One of the greatest sci-fi authors.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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One of the greatest fantasy authors
Los dos!
thanks for sharing. I've been feeling pretty hopeless lately and this helped me today
Remember, it took the black death and like 1/2 the population dying to bring about this change
I mean the black death was like 450 years before the French revolution... I think it just took some angry French people for change
On top of a depressed economy from endless war and poor management of state funds, the details of the lives of nobles started to get published for just anyone to read which was unprecedented. Although no single thing can be attributed to causing the revolution, I think that just learning about how the nobility lived really put a difficult situation over the top for them.
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Divine right of kings simply morphed into capitalism. We didn't get rid of jack shit, and we never will.
Feudalism is entirely different from Capitalism, which is entirely different from Socialism. Class dynamics have changed, and will change.
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Not to piss in the lemonade, but some places still have the divine right of kings.
The point is that societies could progress past it, that it's not inescapable.
So the fact that there are still absolute monarchies does not invalidate that societies that are better are possible, like most of our societies today.
Every empire seems unassailable and eternal, until it doesn't. The USSR seemed like it will last beyond our lifetimes, until it didn't.
If Charles is the divine choice, why did he get cancer?
God changed his mind 💀
Bro wants a refund
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Shelley’s Poetry and Prose (1977)
I've only read two books of Le Guin's, and they were both memorable:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Word_for_World_Is_Forest
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed
The second one is more relevant to this meme.
Absolutely 100% run (don't walk!) and get The Left Hand of Darkness. It is easily one of the best sci-fi/fantasy books I have ever read.
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The Dispossessed had been in my backlog for a while now. I really need to get to it.
I just finished the dispossessed. Didn't find it as compelling as reviews had me hoping. The sci-fi depiction of anarchism wasn't flattering and the main character wasn't easy to like either.
Spoiler and trigger alert: I put the book down for a while after he sexually assaulted a woman, but eventually finished it and wasn't impressed by the ending or by the fact that his assault was glossed over and not mentioned again.
Yes, that's a fair assessment. It's not an enjoyable book and to some extent isn't meant to be -- the cover of the version I read said something about an "ambiguous utopia," the story structure is pretty far from a Campbellian Hero's Journey, and the main character is not relatable. The book is more memorable than enjoyable.
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Capitalism doesn't even work in the US prices ate kept high
I'm trying to parse your sentence. Can you use punctuation?
Capitalism doesn't even work in the US. Prices are kept high.
Or alternately:
Capitalism doesn't even work. In the US prices are kept high.
I was just attempting to parse the string as closely as I could.
Thank you!
The "ate" tripped me up.
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Thank you!
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Kings had nothing on capitalism. You could overthrow a king.
But then you ended up with another king. Overthrowing royalty was hard.
You can overthrow Capitalism, it weakens itself.
Easier to kill a man than an idea.
The problem is that this time we've likely got a few decades at the most to form a movement before a huge chunk of the world becomes uninhabitable and society crumbles under the weight of war and famine.
Looking at how things are going, I have little hope that the majority of people are willing to let go of the status quo.
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and look where that got kings, EATEN
great quote from an amazing author.
any idea why the image saves a .json?
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