(10-12-2016 04:26 PM)LionHound Wrote:  Frank Herbert's Dune. For about the third or fourth time. Origin of the litany against fear
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Book is complex and pretty damn red pill I'd say.

More quotes -
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”

“There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.” Yeah...heh

“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” Really like that one.

“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.”

“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”

If you like Frank Herbert's aphorisms, you'll probably like Idries Shah. "Dune" seems to have borrowed a lot from Shah's brand of Sufism, which saw some low-level popularity in the West during the time Herbert was writing it.

Added: don't be put off by the Sufism. Shah's stuff is not heavily religious, about on par with Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations". It's mostly philosophical and psychological - how we think, how we learn, what interferes with that, how to see through it to get at the truth - mixed with the nuggets of wisdom of the type Herbert weaves into "Dune". Albeit more and deeper wisdom, because that was Shah's trade after all.

Post: #766

(10-12-2016 05:40 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  I've just finished Eastern Approaches, by Fitzroy MacClean. This guy had a hell of a life. He was a British diplomat in Moscow between 1937-39, undertaking numerous solo trips through the forbidden zones; he quit the Foreign Office to become a founder member of the SAS, operating with David Stirling out in Egypt and Libya, and then was dropped into Yugoslavia as leader of the British Mission to Tito's partisans, ultimately taking part in the liberation of Belgrade. It's a great book, and a fascinating insight into the individual experience of a brilliant man during the war.

Seems like a very interesting book. The role of the British within Yugoslavia in the Second World War is a topic which interests me. I will look into it. Thank you.

Post: #767

Just finished War on Cops by Heather MacDonald.

Currently about halfway through Breakthrough by James O' Keefe III. So far, a very interesting insight about what this guy does to save democracy.

Post: #768

MAGA Mindset by Mike Cernovich.



Best way to understand this election and why it is so important.

Explains the rise of Trump, media hoaxes, the rise of the Alt-Right and Trumps mindset.

Concise and to the point.

Really recommend it.

Post: #769

Dante - Divine Comedy

I remembered that i read it in high school which pretty much means i didn't. Tho our local translation i suspect, isn't really brilliant. Might dig English one somewhere

Post: #770

After watching the latest episode of Westworld I got stuck on something they mentioned there: the bicameral mind.

It sounded interesting so I embarked on a Wikipedia Quest.

30 minutes later and my mind is blown the fuck out.

Short introduction to what Bicameralism is:

Quote:Bicameralism (the philosophy of "two-chamberedness") is a hypothesis in psychology that argues that the human mind once assumed a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind. The term was coined by Julian Jaynes, who presented the idea in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, wherein he made the case that a bicameral mentality was the normal and ubiquitous state of the human mind as recently as 3000 years ago.

... Jaynes built a case for this hypothesis that human brains existed in a bicameral state until as recently as 3000 years ago by citing evidence from many diverse sources including historical literature. He took an interdisciplinary approach, drawing data from many different fields. Jaynes asserted that, until roughly the times written about in Homer's Iliad, humans did not generally have the self-awareness characteristic of consciousness as most people experience it today. Rather, the bicameral individual was guided by mental commands believed to be issued by external "gods" — commands which were recorded in ancient myths, legends and historical accounts. This is exemplified not only in the commands given to characters in ancient epics but also the very muses of Greek mythology which "sang" the poems: the ancients literally heard muses as the direct source of their music and poetry.

... According to Jaynes, in the Iliad and sections of the Old Testament no mention is made of any kind of cognitive processes such as introspection, and there is no apparent indication that the writers were self-aware. Jaynes suggests, the older portions of the Old Testament (such as the Book of Amos) have few or none of the features of some later books of the Old Testament (such as Ecclesiastes) as well as later works such as Homer's Odyssey, which show indications of a profoundly different kind of mentality — an early form of consciousness.

... Jaynes inferred that these "voices" came from the right brain counterparts of the left brain language centres—specifically, the counterparts to Wernicke's area and Broca's area. These regions are somewhat dormant in the right brains of most modern humans, but Jaynes noted that some studies show that auditory hallucinations correspond to increased activity in these areas of the brain.

Read the rest here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicamera...sychology)

Some scientists and historians refute the bicameral theory with the Gilgamesh Epic, arguing that some of its passages showcase introspection or "conciousness". The Gilgamesh Epic pre-dates Jaynes's proposed date where humans evolved away from bicameralism to achieve introspective conciousness.

Extremely interesting nonetheless. Jaynes is seeking to explain, among other things, the origin of religion and mental illness (using mainly schizophrenia as an example), arguing that they're remnants of our brain from a historically very close past.

Adding Jaynes's book to my pile of reading.

Post: #771

Thomas Jefferson: The Art Of Power by Jon Meacham. So far so good.

Jefferson is one of my favorite historical figures because the guy was such a Renaissance man. Spoke 6 languages, played the violin, had a wide variety of interests.

Not to mention the fact that he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

An amazing man and a great book so far.

Post: #772

I was never really into comics growing up, but I recall way back on /k someone posting the Punisher Max series. Work is crazy at the moment and I just wanted some lighter reading so I decided to pick up the first couple volumes of Garth Ennis' Punisher Max series.

It's fucking amazing. Very dark and gritty -the way most of us/Garth imagine he would've been. The art is off the charts too.

Post: #773

"No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Robert Glover

I started reading this again, after noticing I'd slipped back into some old bad habits.

Post: #774

I'm currently reading "Girls on the Edge", a companion book to "Boys Adrift" which I read a year ago and then gave to friend who has three sons (he gave it to his oldest son who also has three sons).

So far it has been a very interesting book. Recommend as a starter book on the true nature of women.

I bought it and another copy of "Boys Adrift" to give to a teacher I recently met. I'm just reading it first.

Post: #775

I just started White Fang by Jack London. I read his short story "To Build a Fire" years ago, which was great. So I am trying to expand my London, so to speak.



Here is a link to the PDF for anyone interested: White Fang by Jack London