IFR

At this point I wish Rothfuss would fully embrace the antagonism with his fandom. He should do something like announce on March 31 that the third book is finished, it just needs some small bits of editing and it will be ready for submission to his publishers. Then go radio silence for a few months, and when it's later brought up in an interview he can say it was an April fools joke. When it's pointed out that he made the announcement in March, he can shrug and say "Oops, my mistake. Well, the fans should have known better." And continue without apology.

That's an interesting perspective. I love Robin Hobb's works - she's one of the best character writers out there. But I never found her work particularly sad or bleak. I think her world is far, far more optimistic than our own world. I do think she's very adept at creating characters who feel real, and so when they are affected it strongly resonates. Wonderful author.

Well, I'm right there with you. Like I said, Sanderson isn't my kind of author. I'm not shocked that he's popular though. His books are long but easy. As mentioned, his world-building is interesting. And he's good at writing exciting climaxes that keep people interested. For me, his deficiencies lie in his characters, the lack of moral complexity, and - as much as I generally am indifferent to prose - I find his prose to be insufficient enough to pass a certain threshold where it's distracting. However, many others clearly aren't bothered by these points, or disagree entirely that they are points at all. I suppose that's the nature of opinions.

Don't you watch Star Wars and Marvel shows, which are the Mac and Cheese of the movie and television world? I'd imagine you can relate somewhat.

Of that Wire article, as I far as I could discern there is only a single passage of real insight or value: Otherwise I would describe that article as "hack author does hack job on more talented individual". I've actually met Sanderson and he is an exceedingly nice and accommodating individual. His writing is not really my cup of tea, but I do recognize that in specific areas he is incredibly talented (such as world-building). I can't say I saw anything resembling talent or intelligence in that article, and I find great irony in the author suggesting Sanderson is generic when the substance and prose of what the author produced is striking only in how aggressively mediocre they manage to be. I think the only true contribution the article author can really make to society is apologizing for attempting to contribute anything at all, and as an act of contrition strenuously attempt with the full effort of their shockingly underwhelming abilities to remain as anonymous as they can muster, and live out the rest of their days without further inflicting society with their "hot takes" on any issue whatsoever.

Are we talking about an ideal cure, 100% effective, the fungi will not adapt around it, perfect distribution, no side effects, high potential of repairing society so it eventually achieves a utopia, etc.? I think so.

All right. To answer this dilemma we should set up a probability distribution on the likelihood of an effective cure being found as a result of the experiment. The best way to determine this probably would be to email Neil Druckman or Craig Maizin, let them know that we need a probability distribution on their fictional scenario to inform a debate. Failing that, I suppose one could develop some kind of Bayesian analysis from whatever information one could gather or infer on the efficacy of post-apocalypse experimental medical procedures, the ability to mobilize a cure successfully and maintain the supply consistently, etc. This prior information would help in evaluating the dilemma. From then we can nitpick on the issue of what likelihood is the tipping point. I suppose on one extreme is that there's no likelihood and the Fireflies are just experimenting on Ellie for fun, and on the other extreme is that the success of the experiment is a virtual certainty. It will probably be somewhere in between. But the corollary problems still exist: how effective is the cure, how sustainable is the structure to manufacture and distribute the cure, what are the side effects of the cure, must the cure be administered in some humiliating fashion (eg suppository), etc. A lot of unknowns have to be hammered out before I can really answer you.

I'm not going to answer that! You'll say I'm wrong, and it will be just my luck the thread will then close, and it won't be worth it to go through the effort of starting a new one just to make a retort. And the rule of debates is that they who have the last word are the victors, so won't I feel silly then.

Oh, it's funny because I chuckled repeatedly. EEAO excited a lot of eyerolls from me, so it's not funny. I feel like this is something we can successfully debate out, until one of us finally acknowledges that our own reactions to either movie should be ignored and concede that objectively speaking one of these movies is funny and the other isn't.

While I wasn't amused by the screwball humor in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, I found Banshees of Inisherin to be hilarious throughout. Even the premise makes me smile (a guy so desparately wants out of a friendship he threatens to mutilate himself with each further interaction, and the other guy is so desperately clingy he simply can't accept the situation, no matter how clear it becomes that the first guy is absolutely serious ). It wasn't my favorite McDonagh movie (I think In Bruges and Three Billboards were better), but it was a pretty fun movie. And I very much preferred the tone to EEAO. If the humor and tone of Banshees was transplanted into EEAO while keeping the general concept, then I probably would have loved EEAO.

I quite like this take. I cannot say that I'm impressed by the argument of the power of a parent's love. To me this sounds solipsistic: that one's emotions from a parental attachment compromises any utilitarian interests (utilitarian from an anthropocentric point of view, of course). And to me this is intended to be a trolley problem. People are right to argue that as presented in the context of the show, it's a poorly stated trolley problem, but that's clearly the intention of the dilemma.

One of the sequence of scenarios in the trolley problem involves pushing a rotund individual off a bridge to stop the trolley in its tracks - murdering the rotund individual to save five other individuals.

I couldn't answer you there, because I don't hate when other people enjoy something, I just tend to be very open about not liking something. I suppose I do not like when enough people enjoy something I don't like that it becomes the dominant form of entertainment (superhero franchises, for instance). But generally I support other people liking things, even if I don't myself like them. Particularly a movie like this, which I will admit is a distinct effort in moviemaking. I support the idea of EEAO, even though I dislike the execution and am baffled by the extent others like it.

It's interesting to see the near-unanimous praise for EEAO here. I was deeply underwhelmed by the movie. I found it to be pretty silly nonsense, with some occasional moments that were legitimately funny. Kind of something on par with Airplane. There was nothing about it that struck me as profound, and I absolutely hated the prodigious heaping of sentimentality and weepiness the movie kept lathing out.

In that case you should be in the pro-Cordycep camp and celebrate Joel's actions and the annihilation of the human species. Humans actively suppress the needs of every neighboring living being, which is the many.