Read a fucking book

[brodie21]

I was being ironic.

It's hard to notice that fact when you're on the internet.

Or you're just making an excuse.

Peeved: I didnt realize that I had to state my meaning behind every statement like HK-47.

Constipated: I'm going to go take a shit now.

 

[brodie21]

Grammar, and how to make an interesting thread.

BURN!

Fixed your post.

I was being ironic.

Seeing as text cannot really convey irony we'll never know, will we?

Ok, how about I state my meaning behind each sentence like an elcor or HK-47?

Maniacal Statement: DIE INFERIOR SCUM OF THE EARTH!!!

Question: How is that?

 

[y1fella]

People who want to debate religion should read the book that religion is based around. For example want to debate with a christian read the bible. Not fond of the burka read the quran, kuran... however it's spelt.
It annoys me as a christian how many people tell me the bible forbids people going to the bathroom. I don't care what the Simpson says. find me the passage that says that.
Edit: Also apply this to atheism (I guess that book might be either origins of life by Charles Darwin or the God delusion by professional prick Richard Dawkins).

 

[Kakashi on crack]

concepts you wish people were familiar with

Would it be too much to ask for common sense within a larger portion of the populace?

 

[notsosavagemessiah]

AND THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

 

[Dirzzit]

The Stand by Stephen king, seriously it's one of the greatest books in the universe

 

[Aedrial]

So I want to know, Escapist, what books do you wish people had read, things you wish people had studied, concepts you wish people were familiar with? What topics have you just given up arguing over because the people who are wrong will never be convinced that they're not special snowflakes.

And before anyone chimes in with "I don't just listen to what books tell me like a sheep", neither do I and you are in group (b) above.

PCs for Dummies, so I don't have to hear/see technology illiterate console kids constantly ramble on about how complex and complicated playing games on PCs is.

but... since the advent of things like steam... PC gaming is almost idiot proof.... isn't it?

OT: Communism and Marxism in general. The huge amounts of misinformation being spread about both...

 

[Captain Booyah]

Nothing in particular -- I just really want people to brush up on their knowledge of even the most basic literature. And I mean, REALLY basic. I love my friends, but save for one or two, none have ever heard of Lovecraft or Orwell or Conan Doyle (and many, many more besides) in their entire lives; one had never heard of A Clockwork Orange, as I found out the other day, and another had never, ever heard of The Raven or Edgar Allan Poe. Considering that that must be one of the most parodied poems ever, too, I was just utterly amazed. How do you escape it??

I don't hang around with complete dumbasses, either, these are genuinely intelligent people; except book-wise, they restrict themselves solely to crap like Twilight, or stuff they should have stopped reading when they were thirteen (The Princess Diaries, Jacqueline Wilson, etc.). I don't want them to be Oxford English professors or anything, but recognizing The Raven, or Cthulhu, or an 'Orwellian society' isn't any kind of special or restricted knowledge; it's sheer common knowledge, like knowing that Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. Right? ...Right?

...Somebody please reassure me.

 

[binvjoh]

I don't have a very good answer since I read little to nothing myself.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

So I want to know, Escapist, what books do you wish people had read, things you wish people had studied, concepts you wish people were familiar with? What topics have you just given up arguing over because the people who are wrong will never be convinced that they're not special snowflakes.

And before anyone chimes in with "I don't just listen to what books tell me like a sheep", neither do I and you are in group (b) above.

PCs for Dummies, so I don't have to hear/see technology illiterate console kids constantly ramble on about how complex and complicated playing games on PCs is.

but... since the advent of things like steam... PC gaming is almost idiot proof.... isn't it?

You'd think that. I've made the same claim myself quite a few times. None-the-less console gamers o' so often call PC gaming complicated. I know this is like just vocal minority, but damn I wish they'd read a book.

 

[strigon33]

@ OP: Its quite ironic you should state point one because when i look for tips on programming its random forum posts that usually contain the answers.
As for the question, how about a dictionary? Think of all the misprints we could avoid! Of all the stupidity we could destroy if people could simply speak English!

OT: Communism and Marxism in general. The huge amounts of misinformation being spread about both...

