While I enjoyed the start of Luminosity quite a bit, I really didn’t like the last chapter (55). I suppose it’s where my misgivings about the story came to a head. Full disclosure: I have gotten consistent reports that I would not enjoy the Twilight novels, and so have not read them (but have checked out the twilight wiki to write this post), and this will weaken my first objection, but I still feel it worth making.
The premise is that it’s Bella with a brain; the personality is the same, most of the limitations are the same (I imagine Meyer’s Bella gets pointlessly upset when interrupted), but she’s got rationality training and thus behaves rather differently. I was genuinely pleased at the mention of the journals and the acknowledgment that thoughts and emotions change- that’s such a great example of knowing your limitations and rationally responding to them.
Except, Bella also plans to take over the world.
That isn’t a rationality boost. That’s a core personality overwrite. The main reason that bothered me is while I wasn’t surprised to see HP:MoR become Ender’s Game (for a time, at least), I really didn’t expect the same “one genius takes on the world!” stuff in Twilight. It was a domestic fantasy, and now it’s going to be The Punisher? Great.
Does every rationalist protagonist come out of the box thinking they’re the queen or king? It makes sense for the ten-year old whose INT far surpasses his WIS; it doesn’t make sense for the family-centered teen. What could possibly possess Bella such that she decided to risk everything important to her for political gain when she learned of thousand-year old vampires who ruthlessly enforce vampire law? Idiocy? I thought this was Bella with a Brain, not Bella with Revolutionary Aspirations.
Which, I suppose, leads to the main reason this bothered me: for the first ~20 chapters, I was planning to recommend this to my friends and family who enjoyed Meyer’s Twilight; after that, my desire to do so gradually waned; now, I would not recommend it. Which is such a shame, because the start really was promising, both as an interesting story and as a rationality teaching tool.
The phrase “Twilight for boys” is bouncing around my head- both because of the plot changes and the style changes. Meyer describes things the way she does for a reason; that’s part of what makes her books interesting to her audience. The sparseness of Luminosity really got harsh after a while- it was palpably obvious that all of the details of Bella’s life were being drained away. (By her political aspirations? Foreshadowing?) I haven’t gone back to check, but every personal description I remember came in the first few chapters. After that, no one is distinctive- only their names, powers, and affiliations come up.
Another way I’m thinking about this: are there any romance novels (or something similar enough) that you really like? Because that’s what Twilight was, and replacing it with something else kills it in a way that’s hard to explain if you don’t like any romance novels. One of the books I cherish is a romance novel about a gay football player and his boyfriend. I read it whenever I’m feeling down or lonely and it cheers me up. There’s still conflict- it’s a story, after all- but the conflicts are ones I care about as a gay guy looking for a mate. Reading about byzantine power struggles is sometimes entertaining, and I suppose possibly it’s training for a future as a leader or in a bureaucracy, but not what I care most about in my life. I’m not a plotter, I’m an optimizer.
Perhaps I’m burdening you too much with my expectations, but I find myself worried when the primary plot you and EY have come up with is “death has to go.” There’s really a lot more to life than trying to prolong it, guys. That’s what makes spending any effort at all on prolonging life worthwhile. With Harry Potter, there’s enough other stuff bouncing around that it doesn’t take over the story- there’s still magic to figure out, and Voldemort to oppose, and the Dumbledore-Malfoy war to deal with- but with Twilight, there’s really only Bella, Edward, and family. And so when you add “Bella’s plan to replace the Volturi” to the mix, you unbalance things so massively that the flavor of family is entirely overpowered and we’re left with a Punisher story. Not only is that a distasteful bait and switch, it misses a great target: how to behave rationally with your loved ones to maximize their and your happiness. That’s something that would be immediately enlightening in the minds of readers (particularly Twilight readers), and instead we get vampire politics and war.
I changed Bella’s personality too. She’s got the same basic resources as canon!Bella, but she made some different choices a few years ago and has become a different young lady.
I’m sorry you’re not enjoying the story anymore. That’s a pity.
