Good idea… especially given that the fact that the readers usually aren’t an immortal vampire / pony / wizard makes it relatively complicated to emulate the protagonists.
Not to speak of the fact that much of the fictional rationalist awesomeness comes from applying existing stuff (common sense / science) in a setting where it’s not expected to be applied. (See Harry’s Gringotts money pump or Missy’s sciencey superpowers). It’s hard to extrapolate that to our world...
Counterexample: Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother & Homeland. Although not really rationalist, they are full of things you can actually do in the real world (from programming and plausible deniability crypto to Burning Man).
Or Bella’s notebooks. (anyone else here who actually started text files with “what do I want” and having felt at least marginally more awesome as a consequence?)
Good idea… especially given that the fact that the readers usually aren’t an immortal vampire / pony / wizard makes it relatively complicated to emulate the protagonists.
Not to speak of the fact that much of the fictional rationalist awesomeness comes from applying existing stuff (common sense / science) in a setting where it’s not expected to be applied. (See Harry’s Gringotts money pump or Missy’s sciencey superpowers). It’s hard to extrapolate that to our world...
Counterexample: Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother & Homeland. Although not really rationalist, they are full of things you can actually do in the real world (from programming and plausible deniability crypto to Burning Man).
Or Bella’s notebooks. (anyone else here who actually started text files with “what do I want” and having felt at least marginally more awesome as a consequence?)