Guilt Will Set You Free

I have thoughts and I'm putting them online. She/Her, from the US, fixing gender one crying fit at a time Politics, Philosophy, Birds, Diplomacy, Militarism, Trans/Lesbian Issues, and Unrequited Love

[with-a-martyr-complex]

With A Martyr Complex: Reading List 2025

Adapted from the annual list from @balioc​, a list of books (primarily audiobooks) consumed this year. This list excludes several podcasts, but includes dramatizations and college lecture series from The Great Courses, which I consume like so many tortilla chips with a good salsa fresca.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson (translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur)

Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff

Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee

The Arabian Nights (assembled and translated by Andrew Lang)

Crashes and Crises: Lessons from a History of Financial Disasters by Connel Fullenkamp from The Great Courses

Othello by William Shakespeare

The Claw of The Conciliator by Gene Wolfe

Communism in Decline: From Sputnik to Gorbachev by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius from The Great Courses

Understanding the World of Financial Markets by Connel Fullenkamp from The Great Courses

Conclave: A Novel by Robert Harris

He Who Drowned The World by Shelley Parker-Chan

Macroeconomics Made Clear by Akila Weerapana

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (translated by Constance Garnett)

Fool's Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe by Gillian Tett

Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons by George Pendle

Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard by Russell Miller

Translation State by Ann Leckie

Sex Magicians: The Lives and Spiritual Practices of Paschal Beverly Randolph, Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons, Marjorie Cameron, Anton LaVey, and Others by Michael William West, foreword by Hannah Haddix

The Collected Writings of Jack Parsons by Jack Parsons

China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know by Arthur K. Kroeber

The Culture of Knighthood in Medieval Romance by Larissa Tracy from The Great Courses

My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance by Emanuel Derman

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)

Money Management Skills by Michael Finke from The Great Courses

The Sword of The Lictor by Gene Wolf

For A Dollar and A Dream: State Lotteries in Modern America by Jonathan D. Cohen

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

A History of the U.S. Economy in the 20th Century by Timothy Taylor from The Great Courses

Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States by Andrew Coe

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling by David Shoemaker A.K.A. The Masked Man

Supernatural Horror in Literature by H. P. Lovecraft

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

The Death of WCW by R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America by Abraham Josephine Riesman

Henry V by William Shakespeare

Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell

Paradise Lost by John Milton

The Life and Writings of John Milton by Seth Lerer from The Great Courses

The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe

International Economic Institutions: Globalism vs. Nationalism by Ramon P. DeGannaro from The Great Courses

How The Medici Shaped The Renaissance by William Landon from The Great Courses

Last Call at Coogan's: The Life and Death of a Neighborhood Bar by Jon Michaud

Inventing The Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age by Ada Palmer

What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Jo Walton

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson

The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy

A Random Walk Down Wall Street (Completely Revised and Updated): The Best Investing Guide That Money Can Buy by Burton G. Malkiel

Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy

Incomplete books: The Water Margin, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom, Schools and Masters of Fencing From the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century

---

Great Courses consumed: 10

Non-Great Courses Nonfiction consumed: 18

---

Works consumed by women: 10

Works consumed by men: 43

Works that can plausibly be considered of real relevance to foreign policy (including appropriate histories): 4

Works that can plausibly be considered of real relevance to economics: 11

---

With A Martyr Complex’s Choice Award, fiction division: Stella Maris

>>>> Honorable mention: Earthlings, We Have Always Lived in The Castle, all three Book of the New Sun books I read this year, The Passenger

With A Martyr Complex’s Choice Award, nonfiction division: The Box

>>>> Honorable mention: Inventing The Renaissance, Barefaced Messiah

>>>> Great Courses Division: A History of the U.S. Economy in the 20th Century

The Annual “An Essential Work of Surpassing Beauty that Isn’t Fair to Compare To Everything Else” Award: The Brothers Karamazov

>>>> Honorable mention: Paradise Lost, Othello

The “Reading This Book Will Give You Great Insight Into The Way I See The World” Award: Inventing the Renaissance

>>>> Honorable mention: The Box

The "Thanks for Making my TBR Grow Three Sizes This Day" Award: What Makes This Book So Great

The "I Decided I Didn't Want To Be Reading This Book Anymore but I wasn't Gonna Let It Sit Unfinished and so Blitzed It To Get It Over With" Award: A tie between Sex Magicians and Manhunt

---

This year I managed to crack the code to read more non-audiobooks, but only towards the end of the year. Politics and doomscrolling were rough on my list in the early part of the year, but I was able to course correct partway through the year.

