Any topic is good. Don’t care about format or where it’s published as long as I can access it (substack, random PDF, journal, etc). Looking for deep and rare thought, but essay length for a short reading.
EDIT: Also I am particularly looking for stuff not as much in online or nerd culture.
What is entropy : https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-entropy-a-measure-of-just-how-little-we-really-know-20241213/
The life changing contrast of Japanese clutter : https://aeon.co/essays/the-life-changing-magic-of-japanese-clutter
Have you ever wished that you were personal friends with a 16th century French petty nobleman and diplomat? His essays are more interesting and more accessible than that sounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne
I trusted my drug dealer’s recommendation on that one and was not disappointed, so I’m passing it on.
Also, I will never not recommend Pliny the Younger’s account of his uncle’s death by volcanic eruption (Vesuvius) and his own story of surviving it. PDF versions are widely available.
I like this one about tick borne illness a lot. https://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/essays/jungle-wedding/
On music and words - Friedrich Nietzsche (1871)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51548/51548-h/51548-h.htm#ON_MUSIC_AND_WORDS
- The language is from a different era and takes a few pages to get into.
If you’re in the mood for nonsensical madness:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Time_Cube
or
https://pdf-library.org/terrence-howard-math-theory.pdf (Yes, this is the actor that played Rhodes in the first Iron Man movie)
Upvote for time cube
I suppose that OP didn’t state that the ideas presented must be worth any consideration
OP did not!
My virus scanner says that last link redirects to a phishing site.
There’s nothing of value there, feel free to look up “Terrance Howard math theory” elsewhere
You beat me to the cube. Wish the original blog was still around
I highly suggest the Umberto Eco book “How to Travel With a Salmon”. It’s a collection of short essays on a variety of topics.
I enjoyed reading Ur-Fascism so it’d probably be nice to read something lighter from him.
There is not a lot “light” about Umberto Eco, but How to Travel With a Salmon is one of them.
Foucault’s Pendulum is amazing.
It’s the book that kicked the Davinci Code to death and left it bleeding in a gutter.
It’s the book Dan Brown was “inspired” by.
That’s actually a complicated story…
It goes back to a book called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” back in 1982.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail
Then you have Foucalt’s Pendulum (1988) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault’s_Pendulum
The comic book series “Preacher” 66 monthly issues from 1995 to 2000. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)
Da Vinci Code (2003) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code
Read this many years ago and enjoyed. Great recommendation in the spirit of this thread (for anyone who has not read it)
I stumbled across a theory that really early christian figure Paul of Tarsus was a Roman/Herodian plant trying to thwart Jewish uprisings. I’ve only seen videos so far and I don’t know how credible it is really, but it was a really interesting idea, I’m sure you could find an essay if that’s the sort of historical conspiracy theory you’re interested in.
As we may think is an exellent read
If not for the edit, I was gonna suggest Time Cube.
This one is from 2001 and is about how the pornography trade was getting increasingly violent, interesting to read in a post internet porn world. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/mar/17/society.martinamis1
Could the genetic diathesis in the stress-diathesis model of disease for both psychiatric and medical illness be staring us in the face?
Read The Egg.
This one is excellent, thank you for posting I had been re-looking for that for a while.
I would also suggest God’s Debris and I met God on a Train.
All three have a similar idea of questioning the nature of what God might look like. No religious nonsense in any of them.
On a different tack I’d suggest Manna- Two Different Views Of Humanity’s Future. Also a very good read but nothing to do with extracorporeal beings.
Manna is good! I almost suggested that one too.
