#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 4hIt was more that his publisher was cutting off the number of books he could write in a year. Bachman was meant to be… more adult in a sort of goofy teenager way? E.g. ROADWORK is mostly a “serious“ adult novel without supernatural elements about a guys life falling apart. It isn’t good imo 000
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 4hInteresting it cuts off in 2017. the situation with municipal budgets has gotten much worse since then if i understand correctly 000
Reposted by #1 Shoup FanSasha Gusev @sashagusevposts.bsky.social · 14hI wrote about the recent symposium on Greg Clark's forthcoming book on genetics and social mobility. Clark uses large-scale lineage data to argue that social status in England can be entirely explained by genetic transmission. 🧵theinfinitesimal.substack.comVibe heritabilityThe EJW symposium on Gregory Clark on genetics and social mobility 45320
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 14hEAST OF EDEN is one of the Steinbecks I hadn't read, but I guffawed at the bit where they introduce her as a child reading WUTHERING HEIGHTS and having her dad say "cathy" angrily. like ok, yeah, got it. 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 15hWell one of them is driven by professionals as part of large organizations, and is therefore easy to regulate. The other one is driven by literally everyone and therefore any attempt at regulation is a big pain. 070
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 17hYeah it gets boring after the web. Every day is the most documented day ever 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 18h“I feel like every conceivable opinion has been expressed” true 030
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 12/10/2026There are lots of cultures that don’t drink alcohol at all. They seem to figure out other ways. Some cultures that drink a lot of alcohol don’t seem to have a lot of trust People be saying stuff very definitely. I dunno, it depends 2170
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Most documented day in a given century/decade is a very interesting Q. I have no idea what the other candidates are. Armistice day and V-day for their decades? 120
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Continuing to read Elkins. Hard to summarize, wonderful book that traces how the UK Colonial administration moved police around bringing techniques from Ireland to Palestine to Malaysia to Kenya etc. in the 20th century. unsurprisingly, unpleasant reading en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_...en.wikipedia.orgLegacy of Violence - Wikipedia 020
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Right! Even if the working class California that Steinbeck is thinking about is mostly gone. The industrial workers are out, the farm workers are still there; it's all a kind of service work for proletarians I think he would find pretty odd. Monterey and the Salinas Valley are still beautiful 020
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 12/10/2026If you ever get a chance, read Bulosan, contemporary to Steinbeck. Really interesting autobiography about being a Filipino migrant farm worker in 30s CA; also mentions a ton of socialist writers that are very obscure today 020
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 12/10/2026JT Farrell is mentioned below and one point is make is that the world of Irish American life he was interested in is very weak now. Compare that to Twain say, who if even older, a lot of the rural south and race stuff he’s thinking about is still vital to USians now 120
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 12/10/2026I read quite a bit of Steinbeck and some Lewis as a kid, I think that still gets passed on. I quite liked Steinbeck, I remember thinking about CANNERY ROW on my visit to Monterey That world has really gone though; the USians who read are quite distant from it now 340
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Is a tunnel feasible at all? Or is that also too deep? The Norwegians have studied some very weird plans to get a tunnel across Sognefjord. A floating undersea tunnel 😱 www.businessinsider.com/norway-might...businessinsider.comThis floating underwater tunnel in Norway could save half a day in travel timeDriving through Norway's floating underwater tunnel will feel exactly like every other tunnel, but you'd still know how cool it is. 110
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026I actually do think this is a good idea? We could cut ferries on the bainbridge route and move them else where (to my mind Bainbridge > Vashon in ridership) It is probably feasible to build another bridge, no? The route across Bainbridge is tricky 110
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026You will go to the regional low rider competition. You will learn to make a car with a subwoofer so loud it can legally only be played in the desert. We will cure thymos 020
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Mandatory X Games if you start talking about the glories of war. Government mandated mountain biking. Forced paintball sessions 130
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026I would take it and I think it would be good if we paid mathematicians to study it as well. I understand but don’t agree with why this seems to be animating people here so much 000
