Undead Astronauts

NPR has compiled a list of the top 100 most popular sci-fi/fantasy books based on the input of 60k people. It’s an impressive list, and I’ve read a number of the works on the list and have a good number of others on my to-read-list. If you want a guide for which ones you should prioritize, see the following prodigious flowchart. I’m scared to guess how long that took to put together.

I have a few thoughts on the top 10:

1. Lord of the Rings – Wow. Massively overrated piece of shit. It took me three tries to finish the series and the only reason I managed to finish it was because of the movies. There were long stretches in this series that put me to sleep or just had me bored out of my mind. I understand that modern fantasy pretty much owe’s it’s existence to this series, but that doesn’t mean that it ages well after reading more recent fantasy authors. The movies define this narrative for me, not the books. It separated the wheat from the chaff.
2. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Hilarious book, but #2? Hitchhiker’s Guide is certainly different from your average science-fiction book in that it’s funny, but I certainly didn’t get anything more out of it. Again, this work has been highly overrated. Science-fiction can be a means of exploring the extremes of tech, philosophy, ethics, biology or what alien encounters might be like, but the only thing I remeber about this book is that it was funny. Good stuff, but not deserving of a spot on the top 10.
3. Ender’s Game – Finally, a book that deserves it’s spot. The book was written as sort of a response to Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. Reading this in high school changed my entire world view at the time. For a time, I optimistically believed that even the worst blood feuds could be worked out given enough empathy and the right (smart) leaders.
4. The Dune Chronicles – Another well deserving series on the top 10. Dune may be the first work to incorporate environmentalism into the core of a sci-fi narrative’s internal structure/rule-set. Herbert didn’t stop there – he spanned all sorts of topics including politics, war, philosophy, religion, economics, and various human breeding programs. Truly a novel of vast scope.
5. A Song of Ice and Fire series – The first three books are my favorite fantasy books bar NONE. The 4th and 5th leave something to be desired, but they were always meant as bridge books because the tale grew in the telling. The audacity of the author killing off characters that the reader has emotionally invested in hasn’t been seen anywhere else in any series I can think of previous to its publishing. The political machinations were an absolute joy to read and I felt like my understanding of human nature leveled up as I progressed through the series. Please god, don’t let Martin die before he finishes the series!
6. 1984 – Classic. I don’t know that I’d put it in the top 10, but the book certainly had cultural influence over several generations of high schoolers who had to read the book.
7. Fahrenheit 451 – Classic. I’ve only read part of the book, so I can’t really comment more.
8. The Foundation Trilogy – I just recently finished the original trilogy and unfortunately this work doesn’t age very well. The central conceit is that in the far future, one man foresees (mathematically) the fall of the entire galactic empire and endevours to shorten the “dark ages” with the formation of a foundation to guide the rest of the galaxy out of said dark ages. The books were a good read but since this was written in the 40s when computers didn’t exist, the far future described sounds … like a 1950s sci-fi TV show. What’s interesting is that psychohistory may be near in the realworld.
9. Brave New World – Classic. It’s on my Kindle in my to-read-list.
10. American Gods – For the life of me I don’t understand where the love for this book or Neil Gaiman comes from. The book won both the Hugo and Nebula, and I’ve found that books that have won both are really among the best works of sci-fi. But I found nothing memorable about the book, nor have I in any of Gaiman’s work. It just ends up being a bunch of half-formed ideas - prettily described mish-mash. There were no “Wow!” big ideas, no page turning suspense or action, no genius strategems, not even the comedy that Hitchhiker’s Guide had to recommend it. At least Tolkein had the excuse of being a pioneer for his awful work. This was straight up terrible. Avoid wasting your time with this.

Lots of other great (and not-so-great) books on the list. It definitely gave me a few more books to put in my reading list.

Okay, the title is surely overstating the effect, but still… an article from Intelligence indicates the day may nearly be upon us when we can pop a pill to get smarter.

Cognitive enhancing substances such as amphetamine and modafinil have become popular in recent years to improve acute cognitive performance particularly in environments in which enhanced cognition or intelligence is required. Nutraceutical nootropics, which are natural substances that have the ability to bring about acute or chronic changes in cognition have also been gaining popularity in a range of settings and applications including the workplace, driving and in the amelioration of age related cognitive decline. Huperzine A, Vinpocetine, Acetyl-l-carnitine, Rhodiola Rosea and Alpha-lipoic Acid are popular nutritional supplements that have shown promising benefits in improving a range of biological (e.g., blood flow, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and direct neurotransmitter effects) and cognitive processes from in vitro, animal and human clinical research. We report here the first human randomized clinical trial for cognition in which we administer a combination of Huperzine A, Vinpocetine, Acetyl-l-carnitine, R. Rosea and Alpha-lipoic acid (called Ceretrophin) vs placebo. Sixty participants (40 females and 20 males, with a mean age of 45.4 years, SD = 12.6) completed either the odd or even items from the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) at baseline and the opposite odd or even items at week 4 after consuming either the combination nootropic or placebo. A significant study visit (time) × treatment condition interaction was found: F (1, 57) = 7.279, p = 0.009, partial η2 = .113, with paired samples t-tests revealing a significant improvement in mean APM score from baseline to retest (week 4) (t(34) = − 4.045, p < .001) for the Ceretrophin™ group. Improvements in APM scores could be attributed to the active intervention over the placebo, indicating that the treatment improved general intelligence. Implications for improving our understanding of the biological basis of intelligence and pharmacologically improving human cognition are discussed. 

First seen here.

Season finale of LXD.

LOL

From your genes’ POV, winning means building more replicating machines (us) so that they become more numerous. Since guys don’t worry about actually bearing a child to term, they tend to have sex more freely than girls. The guys who used to have the ability to do that tended to be rich and/or powerful. Now? If you are a CEO or a nobel laureate or have other highly valued signalling qualities (Harvard grad, doctor, etc), donate some sperm, and you will potentially father some 150 kids to women in search of superior genetic material.

I’ve actually thought about donating sperm in lieu of having actual kids, but I’m sure that I don’t meet the height selection criteria of most women. Unfortunately, the linked article mentions numerous groups that believe it’s unethical to allow more than 10-25 kids to any one donor. We should actually be encouraging this behavior, but instead we glorify idiot kids that get pregnant and have idiot babies at 16 by putting them on tv. High value sperm and eggs are a small antidote to dysgenic population trends.

One unfortunate side effect, however, of assortative mating (or insemination) between high IQ types is that there’s a higher chance the kid will be autistic. Too much of a good thing apparently.