So part of winning is being able to deal with human susceptibility to think in stories.
Stories are powerful memes. But they’re always open to subversion. What would the story look like if it were rewritten ten times the size by Alan Moore, for example? I mention Alan Moore here because of his method of taking the simple story and working out the full implications—he works primarily in stories about stories. Imagine the story of SIAI written by Alan Moore. What will he do with it? What should you do with your perceptions of the story?
(I’ve been reading a lot of Alan Moore this weekend, alternating between the entire runs of Promethea, Supreme and Albion and LessWrong and RationalWiki. The Alan Moore thought experiment is jolly good fun to apply to the world of people.)
“So part of winning is being able to deal with human susceptibility to think in stories.”
Exactly! It is especially relevant if you are trying to grow a following around an idea, which SIAI is. Winning requires wearing your Slytherin hat sometimes, and an effective Slytherin will manipulate the stories that they tell and the stories that are told about them.
I read an interesting self-help book recently where the main idea is that you can tell better stories (“hero stories” instead of “victim stories”) about yourself, others, and your situation. Be the Hero by Noah Blumenthal.
So part of winning is being able to deal with human susceptibility to think in stories.
Stories are powerful memes. But they’re always open to subversion. What would the story look like if it were rewritten ten times the size by Alan Moore, for example? I mention Alan Moore here because of his method of taking the simple story and working out the full implications—he works primarily in stories about stories. Imagine the story of SIAI written by Alan Moore. What will he do with it? What should you do with your perceptions of the story?
(I’ve been reading a lot of Alan Moore this weekend, alternating between the entire runs of Promethea, Supreme and Albion and LessWrong and RationalWiki. The Alan Moore thought experiment is jolly good fun to apply to the world of people.)
“So part of winning is being able to deal with human susceptibility to think in stories.”
Exactly! It is especially relevant if you are trying to grow a following around an idea, which SIAI is. Winning requires wearing your Slytherin hat sometimes, and an effective Slytherin will manipulate the stories that they tell and the stories that are told about them.
I read an interesting self-help book recently where the main idea is that you can tell better stories (“hero stories” instead of “victim stories”) about yourself, others, and your situation. Be the Hero by Noah Blumenthal.
SIAI’s story by Frank Miller would be less insightful, but probably much more colorful.
It was pretty fun.
Actually, I suspect SIAI by Frank Miller would be almost colorless, with the occasional shocking splash of red etc. ;)
SIAI by Frank Miller would be in three parts, the first two in black and white, and then (after the dystopian Singularity) it would be in full colour.