An "NPC" is a non-player character, which is a term from the video game world that has been co-opted to refer to people like the Woke zombies who just chant what they're told to chant and believe what they're told to believe, without thinking.
I think you’re probably right about your intelligence level. It may be higher. This is not flattery. If I thought your intelligence was lower I would say nothing. And I may have chosen to say nothing as well even agreeing with you.
Thank you for the review. I have a ton of books that I’m trying to read but this sounds like it should be in the list. Everyone that has a little age on the has seen the upswing in the popularity of I.Q. as a measurement even though it’s uses are suspect. I suspect that the book would point out, as I would in today’s world, that good, sound judgment is hard to come by. And especially hard to defend as everyone is so sensitive to hurt feelings. It’s just difficult to stand up and stand strong in that kind of onslaught. Again, thanks for the review.
As a front hosed, bipedal back-holed shitter, I am glad that a moderate to high IQ uterus-haver front holed bleeder (sorry if i left out an important identifier) is able to reflect some of my own lived experience!
Insightful review. This experience comes to mind. In our two room school house our teacher was a shell shocked WW2 veteran who delegated everything he could to me because he was barely functional. That included me marking all the IQ tests for all six grades. I discovered that middle class kids considered bright had so so IQs and that some poor kids living in tar paper shacks had IQs in the 120s and 130s. And that one kid I knew had an IQ of 83 which just qualified him for the military. He served in Korea and managed to remain employed at low level jobs all his life in our rural area. He raised a family. I read his obituary recently and discovered he spent his retirement volunteering at a local food bank. That was a life well lived. Many of the more intelligent simply waste their lives and others use their intelligence to perpetuate evil unintentionally and otherwise.
Kevin is a brutal book...not for the school shooting parts, but for how it depicts a woman losing her identity to marriage. Her other books, though, such as "Should We Stay or Should We Go" and "The Motion of the Body Through Space" are (in part) touching depictions of long, lasting relationships, where trust exceeds romance. And "The Mandibles" is an amazing feat of making national fiscal policy interesting and horrifying.
As they say, truth is often stranger than fiction. With the state of the world today, especially in the USA, I sometimes feel optimistic, yet more often I remain dismayed at how mainstream calls for censorship and social litmus tests (virtue signaling, anyone?!) have become normalized, almost expected.
Thank you for the review. I will definitely be reading or listening to this one. Any intelligent, cogent and reasonable parody of the trans movement is deserving of time and money well-spent.
The review makes me want to read the book. When Mt Toberead has declined from a Rocky Mountain peak to something more Appalachian I will.
I suspect (see below) that Ms Shriver is attacking two different woke strands with this book. The first is the obvious trans one, the second is the whole affirmative action/DEI scam of racial etc. quotas.
Regarding Intelligence and IQ tests. There's been a significant controversy over the years which recently blew up again thanks to the Cofnas affair (see https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/academics-defend-cambridge-race-row-professors-right-to-free-speech/ar-AA1o0qOG and do read the controversial substack at the heart of the case https://ncofnas.com/p/a-guide-for-the-hereditarian-revolution ) and it occurs to me that at least part of the controversy is due to poor testing methods. That would likely partly explain your inconsistent results. Having said that I do think that there are two things that are true and which offend the wokeists. The first is that, in general, higher IQ correlates with better life outcomes (the correlation is obviously not 100% and may be indirect) and the second is that IQ is at least partly heritable. The obvious inference of this is that there is likely to be a racial difference in average IQ and that therefore DEI and affirmative action schemes are going to end up employing/promoting incompetence.
However I think the area of IQ and race, which is where Cofnas got into trouble, is something that you as a mathematician you immediately understand in ways that the average loudmouthed activist doesn't get (sadly also various academics who ought to know better). Specifically they don't get that the average ability in a group is not at all the same as the ability of specific individuals in that group.
Excellent review, Holly.
Thanks, and thank you for reading!
I look forward to reading. I’m a Shriver fan, and a Math Nerd fan!
Thank you Holly. Sounds like a good book
I’m currently reading her book, The Mandibles. Also really good and focused on the economy.
What is your reference to the “MPC” acronym? I didn’t quite get that one. 🤔
An "NPC" is a non-player character, which is a term from the video game world that has been co-opted to refer to people like the Woke zombies who just chant what they're told to chant and believe what they're told to believe, without thinking.