Have I ever told you how much I fucking love you?
EDIT: @ triggered a link

 

[Trivun]

Well, I may sound a bit petty here, and a bit arrogant, but I'm something of a Halo fanboy and also happen to have an overwhelming compulsion to always understand the full story of anything I follow as a hobby. It's why I made a point of watching every Lost episode, never giving up on the series, for example. So I have an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the storyline for Halo, including almost all of the backstory and canon so far. Yet people still argue that the 'canon is broken' because of apparent contradicting elements in the books and the games, particularly recently between the game Halo: Reach, and the book The Fall Of Reach. I try and explain that these are not contradictory, and fit perfectly together, and provide evidence and proof of my theory. And yet people still decide to argue even when it's clear they've never read any of the Halo books, or have limited knowledge of certain parts of the games, and so on. You'd think people would know better than to argue about story with someone who makes a point of understanding the full story of something, right?

On another note, I tend to have arguments a lot with my younger brother when I know I'm right about something and have factual evidence to prove it, and yet he still insists on saying I'm wrong and that whatever I say isn't true. No matter how many times I've been proven right, he still insists on arguing...

 

[enriel]

To be fair, I haven't read a book in years, but I read online articles and do Google searches to fill up a lot of my free time. I thoroughly enjoy researching things and the internet has a great little tool which is links. Oh that was interesting...what's this, related articles? Oooh, we'll check these out too.

Books are not the only form of knowledge intake.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Well, I kinda wish I'd read the Dune and Ender sci-fi series'.

Also I've got like eight philosophy books kicking about that I haven't got around to reading yet.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Just make sure you know shit about grammar, which reading most books can help with. It will really make you sound more articulate.

I can count on one hand the number of books I've read in the last 6 months, but can still hold fairly intelligent conversation just because I'm articulate and think about what I say (well, mostly, heh).

 

[Mortons4ck]

The one book I wish people would read:

A Novel Approach to Politics by Douglas A. Van Belle & Kenneth M Mash

 

[Koroviev]

I wish English 101 was a prerequisite for using the Internet. Also, I wish knowledge of common logical fallacies was more widespread.

 

[Lord Kloo]

The communist manifesto, its free on the interwebs..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto
That will dispel all the silly 'general ignorance' about those sorts of things..

Also I would like people to know/understand (or have read books on):

- that perpetual motion is impossible
[several old men have already dedicated their lives to it, you cannot do it yourself]

- that this whole thread is ironic because it denotes all the people who disagree with the thread are the people who are immediately wrong (for reasons given).. and as such I would like the OP to read a book on why we people can be ignorant to things and why we are allowed to be stupid in the face of total opposition and reason..

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Not so much a book thing but I wish people took a Criminology course at university (English criminology, not American).

It's some amazing eye opening stuff, theories as to crime and criminals, societal conditioning etc.

It kind of makes me wince when people condemn criminals in such a way, their idea of 'justice' is to beat them to a bloody pulp or kill them.

Also, my lecturer said something quite funny.

"As a criminology graduate, in every conversation you bring up your qualification as a sign of knowledge in that area, prepare for the onslaught of people who think they know more about crime than you because 'their bike was stolen'."

Funny stuff.

I didn't want to add my own complaint in the OP to prevent people bickering over it, but this is dangerously close to it.

People think that the fact that they speak a language means they understand what's going on linguistically under the hood. No one seems to grasp that driving a car to work every day doesn't make a person a mechanic. And English classes don't help much. The field has made tremendous leaps and bounds in understanding in even the last fifty years, yet virtually all of the "grammar" information taught in English classes has been unchanged for more than a century.

A great quote by Geoffrey Pullum sums things up nicely:

"Try to imagine biological education being in a state where students are taught that whales are fish because that is judged easier for them to grasp; where teachers disapprove of tomatoes and teach that they are poisonous (and evidence about their nutritional value is dismissed as irrelevant); where educated people accuse biologists of "lowering standards" if they don't go along with popular beliefs. This is a rough analog of where English grammar finds itself today. The state of relations between the subject as taught by the public and the subject as understood by specialists is nothing short of disastrous."

A take-home bit of insight: Dictionarties are reference books -- they are an attempt to catalogue natural language use. They do not in any meaningful way act as authorities on the meaning of words. Meanings change. And virtually all of the grammar information in a modern dictionary, save maybe the pronunciation guide, is likewise hopelessly antiquated.

Finally, for your immediate enjoyment since so many people mentioned fallacies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy

 

[Lord Kloo]

As for the question, how about a dictionary? Think of all the misprints we could avoid! Of all the stupidity we could destroy if people could simply speak English

Or that everyone should use the Opera (or similar contraption) web browser for its auto spell checking capabilities.. it has spelt out most of my escapist posts (including the is one), and also its speed is superior to all.. ok I lied there.. probably not superior to some..