Are there things you just shouldn't read?

GRR Martin

How would we know, if we're not supposed to have read these things?

Rokos *asilisk

wrong

Game of Thrones

Past investment and speculation that builds a basis for future enterprises. Conversely, you could pay someone else to read everything you want beforehand as it would take a superhuman to know exactly what is worth/not worth it, but that is unrealistic, so ideally one would cut their losses and spend a little bit of time reading reviews and/or consulting the opinions of Veeky Forums based on their personal trust/risk history with either source. However, if one seems the time and effort required for even that to be "not worth it", I would say they're better off not reading whatever book they were so conflicted on in the first place

Keep listening to Manson bootlegs and reading the Jack Parsons Wikipedia article faggot

Drop the "should" and "should not" entirely from your speech. It's misses the point because it is always relative to some already estabilished value.

I can say you should not set your hair on fire, which is a sensible advice, but only because I assume you don't want to hurt yourself and I assume putting your hair on fire will hurt you.

If I were to say you "shouldn't" do something like reading a given book, I must include an "or else" statement. If I do that, I'd be assuming I know what's best for you, which I don't. I could also rephrase it so that it is open for your own standards like "if you hate fantasy you shouldn't read Tolkien, but if you love it, you should read Tolkien". However, the problem with that is that it assumes your present you is a solid atemporal being that knows what's best for yourself without being in contact with the world. That is, perhaps you do hate fantasy, but if in spite of that you read Tolkien you might end up liking it.

There is a form of anxiety that makes us too worried on making the best and only the best decisions, of avoiding certain things and aiming at other things which we think are good (always in the position of someone looking at future circumstances). That anxiety is necessary and inevitable and can help you stay away from shitty situations, but if you trust it too much you close yourself to new experiences, which, by definition, you can't tell in advance what part they'll play within you. It also assumes that bad experiences are somewhat invalid. To continue the example, maybe you hate fantasy and maybe you read Tolkien anyway and maybe you end up hating it as you thought you would, but now it's not just an impression, it's something you've experienced yourself.

My diary desu

Eh this is true, but the Occultic knowledge really does open up your mind and allows one to be more 'free' if you don't buy into any whole system.

Yes, you need to be careful because if your weak you will probably surcome to the weirdness it spells.

That's a nice diary, I would read it.

Internet discussion boards, social media, emojis

Popular psychology

50 shades

twilight

dan brown

Most of Veeky Forums, but it's too late for that.

Why do you think it causes mental illness.

apocryphal lit general

Instead of relying on anedcotal second-hand experience, you should smack your balls with a sledgehammer, to decide whether you enjoy it

Why shouldn't you read bad fiction?

>Poetics
What's the deal with Dover? I always feel suspect about buying their editions of books but I'm not sure why.

>That anxiety is necessary and inevitable and can help you stay away from shitty situations

Most things in general are not worth reading

Don't get into the bible—at best it's an utter waste of time, at worst it causes mental illness

Anti-semtites are NOT welcome here

their artwork and binding are generally of poor quality

>Mein Kampf
>Bertrand Russell
>the New Atheists
>Analytical Philosophy
>Female Authors
>Black Authors not named Dumas
>the Beats
>Christian Apologetics
>Theology
>the Stoics
>New Age shit
>meme books from /pol/
>any book on communism that isn't theory from the 19th century
>books about the Occult written after the 19th century
>de Sade
>Ebola
>Ayn Rand
>Libertarian "theory"
>Economics textbooks
>The Origin of Species (just read an evo-biology textbook)
>Lacan
>secondary philosophical texts
>21st century poetry
>"how to get 'x'" books

>Mein Kampf
>Bertrand Russell
>the New Atheists
>Analytical Philosophy
>New Age shit
>meme books from /pol/
>Ebola
>Ayn Rand
>Libertarian "theory"
>21st century poetry
>"how to get 'x'" books
Agreed with those.

Yes, most things.

>ads
>bait
>terms and conditions
>contracts\agreements
>instructions
>news articles
>introductions
>footnotes
>menus
>subtitles
>feeds/posts/messages
>parenthetical info
>summaries/abstracts
>bills/receipts/checks
>anything illuminated
>road signs
>bumper stickers
>hats or t shirts
>labels
>nutritional info
>warnings
>disclaimers
>picket signs
>banners
>addresses
>legal docs
>caller id

so.. everything except history?

name 3 blaq and 3 female authors who are even remotely as talented as Joyce, Nabokov and Cervantes

Do you think something is worth reading only if it is on their level? Not much is left then.

I can cite some who I know are worth it:
>Machado de Assis, Maya Angelou, Cornel West
>Muriel Barbery, Mary Shelley, Clarice Lispector

>Black authors
let's expand this to "American authors"

Contemporary fiction. Any philosophy besides Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer. Any poetry besides Rimbaud. Lot of other stuff not worth reading but that's a good rough sketch of the boundries.

The deal is that paperbacks go for 25 cents at my local Friends of the Library. Yeah Dover's have the feel of a really thin Goosebumps book but none of them have fallen apart on me thankfully.