General idea: On the follies of letting guilt motivate you.
Story idea: Once upon a time Kay (future superhero) and Pluto (future villain) were union busters. Together they crippled and broke up almost all the unions in the city, often through illegal and unethical means. One day they realized they do something Truly Horrific, and they realize what monsters they are. They quit busting unions, but the damage is done.
~10 years later, Kay is working as a repossession agent, while Pluto has become a community organizer. Pluto has managed to organize the workers at a factory that once had a union. Pluto convinces the workers to go on strike, and he appoints himself ringleader of the newly established (but not legally recognized) union. The factory owners start sweating, and the call Kay for assistance.
Kay refuses, saying that she still feels guilty for the atrocities she committed as a union buster. So the owners turn to Plan B: importing temporary labor from out of state. While this plan isn’t viable in the long-run, the factory owners figure it will scare their original workers into backing down.
When the replacement labor arrives, Pluto panics. He fears that his plan to re-establish a union (and cleanse himself of his union-busting sins) is about to go down the drain. That night, he and a few other armed accomplices storm the motel where the out-of-state laborers are staying, and declares them hostages.
The rest of the story is about Kay trying to free the hostages, and Pluto becoming increasingly corrupted by his desire to undo the horrible things he did in the past. Kay becomes a hero not just for rescuing hostages, but because she can resist the temptation for closure.
The way this plays out feels Joseph Campbell-ey, with Kay even refusing a literal call before the tension ramps up. Which is not bad at all from a literary perspective, but might cause audiences to see things in terms of the structure of the story rather than as a lesson. So hm, what are some ways to vividly show our protagonist doing the best with what they have rather than living in the past, or than selling out / giving up.
Or maybe Kay has given up initially, and then over the course of the story rekindles an explicit desire to do what’s right now as a direct response to our villain’s self-justifications.
Other rationality skills to possibly include: noticing when you’re writing in the bottom line beforehand, making plans more shock-proof and modular than humans naively want to, explicitly stopping and checking the consequences of a difficult choice, noticing when you flinch away from unpleasant thoughts—sometimes that’s okay, but sometimes you need to do that thing that’s unpleasant to think about.
The story is, in large part, about the structure of the story: Pluto’s tragic flaw is that he’s thinking about his real life in terms of story structure.
General idea: On the follies of letting guilt motivate you.
Story idea: Once upon a time Kay (future superhero) and Pluto (future villain) were union busters. Together they crippled and broke up almost all the unions in the city, often through illegal and unethical means. One day they realized they do something Truly Horrific, and they realize what monsters they are. They quit busting unions, but the damage is done.
~10 years later, Kay is working as a repossession agent, while Pluto has become a community organizer. Pluto has managed to organize the workers at a factory that once had a union. Pluto convinces the workers to go on strike, and he appoints himself ringleader of the newly established (but not legally recognized) union. The factory owners start sweating, and the call Kay for assistance.
Kay refuses, saying that she still feels guilty for the atrocities she committed as a union buster. So the owners turn to Plan B: importing temporary labor from out of state. While this plan isn’t viable in the long-run, the factory owners figure it will scare their original workers into backing down. When the replacement labor arrives, Pluto panics. He fears that his plan to re-establish a union (and cleanse himself of his union-busting sins) is about to go down the drain. That night, he and a few other armed accomplices storm the motel where the out-of-state laborers are staying, and declares them hostages.
The rest of the story is about Kay trying to free the hostages, and Pluto becoming increasingly corrupted by his desire to undo the horrible things he did in the past. Kay becomes a hero not just for rescuing hostages, but because she can resist the temptation for closure.
Nice story :)
The way this plays out feels Joseph Campbell-ey, with Kay even refusing a literal call before the tension ramps up. Which is not bad at all from a literary perspective, but might cause audiences to see things in terms of the structure of the story rather than as a lesson. So hm, what are some ways to vividly show our protagonist doing the best with what they have rather than living in the past, or than selling out / giving up.
Or maybe Kay has given up initially, and then over the course of the story rekindles an explicit desire to do what’s right now as a direct response to our villain’s self-justifications.
Other rationality skills to possibly include: noticing when you’re writing in the bottom line beforehand, making plans more shock-proof and modular than humans naively want to, explicitly stopping and checking the consequences of a difficult choice, noticing when you flinch away from unpleasant thoughts—sometimes that’s okay, but sometimes you need to do that thing that’s unpleasant to think about.
The story is, in large part, about the structure of the story: Pluto’s tragic flaw is that he’s thinking about his real life in terms of story structure.