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Thread: Last Book Standing | This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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friendofgunnar
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able to speed up time
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posted September 22, 2017 11:25 PM |
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A book of Bach's sheet music. It wouldn't need a translation and it would leave a positive impression on our successors.
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 22, 2017 11:46 PM |
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Edited by artu at 23:49, 22 Sep 2017.
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My bet was on Salamandre to pick that one. It would still need decoding like the rest of them, btw.
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Minion
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posted September 23, 2017 03:36 AM |
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Edited by Minion at 03:37, 23 Sep 2017.
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 23, 2017 04:30 AM |
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I havent decided yet.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Salamandre
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Wog refugee
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posted September 23, 2017 06:42 AM |
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No, my pick would be a biology book with a lot of pics about humans and other earth species, characteristics, reproduction, how they eat, breath and such. That would interest anyone, Kant or other fan books not.
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JollyJoker
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posted September 23, 2017 09:54 AM |
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artu said: Very odd choice JJ. That novel wont have the intended impact since the story is about the transition the kids go through when they are secluded from our civilization. The future reader wont know anything about that civilization and its norms though.
Well, you haven't decided, but the point is obviously to make a quick decision here, because you obviously don't have enough time.
Also, whatyou say about the book is godawfully superficial - it has to offer a bit more than that than fantasizing about what might happen when some kids are stranded on some secluded island.
Since desaster will strike, the surviving readers will find themselves in the same situation as the kids from the book, no matter their age, and since just ONE book survived, they will have to start from scratch again - just like the kids, which is why I's consider it practical advice. A dire warning.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted September 23, 2017 01:19 PM |
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Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 23, 2017 01:58 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
artu said: Very odd choice JJ. That novel wont have the intended impact since the story is about the transition the kids go through when they are secluded from our civilization. The future reader wont know anything about that civilization and its norms though.
Well, you haven't decided, but the point is obviously to make a quick decision here, because you obviously don't have enough time.
Also, whatyou say about the book is godawfully superficial - it has to offer a bit more than that than fantasizing about what might happen when some kids are stranded on some secluded island.
Since desaster will strike, the surviving readers will find themselves in the same situation as the kids from the book, no matter their age, and since just ONE book survived, they will have to start from scratch again - just like the kids, which is why I's consider it practical advice. A dire warning.
Nope. It is certainly not "a survival kit" and it is a story about "the beast inside." That's not superficial, it is the core of the novel. What I mean is, without the civilized world in the back of your head, the book will be like it's about gorillas or hyenas, etc...You will, of course, sense that the species involved is somewhat more sophisticated, yet the intended contrast will be almost completely lost. Imagine writing a comedy about how sexist medieval people were but then imagine somebody not being able to compare medieval norms and 21st centruy norms, reading it. They will be reading an instruction on medieval life, not a comedy. Also, if we're being too literal about this, at the time they have the means to decipher an alien text, the future readers will have to be developed enough to have a cryptology and archeology of their own. But I think that's being too strict about the whole thing anyway, so let's just roll on...
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
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posted September 23, 2017 02:41 PM |
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I couldn't disagree more, and in this moment I dount you've even read the book.
I also intensely dislike the attitude of writing paragraphs with claims and statements and critcisms and the closing them with "let's roll on."
I also have no idea what you expect here. Considering how much has been writen versus how much you can save, it actually doesn't matter what you save - you can just as well pick ANYTHING, Or nothing at all, same diff.
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 23, 2017 02:44 PM |
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Yes, I did read the book.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Ghost
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Therefore I am
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posted September 23, 2017 03:18 PM |
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I've heard the question in school. The correct answer is the Bible and medicine book.
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Minion
Legendary Hero
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posted September 23, 2017 03:34 PM |
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Salamandre said: No, my pick would be a biology book with a lot of pics about humans and other earth species
Why not give them a book about dinosaurs while you are at it, equally extinct and full of pointless info.
Might as well have given them a coloring book.
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JollyJoker
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posted September 23, 2017 03:38 PM |
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artu said: Yes, I did read the book.
Then you should know that it's an archetypical story about the course a society takes, when the pillars that keep it "civilized" are destroyed (which would be the situation after a global disaster) or taken away. I mean, for example "Lost" explored that avenue as well (for this angle it doesn't matter that it's children in LotF).
However, this is also how we, as a society-building species, come from - the early societies with their mysticism and fear of "monsters".
The book isn't a "survival kit". It's a MIRROR of what you could expect after a global disaster that would leave just one book (and necessarily a couple of survivors, otherwise this would be completely pointless).
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 23, 2017 04:17 PM |
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Edited by artu at 16:23, 23 Sep 2017.
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But that's the point.
First of all, it is important that they are kids, since an adult, say, Robinson or characters from Lost wouldn't (and didn't) transform "back" to that archetype so easily and so flawlessly. It's been many years since I read the book but if I'm not mistaken, not all kids were the same age, some were very little and some were teenagers or almost teenagers. The little ones lost all traces of civilized world much faster, there is a reason the writer constructs it like that: It is to display how fragile the modern man is and beneath, there is still the same potential "savage" that the modern man is in the habit of thinking so distant. And it is this contrast that I think will be lost if some completely different civilization discovers it. To some extent, anything we created would be conceptually alien to a different civilization of a new species, yet a book like LoTF would be additionally "lost in transilation" since it is written to point out with subtlety how our civilization can pop like a bubble without giving a description of that civilization itself. The book is only meaningful when you already know what is absent as an actor but existent as a hidden comparison: Modernity. That's why the subjects are kids from civilized world and not actual natives who lived in the jungle all their lives.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
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posted September 23, 2017 04:37 PM |
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I disagree with your interpretation. Keep in mind it's completely HYPOTHETICAL (no one knows what would happen), and the message is definitely not that children are pliable (and grown-ups not). In reality, for grown-ups it just might take longer.
In any case, if civilization COMPLETELY ends (and the book MIGHT only be found by some space-faring aliens or a new intelligent species bred on earth - what sense would it make to save a book?
In this case I WOULDN'T pick a book at all, because it would be utterly pointless to pick one.
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