The closest thing to romance novels per se that I like (besides the Twilight canon itself, which I did enjoy) would probably be the works of Sharon Shinn. I am very puzzled about why you are trying to compare Luminosity’s fulfillment of this genre to Twilight’s when you have not read Twilight at all. (The wiki is a useful reference but I think it was mostly written by twelve year olds with untreated grammatical disabilities.)
find myself worried when the primary plot you and EY have come up with is “death has to go.” There’s really a lot more to life than trying to prolong it, guys.
Well, yes. Bella also does other things. I’m surprised that they didn’t stand out to you. I thought I might be being too heavy-handed with the massive clues about how often she gets laid, just as one example. But… seriously… I started working with a canon where there are immortal freakin’ vampires who can make more of themselves. Since death is bad, and my character was handed a tool to make it not happen so much… yes, lots of the action is going to be happening in that neighborhood. Not making the story even sort of about that would be like having a novel about a cancer researcher, who has cancer, and whose entire family has cancer, who then discovers the cure for cancer, but that’s just a side plot because all the actual drama is about how to break the news to Grandma Betty that no one likes her fruitcake.
First off, thanks for responding! As well, Archangel looks interesting; I’m assuming that’s a decent place to start on Shinn?
“I am very puzzled about why you are trying to compare Luminosity’s fulfillment of this genre to Twilight’s when you have not read Twilight at all.”
I’m comparing it to optimal; literally every book on my shelf is more readable (to me) than Twilight. The point of fanfic as I understand it is to be what the book could have been. The main reason I did make comparisons is that I get the feeling your work overcorrects on some things that are deficiencies in the original, and it’s worth analyzing the relevant continua.
I’m surprised that they didn’t stand out to you. I thought I might be being too heavy-handed with the massive clues about how often she gets laid, just as one example.
I felt the opposite. The first piece of writing advice, for good reason, is “show don’t tell.” (I understand you’re shooting for teen, and so getting laid is not something you can show, but you can make up for it everywhere else.)
The first time- the “Among the enhanced vampire senses is touch” line- was well done, and you deserve props for it. But in the work as a whole the most memorable time Edward touches Bella is when he breaks her spine. Anyone can use the words “comfort” or “caress,” the challenge is evoking the emotions. Indeed, the only habit I can think of peculiar to them is that they just say “I love you” instead of “I love you too,” which is justified only by vampires being super-emotional.
For example, in the first section of chapter 45, there are ~8 lines about Bella rationalizing about her and Edward’s disappointment, and then ~2 lines about exchanging comfort that didn’t depend on rationalization. The reader’s impression is that rationalizing is at least four times as important as comfort: you gave us a walkthrough of Bella’s thoughts on the matter, but no details about her and Edward’s actions. Italicizing the “our” doesn’t capture why Bella wants Edward’s baby, and why Edward wants Bella’s baby. It would have been easy and effective to write eight lines there so the comfort took up more of the page than the sour grapes.
If you make a habit of that- giving even equal description to emotion/perception than you do to rationalizations- then it’ll stand out. (Since action/rationalization tends to happen more, I mean equality in paragraph-lengths, not number of lines on each.) There are exceptional cases where the emotion is treated with the same level of depth than the rationalizations are- but for most of them, even more would help.
(On the subject of perception: the primary description we get of vampire senses is essentially “they’re too high-level to describe.” This is the Vizzini method- “Have you ever heard of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle? … Morons,” and it’s worse than just overwhelming. Write a paragraph or two or twelve about what it’s like to run through the trees, seeing their branches and twigs turn and dance all at once, able to focus on more than just one small bit. Ultraviolent is her new favorite color- why not tour botanical gardens, and get the full bee experience? The reason that “show don’t tell” is convincing is that the author demonstrates they have extra information: they don’t just know “love” is the symbol to call upon, they have an experience to describe to you.
Not making the story even sort of about that would be like having a novel about a cancer researcher, who has cancer, and whose entire family has cancer, who then discovers the cure for cancer, but that’s just a side plot because all the actual drama is about how to break the news to Grandma Betty that no one likes her fruitcake.
