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What book(s) are you currently reading or listening to? October 06 (discuss.online)
submitted 1 week ago* by [M] to c/books@lemmy.world
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Had a pretty busy week and didn't get to read anything.

What about all of you? What have you all been reading or listening to lately?

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[–] 8 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I'm partway through the mainstream published version of There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. The original was one of my favorite reads from 2024 bingo, so this kinda-reread is really comfy. I can't say I've noticed any big changes, outside of removing all mentions of SCP and reordering some chapters, but I also don't usually remember stuff in detail, so it's hard to say. I did flip back and forth between the two versions briefly at the start, and the part I was reading had definitely been rewritten, but it seemed to be mostly superficial differences rather than content.

(If your interest has been piqued by seeing other people in here read it, the original is still available here for free; just read the qntm-authored stories in order, including all of Five Five Five Five Five.)

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I read the first series from that on the wiki a while ago, and recently went back and read Five Five Five Five Five. I absolutely love the ideas behind antimemetics, this kind of eldritch horror and how to deal with it. I was slightly disappointed towards the end,

    ending spoilerthe SCP seems to be portrayed as existing in conceptual space, an antimeme that prevents information about it existing while somehow being a self-sustaining idea? It's referred to as a "meme complex" on the 3125 page. But at the end it's portrayed more like a god acting in mysterious way, talking to the protagonist, existing in a way where it can be harmed with a gun. Not killed, but actually permanently injured?

    Still a great story either way, and a good read for free, I had no idea it was published independently, have look into it!

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

    Just finished the new edition, and had a flip through the original to compare that section.

    spoilerSince 3125 is just a collection of ideas, it's possible that as it corrupted humanity, human ideas also became part of its memeplex, fundamentally altering it to include a sense of self-preservation and understanding of communication. (The rewrite goes into more detail about ideatic space and how everyone and everything exists in it as concepts, grouped together in various ways.) Alternatively, Red voluntarily embracing 3125 pre-"Ojai" could have been the only thing that instilled human-like qualities into it. Hard to say.

    Regardless, Red certainly seemed like a unique part of 3125, especially since he's described as "the piece of SCP-3125 which was capable of communication", and killing him removed that part of 3125. Maybe joining voluntarily was the difference, or maybe he had some sort of antimemetic-blocking property like Adam did, idk. He also seemed to retain more autonomy than other corrupted humans, but maybe 3125's concepts just filtered through him into something that sounded human (holding a grudge against Marion for shooting him at the lake, talking about "Us" and "Them", etc). Either way, I don't think Adam killing Red harmed 3125, per se, just changed the composition of the memeplex slightly.

    (Does any of that make sense? My brain hurts now.)

    Also, the gun Adam shoots Red with is changed in the rewrite to be SCP-7381, the ray gun that deletes matter, if that helps. Can't shake off a bullet to the head if you no longer have a mind to conceptualize away the harm (or whatever was keeping him alive after the lake).

    Edit: Maybe the unique quality Red brought was the idea of using communication to spread 3125; maybe 3125 included the concept of "communication", but not "communicate 3125 to other things".

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