If someone wrote rationalist Lazytown, We Are Number One would
consist of Robbie Rotten making four transhuman clone babies, perfect in
every way, and then eliminating Sportacus from 4800m away with a
railgun.
I was a little puzzled by the responses in the thread until I saw the
timestamps. That whole thing precedes the sub getting its better works
in, which embraced the genre as the series of tropes it obviously
focuses on. After DaystarEld and Alexander Wales got their stuff going
most of the sub moved away from the rationalist parts.
Plus it introduced me to qntm, who’s pretty much my favorite science
fiction author after Chiang.
also, HPJEV is actually a brilliantly clever character, as the author finally gets around to explaining five years later in a take that to the cultural sneerists
To be fair, Harry in that fic trusted Voldy-Quirrel WAY too much. Only cottoning on to them being evil about a second before having a gun pulled on them.
What happened to that whole Principle of Charity thing, anyway? Or was that just to prevent argument against the neo-fascist stuff Siskand was trying to smuggle in.
> They're monarchists for the sake of fuck.
Sure that is the part most of the Rationalists disagree with, odd they didnt steelman the anti Rationalist position and bring up the scientific racism. Bust be because they had not noticed that right? Right?
As an aside I really like the breakdown of why “rationalizing” a
character leads to the rest of the setting become idiots. Why doesn’t x
just do y really bothers me as a trope and basing an entire story on it
just makes it worse. Unless it’s funny in which case carry on.
It endlessly amuses and exasperates me how rationalfic fans try to
define their subgenre by rationality, instead of just accepting that
it’s defined by a series of common tropes, character archetypes, and
just plain vibes. And, that in the end, all genre classifications are
just plain bullshit. Useful bullshit, but bullshit.
I’ve even had my own books described as rational fic a few times,
which… definitely isn’t my intent, hah. Not going to cast too much shade
on the subgenre itself beyond its aforementioned taxonomic woes, though,
because people are allowed to enjoy things, and rationalfic seems
generally less harmful than rationalism.
> Zendegi by Greg Egan (2010) features Nate Caplan, who wants to be uploaded. "My IQ is one hundred and sixty ... You can always reach me through my blog, Overpowering Falsehood dot com, the number one site for rational thinking about the future —" The novel also features the Benign Superintelligence Bootstrap Project, which persuades a billionaire to donate his fortune, hoping that the "being of truly God-like powers" will grant him immortality come the Singularity. He dies disappointed, and the Project "turn five billion dollars into nothing but padded salaries and empty verbiage."
and also
> “You know what they say the modern version of Pascal's Wager is? Sucking up to as many Transhumanists as possible, just in case one of them turns into God." - Crystal Nights
tbh i think "progression fic" -- which your series definitely is! -- is basically rationalfic with the explicitly culty serial numbers filed off. But it's GOOD to file those serial numbers off!
There's a LOT of overlap between rationalfic and progression fantasy, which is why my series sometimes gets mistaken for the former- but there's also some major differences beyond the culty serial numbers. You're not going to find much in the way of utilitarian ethics in progression fantasy, for instance- often much the opposite. Also more mass market appeal than rationalfic.
If there was one thing I took away from the major, it was that you
will always have your biases, there is nothing you can do to stop it,
any intelligence or rationalism you have will simply be more tools for
you to, well, rationalize your biases. To delude yourself that you can
emulate logical robot is the height of irrationality, not its
absence.
One thing that stands out is that rationalists just don’t seem to
understand or appreciate art of any form. And not in the “I don’t like
French films, but I get that someone else might” kind of way, but in the
much more annoying “your tastes are irrational” way.
It is incredibly bleak to reach a point where you can’t even enjoy
fiction in your preferred medium if it doesn’t spend the whole time
sucking you off, metaphorically.
I was a little puzzled by the responses in the thread until I saw the timestamps. That whole thing precedes the sub getting its better works in, which embraced the genre as the series of tropes it obviously focuses on. After DaystarEld and Alexander Wales got their stuff going most of the sub moved away from the rationalist parts.
Plus it introduced me to qntm, who’s pretty much my favorite science fiction author after Chiang.
[deleted]
lmao
As an aside I really like the breakdown of why “rationalizing” a character leads to the rest of the setting become idiots. Why doesn’t x just do y really bothers me as a trope and basing an entire story on it just makes it worse. Unless it’s funny in which case carry on.
It endlessly amuses and exasperates me how rationalfic fans try to define their subgenre by rationality, instead of just accepting that it’s defined by a series of common tropes, character archetypes, and just plain vibes. And, that in the end, all genre classifications are just plain bullshit. Useful bullshit, but bullshit.
I’ve even had my own books described as rational fic a few times, which… definitely isn’t my intent, hah. Not going to cast too much shade on the subgenre itself beyond its aforementioned taxonomic woes, though, because people are allowed to enjoy things, and rationalfic seems generally less harmful than rationalism.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/why-rational-fiction-is-inherently-problematic.34730/page-65
Hey they quoted the sneer club comment! ctrl-f ‘sneer culturist’ a few times. I decided to read the thread backwards after the first page.
I remember this, certified classic thread.
Wondered why you were reacting to old posts in that thread, dgerard.
One thing that stands out is that rationalists just don’t seem to understand or appreciate art of any form. And not in the “I don’t like French films, but I get that someone else might” kind of way, but in the much more annoying “your tastes are irrational” way.
It is incredibly bleak to reach a point where you can’t even enjoy fiction in your preferred medium if it doesn’t spend the whole time sucking you off, metaphorically.