I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
Plus, he was a proponent of the idea that intelligence was an evolutionary spandrel, an accidental abberation not a deterministic end point for species (which Peter Watts also likes to use to great effect in his works)
That's completely fair, hence why I find his short stories and a select set of his novels to be ones that I will (re)read and enjoy.
Sometimes he gets a bit too eager to say how nihilist/edgy his characters are (looking at your Rifters book 2), rather than telling an interesting story with about them
The Island and Other Stories is fun because you never dwell on any single existential fuckup for too long to get tiring, Blindsight is always worth rereading (in the same way Desert is always worth rereading), and I enjoyed Rifters 1
But it's definitely not something for everyday consumption, definitely requires the right headspace to get into
Stephen Jay Gould was pretty cool IIRC.
Pretty hardcore socialist until he died
Plus, he was a proponent of the idea that intelligence was an evolutionary spandrel, an accidental abberation not a deterministic end point for species (which Peter Watts also likes to use to great effect in his works)
sometimes I get sick of peter watts. "bluh bluh, existence is meaningless, consciousness is a mistake, we're not in control of our lives"
like, yes. obviously. come take a hit
(he has cool squid though so I can forgive the melodrama)
That's completely fair, hence why I find his short stories and a select set of his novels to be ones that I will (re)read and enjoy.
Sometimes he gets a bit too eager to say how nihilist/edgy his characters are (looking at your Rifters book 2), rather than telling an interesting story with about them
The Island and Other Stories is fun because you never dwell on any single existential fuckup for too long to get tiring, Blindsight is always worth rereading (in the same way Desert is always worth rereading), and I enjoyed Rifters 1
But it's definitely not something for everyday consumption, definitely requires the right headspace to get into
yeah, makes sense. Blindsight really is an astonishingly creative book.
Dunking on evolutionary psychologists to this day. Name me a scientific field with more reactionaries.