This year's big challenge was to get a decent understanding of economics since it was going to be a big deal this year and this went pretty well. I was able to use relatively basic insights to cut through a lot of nonsense in the beginning of the year without just deferring to the experts I prefer, and I was able to use some of the basic insights to make some clever trades and paid off all of my debt. I feel I can now hold my own on understanding at least broad strokes econ--so long as I don't have to deal with the math, which seems fixable!

Creativity this year was mixed but positive. I produced less than I wanted and didn't get to write a novel, but my other output achieved a level of success and positive reception that was able to make a substantial impact on my life. For next year, I've got some polishing and branching out to do, including a novel at some point.

Goals for next year: read some big beefy books, add some extra philosophy and history related to fascism since it seems very relevant right now

[morlock-holmes]

During the lead-up to the 2024 election I was constantly told that the voters were sick of the Democrats focusing on culture war issues at the expense of the economy.

And then Trump won, and proved to be a person with no plan for the economy who is pretty much incapable of doing anything BUT culture war.

And people went,

See, the voters elected Trump because they care a lot about the culture war, they don't care about the economy.

It makes my goddamn head spin.

[spiribia]

everyone is always like the female praying mantis is a scary man-eater femme fatale and nobody is ever like male praying mantis is a freak. a true Society moment

[with-a-martyr-complex]

Kij Johnson did

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/johnson_08_12/

[with-a-martyr-complex]

New Taylor Swift album has made me sad over an internet stranger again

[with-a-martyr-complex]

Thinking of you again today. You were insane. I'm sorry you're dead and won't get to say something insane about the engagement.

[with-a-martyr-complex]

New Taylor Swift album has made me sad over an internet stranger again

[with-a-martyr-complex]

I'm debating posting little stories to this account but so far the only thing I've got ready to post is a mech story and it's too normal for the part of tumblr that likes mechs

[morlock-holmes]

Like, something I've noticed with conspiracy believers is that, in friendly environments like their own blogs or podcasts or publications, they will make extremely strong pronouncements, e.g.

"The Blargenforp theory is absolutely, 100% true, at this point the evidence is overwhelming. Hell, establishment figures are on the record admitting that the Blargenforp theory is true!"

But when taken to a neutral audience, they switch to,

"Look, what I'm saying is, science is the open-minded search for truth. What I'm saying is, shouldn't we be willing to make an open-minded investigation into whether or not the Blargenforp theory is true, and just see where the evidence leads us?"

Listen to the Alex Jones depositions in the Sandy Hook case and you'll see a real world example of this, where he makes incredibly concrete statements that Sandy Hook was definitely a hoax and that the evidence is overwhelming and inarguable, and then in deposition says, "That's just my opinion, I'm allowed to have opinions."

And when asked how a viewer would distinguish between which of the things he says are statements of fact and which are opinions he has no coherent answer.

And I think it's because to Jones and his employees and a large chunk of his viewers, there just... Is no concrete distinction between facts and opinions.

And since all statements of fact are just different wordings for what are fundamentally opinions, it is in some sense cheating to act like it matters whether a given statement is true or not.

[balioc]

There's only one way to resolve this. One of you is going to have to go to Rome and tell the Pope that you like his shoelaces.

[with-a-martyr-complex]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/us/conclave-pope-class.html

[ashcremated]

motivational words from the yuan ming dinasty blorbos to brighten your day <3

[cryptotheism]

People talk about Lolita like Humbert Humbert is a conflicted and dichotomous character and then you read the actual book and he's like "I love lying to people for fun and getting lost in flights of wild imagination and making things up and telling falsehoods. Also I look like a bunch of movie stars and every woman in the stories I tell thinks I'm darkly handsome."

[cryptotheism]

HH: "I was in a mental institutions for reasons that are suspiciously never discussed where my favorite thing to do was lie to the psychologists."

Readers: "I think he might be lying about being in love with a child but it's impossible to know for sure."

[cryptotheism]

The edition I'm reading had a little introduction like "is Humbert Humbert a poet in love? Or a dangerous pervert? Perhaps...he is both." 🤔🤔🤔

And then you turn the page to the forward and it's like "Hi. It's me. Vladimir Nabokov, speaking as a diagetic psychologist. Humbert Humbert is a consumate monster. Don't trust anything he says."

[balioc]

On reflection, I find myself kind of awed by Dwight Eisenhower's meta-level thinking. Which is not a thing that I ever expected to find myself saying, I assure you.

Everyone, meaning absolutely everyone, loved him for winning World War II. Both major parties tried to get him to run for president, because he was almost certain to win and he had no discernible ideology tying him to one faction or another. Many people advised him, at that juncture, to go with the Democrats, on the grounds that the GOP was a terrible party for losers. Which was just true, at the time. The Republicans hadn't held the presidency in decades; the Herbert Hoover stink still clung to them; they were generally seen as an organization that mostly catered to rich reactionary cranks.

