Then it sounds like you won't ask someone their favorite book and write them off entirely if they say it's a raunchy romance novel about industrialists?

In addition to the invention of a working mail system, you’ll read descriptions of semaphore towers working in a way that is similar to the Telegraph, except with light rather than pulsed waves over wire. It’s also hilariously funny and deeply philosophical at times.

I recommend it wholeheartedly.

The first discworld book I read was Thief of Time, and I've been hooked ever since

Before I made a judgement about someone making that claim, I'd need to know in what way it 'changed their life'.

i'm with the parent commenter here as i find your response very much telling on how you evaluate things and frankly, more idiotic than someone's life being changed, even by the "intended" interpretation of the book

e.g. would you say that everyone who liked / was influenced by reading "mein kampf" is a nazi?

Who start reading "mein kampf" beside scholar anyway?

Edit: so if you read and like it there is something wrong with you

People who only read things they agree with means they're blind to the problems with it, and fold like wet cardboard when they try to argue it.

I haven't actually started it yet, but I have a copy on my shelf waiting. Along with Das Kapital, Mao's "Little Red Book", etc.

Why? Especially given that I'm closer to a Randian than anything else (I really did like Atlas Shrugged although it's not my favorite book). Well, I feel like if you're going to reject a belief system, or feel somewhat at-odds with followers of a given system of thought or whatever, it's best to have some familiarity with that system of thought. It's just a matter of intellectual honesty.

I mean, looking back over the years here on HN and the various discussions that pop up around Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand. You can tell that a LOT of the people criticizing Rand and Atlas Shrugged have never read the book (or probably any of her other works) and are attacking straw-men.

I refrain from (most) attacks on Marx (and the specifics of what Hitler, Mao, etc had to say) because I don't have the deep familiarity with their material. OTOH, I have no problem saying I have enough general familiarity to mostly reject the thinking of those folks in a sort of abstract sense. The point being, one may read a work that you disagree with (or expect to disagree with) just so you can have an intellectually honest conversation about it, or a deeper conversation that goes beyond a superficial familiarity.

The fact is, some people deserve harsh judgement. Including people who lie to someone and think they are morally superior for doing so.

I don't care for the philosophy/politics, but I've read a lot of good sci-fi that I didn't care for the philosophy behind. I like Starship Troopers, which isn't as fascist as some people think but is certainly right-wing. I like Orson Scott Card, regardless of what I think of his opinions on gay people. I like the Culture novels, which are lowkey anarcho-communist. I like China Mieville, and he's an unsubtle hardcore Marxist.

Those are all much better than Rand, but not totally out of the ballpark (I think the Fountainhead is actually much better written than Atlas Shrugged).

I agree with the original thread comment: people who can't separate literary and political merit are usually pretty tiresome in lots of other ways.

Somehow I've missed a whole range of books from 80's through early 2000's.

It's crazy how many people essentially jumped at their throat with obnoxious comments and even outright ridiculing the poster (see the "checkers/chess" comment as an example).

Quite literally the author explained the whole reasoning and they still "failed the test".

I haven't even read atlas shrugged but I guess at this point I'm curious to read it and possibly adopt a similar strategy: it's clearly working way better than intended.

But if you like her long-winded style, have fun! It's a long one.

You can test someone’s general health with an eye exam, but it’s still an eye exam.

Not OP. But I would say the filter is working. If you would treat somebody like an idiot for liking a book you don’t like, I indeed, would want you filtered out of my circle of friends.

It’s the other end of the spectrum from disliking someone because their favorite book is The Grapes of Wrath or A Brave New World. I actually agree with the values expressed in those books, and I can also understand someone not wanting to be friends with me because of it.

But at least if you’re going to have friends with a different philosophy, seems like a better move to reach across to people who believe in community and collaboration over self-interest and individualism. That’s just me, though.

"Someone dropped it off a bridge, hit my abusive step-dad and killed him dead. Soft spot for Ayn Ran ever since, beliefs aside." That's someone I'd want to be friends with.

Yes, a literary work can both be life-changing and not something you agree with.

