the question I have to ask is “Will this drive more than 5% of my reading audience insane?”
If you have to ask that question, publish.
Spoken like a man who’s never actually driven any of his readers insane.
I propose that general class of poke-the-taboo is a fourth, non useful direction, “modernarttopia”. Suggestions should poke something the public isn’t even aware is a taboo.
Well put. Although it’s okay to have a scenario that violates something the public is aware as a taboo, as long as the violation is surprising and has a surprising fun-theoretical reason. It’s mostly the obvious that traps you.
I certainly believe he could. After reading Tamsin Leake’s “everything is okay” (click the link if you dare), I felt a little unstable, and felt like I had to expend deliberate effort to not think about the described world in sufficient detail in order to protect my sanity. I felt like I was reading something that had been maximized by a semi-powerful AI to be moving, almost infohazardously moving, but not quite; that this approached the upper bound of what humans could read while still accepting the imperfection of their current conditions.
Spoken like a man who’s never actually driven any of his readers insane.
Well put. Although it’s okay to have a scenario that violates something the public is aware as a taboo, as long as the violation is surprising and has a surprising fun-theoretical reason. It’s mostly the obvious that traps you.
Have you ever driven your readers insane? If yes, I’d like to hear that story. And are we talking “mildly unsettled” or “get a straitjacket”?
I think that’s almost certainly true. But if you did hear the story, would you wish you hadn’t?
I certainly believe he could. After reading Tamsin Leake’s “everything is okay” (click the link if you dare), I felt a little unstable, and felt like I had to expend deliberate effort to not think about the described world in sufficient detail in order to protect my sanity. I felt like I was reading something that had been maximized by a semi-powerful AI to be moving, almost infohazardously moving, but not quite; that this approached the upper bound of what humans could read while still accepting the imperfection of their current conditions.