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026This is true, but also researchers Like Sloan and J. B. Rhine really did convince a fair number of people in the scientific establishment that they had real proof, either through fraud or bad experiment design. Campbell was out there but not so out there 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Unfortunately her posts are controverisal but McMillan Cottom’s LOWER ED is a great book on this 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Eh I think he was pretty interested in other stuff. E.g. you can see that THE STAND is very influenced by LotR as he says. Horror as a genre was kind of a cross genre boom in the 80s. King was along for the ride. Ah or, SALEM’S LOT is quite early and straight up about Dracula 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Partisan primaries are very bad I think is the main lesson here. Not something the founders envisioned 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026It’s not unusual but it was more severe. Like you can see that lower Austria also didn’t grow much for most of the post-WWI era; it’s not like nyc where if Manhattan shrank the other boroughs exploded en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_A...en.wikipedia.orgLower Austria - Wikipedia 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026I think it helps that people like Soal and J.B. Rhine really did seem to have proof that ESP was real in a scientific setting. It was all fraudulent, but it would've been hard to know at the time. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_...en.wikipedia.orgSamuel Soal - Wikipedia 3200
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026But also remember that Vienna's population declined from WWI until 1987. It's an unusual situation! upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co... 110
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026I found this article very helpful for understanding the history of Viennese housing post WWII In particular I think this graph is neat www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 110
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026The founders left many bad things in the US constitution. I think it’s odd to blame them for Trump though. They hated the kind of guy he is! Congress didn’t self abolish until recently. ~230 years of avoiding this problems seems pretty good to me 192
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Yeah although they were all connected. Wonderful book I’ve half forgotten TRIUMPH OF THE MOON by Hutton. 020
Reposted by #1 Shoup FanJames Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 11/10/2026I think these charts are worth keeping in mind at the same time. 1. When we're talking about the typical person, wealth is largely a lifecycle phenomenon. 2. When we're talking about wealth, the typical person is largely a rounding error. 619924
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026WICKER MAN is such an interesting text b/c it gestures at the Victorian history of occult revivalism w/out really getting into it. Left to supposition. Although wasn’t Crowley famously lazy? Odd to me that later folk horror works tend to take the pagan revivalists at face value 110
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Yeah. Society it’s complex! I think statistically we can say that the late Victorian period had the most hours worked on average by workers, right? 110
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026It’s critical to understand this is serious science fiction 0241
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Now of course we’re the other way where fantasy is about 80%+ of the market compared to SF 1160
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026It’s very in keeping with the whole 60s/70s aesthetic where SF is the real genre and fantasy a tag along. E.g. McCaffrey writing PERN with dragon riders but oh no it’s really a lost space colony. Or MZB explaining at length that Adarkiver is also a lost space colony. 3260
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026In the paper introducing the Turing Test, Turing lists ESP as a possible reason computers will never fully replicate human kind; along with a brief note that ESP is proven en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computi...en.wikipedia.orgComputing Machinery and Intelligence - Wikipedia 091
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Also the fact the king feels the need to try and establish that ESP is scientific. I’m pretty sure he straight up believed in it in the 70s and 80s if you read his interviews 3100
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026One of the weirdest parts about reading CARRIE today is that it’s very much an sf novel, since it’s so early in the horror boom. Like I’d almost point towards something like ANDROMEDA STRAIN as another work in the same “genre” if that makes sense? 3490
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Any hope for getting the congressional testimony part of Carrie adapted? 3290
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026He was so good as fletch…. I wish there had been another. Oh well! 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026In 98 they won LA, NC, AK, FL en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Un...en.wikipedia.org1998 United States Senate elections - Wikipedia 110
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026I think you’d have to imagine they are very close and one falls on each side. You can easily flip them 010
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Truly you have some courage. I will be sticking with the poll averages as my official prediction 110
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026The most discourse overall is probably some preposterously close R hold, so Dems can Spend the next 4 years blaming each other and Rs can be smug; each their favorite form of discourse [I will be blaming all Dems who hold minute policy differences obviously] 050
#1 Shoup Fan @oneshoup.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Thomas Edison explaining that his cylindrical phonograph will make inflation 0% somehow 030