I’m not saying immortality shouldn’t be part of the story- it should. I’m saying that the scale of Bella’s ambitions needs to be sensible. Why would any sane person do more about overthrowing the Volturi- who at that point had done nothing but help her- than convincing her parents to become immortal? I’m convinced my government is evil on a stupefying scale but I spend more time trying to create wealth and improve them than overthrow them. You’d have drama far more interesting than Grandma Betty’s fruitcake, but be operating on a level that doesn’t strain credulity or naturally lead to defeat.
I think another thing that bothers me, when it comes to Bella Guevera, is that neither of her stances have strong backing / she doesn’t rigorously examine them. There are strong reasons to prefer the Volturi to their absence (beyond their ability and inclination to murder those who think otherwise), and arguments against utilitarianism (I’m thinking of the Utility Monster here) demonstrably apply for vampires. Eating humans might be the most moral thing to do, from the utilitarian perspective. And counterarguments against that could also apply to animals- why don’t the Cullens have a ranch and drink the blood of their animals instead of hunting? Among other justifications, that’s already an accepted practice in some lactose-intolerant parts of Africa.
And so if the fic’s Bella sets on a violent path than requires risking her most cherished desires to achieve political goals she hasn’t fully examined, should we really call her rational or luminous? And if this a morality play where she does everything wrong and learns the error of her ways too late, why write that?
Yeah, Archangel’s a fine place to start, although it’s a little hard to say in what order you ought to read the angel books because they were written out of chronological order.
why don’t the Cullens have a ranch and drink the blood of their animals instead of hunting?
I actually explicitly address this one in the fic. I’m starting to doubt that you’ve been paying much attention.
Anyway, my point isn’t that Bella does everything wrong, or that she isn’t really luminous or smart or rational. She made mistakes, which stemmed more or less directly from flaws in her personality, and bad things happened.
I actually explicitly address this one in the fic. I’m starting to doubt that you’ve been paying much attention.
I remember you addressing why a butchering facility is impractical. I don’t recall you addressing why it’s morally acceptable to hunt animals but not morally acceptable to hunt humans; if you did and I missed it, then I apologize sincerely, as that’s solid evidence I wasn’t paying attention.
What I’m talking about is not the Scottish method of making a blood pudding out of a butchered animal, but the Maasai method of bleeding a cow- essentially similar to the European method of milking cows or Canadian method of collecting maple sap. Since they’re doctors, they’d use syringes instead of arrows and plugs, but the basic idea would be the same: have a ‘dairy cow’ whose relevant organ is their marrow, not their udder.
They already considered this, but dismissed it, when it came to humans- they would be able to get the blood without killing, but would lose the benefit of calming animal blood.
(Since I’m thinking about this, the way I’d introduce it is not Bella thinking “wait, why are we killing them when we don’t have to?” or suddenly being interested in animal rights- but as a product of a debate where Bella raises the issue of vegetarianism with a human-eating vampire and the human-eater (particularly if it’s one that buys blood to consume, rather than killing) points out that Bella’s really not any better than the human-eaters or humans in general, and asks why they don’t put their morals into practice and abandon hunting- which Bella might then adopt as a great idea.)
She made mistakes, which stemmed more or less directly from flaws in her personality, and bad things happened.
I think the two main things that bother me about her mistakes are that, as far as I can tell, they come from flaws that you introduced and those flaws are unrelatable. Bella’s flaw is that she thinks that assassinating the world government is a good way to go about things (another way to think about this flaw is she considers politics more important than people). What’s the moral, here? Don’t try to assassinate world governments? I already knew that one, thanks.
What’s the deeper moral? If you’re vapid, the consequence is spending eternity telepathically beaming love at your husband, who is overcome by emotion and distracts you with the physical manifestation of that love. If you’re thoughtful, the consequence is spending eternity bound to a pile of ash while every day your husband’s ghost eats your liver anew. Why choose to rewrite the Prometheus myth?
The reasons I give for not having a butchering facility apply to any other facility that would keep domestic animals. The animals would still need a place to live that would be hard to pick up and move when the vampires got suspiciously youthful-looking for their claimed ages. Also, if the vampires were trying to keep animals alive, they would suck at it. The poor cows would die of stress from having to be around them.