EG:

I do not at all agree with Marx. Me and others reading his works changed my life irrevocably. Ditto for Hitler.

I was just quoting the actual question in the comment.

> Edit: tests ... with people you just met is an ineffective way to navigate the world. My 2c

Do you see the irony here?

I wouldn't personally run the kind of test OP is running, but I think that even in your case the test succeeded: they've successfully separated themselves from someone who is inclined take one aspect of who they present themselves as and immediately put them in a box, label them, and dismiss them. They don't have to know that you're that kind of person for the filter to be effective.

I think most adults have a sensible aversion to that. In fact I'd go so far as saying that this common filter is to social cohesion what determinism is to a programming language. I'm happy to have an escape hatch for novel cases, but there are very good reasons for the common case being common.

Edit: clarification

> Really, I'm just looking for people who won't jump down my throat on a faux pas.

I think when cactacea says "huh, ok", this is neither inappropriate, or "jumping down someone's throat", or being "way too supportive" -- so I think by tb_technical's stated standards, cactacea has "passed" the filter, but is understandably alienated.

If someone silently puts OP in a bucket and never reaches out again, the end goal is still achieved.

It's like telling people you enjoy Mein Kampf or Das Kapital because you don't want to associate with people who are overly ideological "one way or another." Atlas Shrugged is literally the defining work of a specific ideology. The inconsistency here is hilarious. OP can live in that bucket for all I care.

Or maybe it's perfectly consistent and more honest than OP intended. Randianism is incompatible with society itself; bucket-dwellers rejoice.

They want to associate with people who would respond with curiosity to a controversial statement, you don't want anything to do with someone who likes Atlas Shrugged and you aren't interested to know more. The filter worked and neither of you waste your time!

> I know they can either tolerate ideas they hate

Your explanation:

> would note you as an idiot without comment and move on

Maybe I'm also misunderstanding what you're trying to communicate, but it sure sounds to me like your motivations are exactly what they're trying to filter out of their life.

Basically there's no way to find if someone would "tolerate ideas they hate" or not if they refuse to engage with the idea altogether. The second guy in my example looks like he would tolerate these ideas but he won't.

I don't think it requires any special insight to understand that a fantastic approach to meeting people is to simply be genuine and honest.

>respond with curiosity to a controversial statement

It's not about being a "controversial statement" (the implication being anyone who reacts against it is a close-minded woke or something like that). It's about "I read it in 8th grade" + "it changed my life and it's still my favourite book". Honestly swap out for any book and it would be equally cringe to boast about how your thinking has not evolved or matured since you were 12.

> you don't want anything to do with someone who likes Atlas Shrugged

No, I don't like anything to do with someone who boasts about being immature in such a crass manner. For that matter, I also don't like anything to do with people who would intentionally lie and manipulate their interlocutor on their first meeting.

Isn't it better that we don't interact, in this case? People aren't infinitely malleable - and I have no right to demand behavior from others. So, in my mind, it's better for everyone if we're separated from each other.

Do you hang around people that dislike talking to you? I don't recommend that. I don't think anyone recommends that.

Unfortunately, I have a problem where I love jerks, so we'd probably be good friends.

It's not a filter I would choose to use, I'm just saying that OP isn't providing a failure case—the filter is still doing its job there.

Of course the first test is useless, so I suspect they're trying and failing to produce the second test.

Sounds to me like you failed the test.

Possibility 1: A too-enthusiastic reaction. Filtered.

Possibility 2: A too-negative reaction. Filtered.

Possibility 3: a neutral-enough reaction to not get filtered, but at least some parts of their opinion just shifted toward the negative and wary. If not filtered, at least now distant for some time.

Possibility 4: a neutral-enough reaction because they have low familiarity with the book. Only pairing that passes unscathed.

I’d recommend saying Twilight instead. It doesn’t come with garbage-politics implications (at least, simply liking the book doesn’t)

[edit] hm. But then people being enthusiastic fans of it isn’t as useful a filter. This is tricky. Having it be something big fans of which are usually unpleasant is a benefit for filtering the other people, but sends false negative signals about yourself.