And Eisenhower, after flirting with the idea of remaining apolitical, decided to become a Republican. Not in spite of the GOP being a terrible party for losers. Because the GOP was a terrible party for losers.

He wasn't ideological, but he did have certain issues that he cared about deeply, such as robust US support for NATO.

He saw that even though the GOP was in the doghouse, it was still a pillar of the American political system; its role in the FPTP system couldn't be evaded, and it couldn't be kept out of power forever.

He saw that any political issue that became a factional issue, a bone of contention between the two big parties, would be a source of perpetual instability. Anything meant to last would require bipartisan supermajoritarian support.

So he went and made the Republican Party what he needed it to be. The Democrats could handle their role in the pageant on their own, but the GOP couldn't.

Any gambit like that would be much harder, these days. No one has been in Eisenhower's position since...Eisenhower.

But it's true that the hyperpolarized world, the world in which the parties are toxoplasmically driven to maximum frothing conflict over literally everything, has not been good for the stable stewarding of anyone's agenda.

[morlock-holmes]

Trump is in Eisenhower's position, which is a sign that we are being tested by a vengeful God.

[balioc]

He's really not, though.

For one thing, he's the opposite of a unifying universally-beloved leader. He couldn't have gotten elected dogcatcher as a Dem. Even before he became a figure of odium on the left, he was a figure of contempt, and all the serious people regarded him as totally unserious.

(There's an argument to be made that in fact it's currently too hard to become a major political figure on the Dem side - there are so many maximally-well-qualified-on-paper people interested in going down that road that the credentialism creates a barrier, that you have a party that can't hear outside voices or make use of needed outside talent because it's so swamped with people who have spent their whole lives becoming perfect insiders.)

More importantly, though...

...yeah, it's true to some extent that Trump can reshape the Republican Party in his image. He says something insane about tariffs or election-stealing or whatever, and suddenly a giant chunk of the country believes it fervently, and many legislators etc. feel compelled to get on the bandwagon.

But

(a) this works only so well; to a large extent he's riding the tiger rather than leading, and he even knows it; he pushes things that flatter and excite his base because he gets into some trouble when he does things the other way; and more importantly,

(b) Trump absolutely cannot stabilize his agenda items by getting widespread bipartisan support for them. He has made himself so violently loathed by his opposition that they basically can't work with him at all without courting major backlash. Even his administration's rare straightforwardly good ideas and helpful initiatives - which do exist! - are toxic to Democrats, because Trump is Trump. Which presumably sucks for anyone who would like Trump's accomplishments, such as they are, to be more than fleeting. It certainly sucks for anyone who would like for the country to stabilize at all.

[with-a-martyr-complex]

I am loosely inclined to agree that credentialism among Ds is a problem but the major 2028 frontrunners right now include someone who was a bartender before running for Congress. A major 2020 candidate had only been mayor of a small city in Indiana.

[wizardsvslesbians]

Wizards Vs. Lesbians: MOBY-DICK

Finally, the all-caps title is correct! During the 2023 Wizzly awards we all said we were going to read Moby Dick by the time the next Wizzl

Come on down to Wizards Vs. Lesbians, where we've recorded our longest episode yet - and, fittingly, it's on a book about the biggest animal ever, the sperm whale. I am sure the sperm whale is the biggest animal there is. The sperm whale is big and it's real and it's my nemesis and I don't know what that emo kid's getting up to with my harpooneer over there but it sure smacks of lesbianism.

[collapsedsquid]

All you internet addicts stop becoming vtubers we need more wikipedia editors these articles out-of-date as hell.

[morlock-holmes]

Trump's foreign policy seems to be based heavily on a belief that foreign nations aren't grateful enough to America and those fuckers need to be put in their place and I have no idea why he seems to believe that so strongly.

[with-a-martyr-complex]

Combination of 1980s Carter Backlash (remember that Trump is very much an 80s guy in terms of political memory) and Obama era right wing talking points--"our president is bowing to a foreign king" shit

[postarcadian]

anyways tl;dr on that last post it’s like we’ve reached a point where in popular culture the ancient Greeks are remembered for their mythology and literature (and maybe Athenian democracy) while the Romans are remembered for their patriarchal imperialism, despite the fact that both cultures did plenty of both. and the consequence is that we’ve ended up with a bizarre quasi-gender binary where Greek stuff is for people who like mythology and literature and Roman stuff is for people who like patriarchal imperialism

[with-a-martyr-complex]

Messages from 19th Century Romantics

[with-a-martyr-complex]

When you get good enough at empathy you understand someone else's self loathing and get to factor that in