As for your other criticisms: I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying the story I have chosen to tell. That’s a pity. I suggest you don’t waste more of your time on a story you don’t like. Hopefully you will be able to find something more worthy of your attention.
The poor cows would die of stress from having to be around them.
True- but one can buy animal blood much more easily than human blood. As far as I can tell, the sites I found googling only require a credit card, and your only contact will be the FedEx deliveryperson. The prices (about ~$150 to get as much sheep’s blood as it would take to fill a person) seem like they would be nowhere near troubling for vampires, and a front corporation doing medical research would be trivial to create.
Indeed, if Bella’s primary objection to vampires consuming blood is that it has to come from people, why not sell packaged blood to vampires? They still get the tasty blood they prefer, and people don’t have to die for it. They miss out on the calming effect, and more importantly miss out on the hunting, but I imagine there must be some vampires out there who don’t live to hunt, or would prefer being able to reside more permanently by hunting less frequently.
It’s possible anyone willing to take that option would already be taking that option- but people are more willing to make changes the easier you make those changes. Again, directly relevant experience for people- “I’m going to help my neighbors switch to vegetarianism by grocery shopping and teaching recipes” over “I’m going to murder Jim Purdue.”
As for your other criticisms: I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying the story I have chosen to tell. That’s a pity. I suggest you don’t waste more of your time on a story you don’t like. Hopefully you will be able to find something more worthy of your attention.
There is no need to apologize: you’ve written a story that you wanted to tell and it is no offense against me that it’s not the story I wanted to read. I think it’s mistaken, though, to consider time spent on things one doesn’t like a waste. I am still interested by the story, I am still attracted by the story’s potential; I just think the choices you’ve made are suboptimal, and believe it’s better to explain to you why I responded that way than fling my hands up in disgust and silently fade away.
I do feel the need to mention I do not expect you to change the story to suit my tastes- if I lend weight to any changes, I expect the most likely would be you deciding to beef up some descriptions. But I hope the feedback is useful even if not reacted to.
Also, if the vampires were trying to keep animals alive, they would suck at it.
Why would vampires put themselves in charge of keeping the animals alive? It’s been established that the Cullens have staggering amounts of money. Just find a small, publicly-traded company that does something related to what you’re looking for, and buy up a controlling share of the stock. Make some unreasonable demands, ratchet up relevant salaries until those demands start sounding very reasonable indeed, then add layer after layer of nondisclosure agreements just in case. Once it’s set up, you never need to visit again. They mail the packaged, refrigerated blood to an entirely separate institution whose sole purpose, in this context at least, is to keep track of your forwarding address.
Routine problems can be handled by professional investigators of the appropriate sort (would Temple Grandin qualify as a witch in this setting?) and severe/bizarre/supernatural problems can be handled by divesting yourself of the shares, starting over from scratch with a different company, and leaving just enough lawyers in your wake to remind those involved that the nondisclosure agreement still applies.
As often as necessary, packages of animal blood arrive in the mail. If someone notices, you mumble something about medical research; if they call you on it, explain in shameful tones that your spouse has a weird fetish, you found a company that sells the stuff, all very humane, it’s expensive but who can put a price on a happy marriage, and (depending on how the situation develops) follow up with either an indignant rant about the rights of consenting adults within the privacy of their own home, or pleading and an appropriate bribe.
I’ve stated elsewhere under this post that I’ve ruled that animal blood is impossible to tolerate when it isn’t fresh. This is to explain the canon fact that the Cullens do not keep any preserved animal blood in their home, which would make immense sense if it were drinkable that way.
Even with that constraint, it would be financially feasible to create a ‘filling station’ within half a night’s walk of any given house, and the technicians still don’t need to see any ‘customers’ face-to-face. Just run the IV pipe through an opaque wall, and set up appointments by calling ahead.
What’s the deeper moral? If you’re vapid, the consequence is spending eternity telepathically beaming love at your husband, who is overcome by emotion and distracts you with the physical manifestation of that love. If you’re thoughtful, the consequence is spending eternity bound to a pile of ash while every day your husband’s ghost eats your liver anew. Why choose to rewrite the Prometheus myth?