Thanks Holly.
I think my age is showing. 😂😉
Always love your book reviews. Thoughtful, and informative enough to let the audience understand how and whether their milage may vary.
"The end of the book fast forwards a few years..."
OK, now I want to read it. How *will* the pendulum swing?
It was *really* good. I could totally see it happening that way. It cracked me up.
Definitely planning on reading this. Thanks for the review.
Thanks for reading! Glad to hear this!
Ooh, sounds good, I'll add this one to my list for the library.
Thanks for the review Holly.
I think you’re probably right about your intelligence level. It may be higher. This is not flattery. If I thought your intelligence was lower I would say nothing. And I may have chosen to say nothing as well even agreeing with you.
Thank you for the review. I have a ton of books that I’m trying to read but this sounds like it should be in the list. Everyone that has a little age on the has seen the upswing in the popularity of I.Q. as a measurement even though it’s uses are suspect. I suspect that the book would point out, as I would in today’s world, that good, sound judgment is hard to come by. And especially hard to defend as everyone is so sensitive to hurt feelings. It’s just difficult to stand up and stand strong in that kind of onslaught. Again, thanks for the review.
As a front hosed, bipedal back-holed shitter, I am glad that a moderate to high IQ uterus-haver front holed bleeder (sorry if i left out an important identifier) is able to reflect some of my own lived experience!
Insightful review. This experience comes to mind. In our two room school house our teacher was a shell shocked WW2 veteran who delegated everything he could to me because he was barely functional. That included me marking all the IQ tests for all six grades. I discovered that middle class kids considered bright had so so IQs and that some poor kids living in tar paper shacks had IQs in the 120s and 130s. And that one kid I knew had an IQ of 83 which just qualified him for the military. He served in Korea and managed to remain employed at low level jobs all his life in our rural area. He raised a family. I read his obituary recently and discovered he spent his retirement volunteering at a local food bank. That was a life well lived. Many of the more intelligent simply waste their lives and others use their intelligence to perpetuate evil unintentionally and otherwise.
Kevin is a brutal book...not for the school shooting parts, but for how it depicts a woman losing her identity to marriage. Her other books, though, such as "Should We Stay or Should We Go" and "The Motion of the Body Through Space" are (in part) touching depictions of long, lasting relationships, where trust exceeds romance. And "The Mandibles" is an amazing feat of making national fiscal policy interesting and horrifying.
As they say, truth is often stranger than fiction. With the state of the world today, especially in the USA, I sometimes feel optimistic, yet more often I remain dismayed at how mainstream calls for censorship and social litmus tests (virtue signaling, anyone?!) have become normalized, almost expected.
Thank you for the review. I will definitely be reading or listening to this one. Any intelligent, cogent and reasonable parody of the trans movement is deserving of time and money well-spent.
The review makes me want to read the book. When Mt Toberead has declined from a Rocky Mountain peak to something more Appalachian I will.
I suspect (see below) that Ms Shriver is attacking two different woke strands with this book. The first is the obvious trans one, the second is the whole affirmative action/DEI scam of racial etc. quotas.
Regarding Intelligence and IQ tests. There's been a significant controversy over the years which recently blew up again thanks to the Cofnas affair (see https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/academics-defend-cambridge-race-row-professors-right-to-free-speech/ar-AA1o0qOG and do read the controversial substack at the heart of the case https://ncofnas.com/p/a-guide-for-the-hereditarian-revolution ) and it occurs to me that at least part of the controversy is due to poor testing methods. That would likely partly explain your inconsistent results. Having said that I do think that there are two things that are true and which offend the wokeists. The first is that, in general, higher IQ correlates with better life outcomes (the correlation is obviously not 100% and may be indirect) and the second is that IQ is at least partly heritable. The obvious inference of this is that there is likely to be a racial difference in average IQ and that therefore DEI and affirmative action schemes are going to end up employing/promoting incompetence.
However I think the area of IQ and race, which is where Cofnas got into trouble, is something that you as a mathematician you immediately understand in ways that the average loudmouthed activist doesn't get (sadly also various academics who ought to know better). Specifically they don't get that the average ability in a group is not at all the same as the ability of specific individuals in that group.
It sounds like Harrison Bergeron (Kurt Vonnegut)