@ESYudkowsky: Remember when you were a kid and thought you might have psychic powers, so you dealt yourself face-down playing cards and tried to guess whether they were red or black, and recorded your accuracy rate over several batches of tries?
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And then remember how you had absolutely no idea to do stats at that age, so you stayed confused for a while longer?
Apologies for the usage of the japanese; but it is a very apt description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chūnibyō,
no, the fault is mine. He’s written tons, I tried this and bounced off it. I might take a look at Diaspora
Quarantine was one of the least infodumpy books of his. Also the short stories, though they’re a mixed bag. Avoid the Othogonal trilogy and Dichronauts then, I’ve liked them a lot personally, but they’re even more infodumpy than Incandescent.
My one gripe with Greg Egan is that he just loves to pause a plot to unsubtly rant about something only vaguely related to the plot (usually religion, superstition, or channeling Sokal on postmodernism). I even agree with him on many of this, but god damn. The worst offender is Distress I think; which is a shame as the whole concept is interesting, the refutation of solipsism near the end is touching, and ancom islanders fending off an invasion of ancap mercs on Big Biotech payroll is glorious.
Take a look at Ken MacLeod’s Fall Revolution series, if you haven’t already. They’re a bit old now but are a nice counterweight to a lot of US SF.