Sure, Herakles comes by and kills the eagle. Even the Greeks weren’t that cruel.
The motivation for that objection is that the only non-pathological reason to be rational is it improves your life. So, when a story shows characters making worse decisions and leading worse lives than normal, I find it hard to swallow that they’re behaving more rationally or living more luminously, and I become skeptical of the author’s models of rationality and luminosity.
Just checking: your standard of “than normal”, for Bella, is the plot of canon Twilight, which you have not read, in which canon Bella only survives her many insanely stupid decisions via Plot Armor, and in which canon a confrontation in which the Volturi drew out unprecedented resources in order to attempt to deal with the Cullen family and their witnesses ended with no fighting, no casualties, and no unhappy endings whatsoever except for the part where the overwhelming majority of vampires go on murdering humans several times a month but that’s okay because nobody Bella likes is hurt?
Just checking: your standard of “than normal”, for Bella, is the plot of canon Twilight, which you have not read,
Yes. Because every fanfic, by its nature, invites comparisons with the original before all other works. Even if the reader has only read the fanfic.
My consequentialism may be showing through a bit more than it should, but it seems reasonable to me that someone who reads two stories with the same source will compare their endings, and will make judgments based on those endings. (For reference, the “canon Twilight” I have read is checking the wiki, not slogging through the books.)
If your argument is that canon Twilight was a Promethean story where Bella should have been struck down for stealing Vampirism from the gods and bestowing it to men, and the only reason Aro and company failed to do so is because they’re idiots, I have neither the experience nor the inclination to counter that argument.
Because that’s not what interests me. What interests me is the choice presented: if canon Bella made stupid choices that should have gotten her killed, and our Bella is different, will we make her make smarter choices or have worse luck?
So, when a story shows characters making worse decisions and leading worse lives than normal, I find it hard to swallow that they’re behaving more rationally or living more luminously, and I become skeptical of the author’s models of rationality and luminosity.
Yes, rational agents should WIN. But, as Eliezer explains
Don’t mistake me, and think that I’m talking about the Hollywood Rationality stereotype that rationalists should be selfish or shortsighted. If your utility function has a term in it for others, then win their happiness. If your utility function has a term in it for a million years hence, then win the eon.
If you care about improving the entire world, you just might end up multiplying small probabilities by large utilities, and concluding that you should take chances that are likely to go bad for you personally.
Also, it doesn’t seem right to compare the results of Canon!Bella to Luminous!Bella, who is facing tougher challenges. It wouldn’t be right to say that Frodo’s Jedi powers were actively harmful when his greater problems came from Sauron’s Death Star.
First off, thanks for the link- that was a rather informative read, though I feel it supports my position rather strongly.
If you care about improving the entire world, you just might end up multiplying small probabilities by large utilities, and concluding that you should take chances that are likely to go bad for you personally.
That’s an argument for becoming a cancer researcher instead of an investment banker, and I agree that can be commendable. That’s an argument for signing the Declaration of Independence, and I agree that can be commendable.
That is not an argument for deciding to swim across the Atlantic and kill King George with your bare hands.
My complaints about Luminous!Bella’s personality and plans are twofold: first, her motivations are nonsensical, and second, her plans are idiotic.
I won’t bring up any of my complaints about utilitarianism proper, but just comment that it is entirely self-defeating and out-of-character for Bella to adopt it. What does she have, and what does she want? She and her sole, destined mate are both vulnerable to other vampires but not to age, and she enjoys his presence more than any human can enjoy life. She should want to preserve herself and her mate at almost all costs.
I put in the ‘almost’ because it’s feasible that Bella would prefer some goal to her and Edward’s personal survival. It would make sense for her to sacrifice herself to save Edward (if he didn’t prefer the opposite), say, or to save a massive number of people. We know, though, from her thoughts in Chapter 23, that human Bella explicitly prefers herself to other people. She might change her mind when it’s a large number of people, but I wouldn’t bet on it, and the odds go lower when she turns into a vampire, because her life is then that much more valuable.
So, it is possible that Bella would decide to sacrifice herself to save everyone else, but that’s not something humans (particularly female humans) do very frequently, and it’s not something Bella has a history of doing. It’s also not terribly relatable because few people have a chance to sacrifice themselves to save the world; at most, people can divert their time and resources towards improving their local world. Bella is even more attached to her local world than most humans, and humans are already very attached to it.
Those discussions of motivation all assume Bella has a chance of being effective. If she knew it was her life or 6 billion human lives, I hope she would pick the 6 billion human lives. If she knew it was her life or a one billionth chance of saving 6 billion human lives, why would we expect her to put her life on the line for six lives?
I’m not saying the odds are against her because she’s an idiot, or that it’s unfair for Alicorn to give her a one billionth chance of success- that seems pretty realistic to me. The thing that’s idiotic is that she doesn’t even think that there might not be a way for her to win until she’s already lost. Victorious warriors win first, then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
So, again, the story works as a morality play. If a plan requires you to not talk to anyone else about it, then it’s doomed to failure, and you shouldn’t try. But morality plays strike me as inferior to positive stories: teach that preparation leads to victory by showing someone who prepares and wins, not by showing someone who fails to prepare and loses. They may have lost for a number of reasons.
Also, it doesn’t seem right to compare the results of Canon!Bella to Luminous!Bella, who is facing tougher challenges.
I think the word “tougher” there is obfuscating, because there are changes on several different levels. Everyone is smarter, but Bella has hubris in the Greek sense.
Essentially, this isn’t Frodo having to use his Jedi powers against the Death Star. This is Sauron using his Sith powers to send the Nazgul to kill Frodo before he leaves the Shire. Then Sauron flies the Ring back, and game over.
While realistic, it makes for a poor rationalist story. Especially when Frodo is the rationalist and Sauron is a murderous autocrat.
I keep on bringing up the Greek myths because the Greek myths are horrible life lessons for modern people. “Don’t taunt the gods” is bad advice for scientists. And so when I see a new story forged in the model of a Greek myth, I try and dig deep and figure out why. When I see someone associating their protagonist with hubris- not justified confidence, but hubris in its full sense- I get worried. Why not imagine a world without hubris- a world where cleverness allows you to bypass the gods? Why not imagine people clever enough to see the trap of hubris and ignore it? Why choose hubris?
But morality plays strike me as inferior to positive stories: teach that preparation leads to victory by showing someone who prepares and wins, not by showing someone who fails to prepare and loses.
Maybe Alicorn can give us both: tragic failure here, analysis of the failure in the “media res” introductory chapter, and the positive lesson in the promised sequel. Works for me.
Does every rationalist protagonist come out of the box thinking they’re the queen or king?
I dunno, but I’ve never read one that doesn’t.
If you considered yourself able to take over the world (which all ultra-rationalist characters (whether pro- or antagonists) seem to) then actually taking it over would be one of the most rational things you could do.
If you considered yourself able to take over the world (which all ultra-rationalist characters (whether pro- or antagonists) seem to)
This is the part that confuses me, though. Maybe it’s just because I’ve studied economics and/or am a libertarian, but as soon as you realize that the world is ordered by systems instead of by people then the idea of taking over the world is ludicrous. There’s a great Steve Jobs quote-
When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.
And so, when I see someone who thinks they can, let alone should, take over the world, the first impression I get is the “d’awww” that mature adults feel when they see a pretentious teenager. And maybe stories about pretentious teenagers are valuable? But I found that I became a mature adult by, among other things, reading about mature adults. And it seems to me that a pretty important precondition to rationality is being a mature adult (or, perhaps more correctly, the idea of being rational and the idea of mature adulthood are strongly connected).
I agree on all points. But tales of ultra-rationalists (at least when they’re protagonists) are wish-fulfillment stories. That’s why they’re fun to read. If they were realistic then they’d quickly end up with the protagonist shattered, her loved ones killed or scattered, and the ruling systems just as entrenched as ever (if not even stronger).
Which is why I’m pretty sure Elspeth will succeed where Bella failed. These sorts of stories aren’t meant to be accurate reflections of the real world, they’re meant to give a vicarious thrill as the hero finally brings down all those bastards that are screwing things up for the rest of us. If I wanted a realistic story that ended in the crushing of the human soul under the heel of an inhuman system I’d watch the news.
There is, of course, a third option. The rationalist who sets their sights on something human-scaled instead of humanity-scaled is likely to do very well for themselves.
And so, in some sense, it’s worth examining the scope and effect of wish-fulfillment stories. If I play a lot of video games where I’m the only relevant character who reshapes all of reality around him according to my whims, what does that do to my empathy? My narcissism? My ability to reshape reality, and my satisfaction with the changes I attempt? If I read a lot of books about the lives of software pioneers and their companies, what does that do to my empathy? My narcissism? My ability to reshape reality, and my satisfaction with the changes I attempt? If I read a lot of books about successful relationships, how people work, and how to control myself, what does that do to my empathy? My narcissism? My ability to reshape reality, and my satisfaction with the changes I attempt?
It’s difficult to write a story about start-ups. (Either the idea is good and has been done, so you’re writing history instead of fiction, or good and not done, in which case you should be doing it not writing about it, or bad, in which case disbelief will be hard to suspend.) But it’s easy to see someone using rationality to turn around their relationship or their life or a school or business.
The author’s problem is twofold: those problems are hard, and those problems are local. Stories tend to go for the cheapest thing: the cheapest/simplest plot is one person punching another, and the cheapest emotional hook is the fate of the world.
But those problems are solvable. And I, as suggested, would love a rationalist story where the hero devotes their time to solving useful, even if they are limited, problems instead of figuring out the best way to punch someone. You can see this in HP:MoR: compare the chapters where Harry is trying to figure out magic, or convert Draco, to the Azkaban chapters. (I am in the early early stages of starting a rationalist work on these lines; I abandoned fiction writing ~6 years ago and do not expect to be good at it, but we’ll see if I get happy enough with it to show the public.)
Which is why I’m pretty sure Elspeth will succeed where Bella failed.
My thoughts here are that, for Elspeth, succeeding is having an accurate idea of what scope she can change the world at. That was Bella’s core failure: her delusions of grandeur. For Elspeth, who has a less useful power, no ultra-rich family with several massively useful witches, and only half-vampire status, for her to defeat the Volturi where Bella failed seems to me to be impossible (unless she does the “well, I’m going to steal a bunch of money, buy a bunch of explosives, and burn Volterra to the ground” plan, which is definitely not the utilitarian way to conduct regime change).
I don’t mind that this lesson, which is of critical importance, is a really painful one. Pain is the best teacher. I mind that Bella didn’t know it beforehand, but it’s a reasonable flaw to give a character (especially if you’re writing for the LW community, apparently). But if Alicorn has the second book narrated by Elspeth and she makes the same mistakes as Bella (especially if she lucks into a win), then I will stop reading in disgust.
It’s difficult to write a story about start-ups. (Either the idea is good and has been done, so you’re writing history instead of fiction, or good and not done, in which case you should be doing it not writing about it, or bad, in which case disbelief will be hard to suspend.)
Unless it’s been done in the real world but not in the world you’re writing in, in which case you may be Terry Pratchett.
Put in a separate post: I am strongly considering writing a top-level post about the failings of utilitarianism, because I see that as very strongly linked to Bella’s scope failure (the utilitarian goal is the Volturi gone, thus I should eradicate the Volturi). I’ll also write it for people, not for fictional characters, if that’s a worry.
If you are interested in seeing my thoughts on the matter, vote this up; if disinterested, vote this down. (But not negative, please, my karma is tiny!)
I would strongly prefer that my characters not be used as examples in non-fiction didactic works at least until I announce that I have finished with the story. (I currently expect Radiance to be the last work I do in the universe.)
This is a reply deep in a thread on a relatively old post, you won’t likely get many people that even see this request. :) If you’re nervous about publishing a top-level post, at least float something on the discussion side. I agree that utilitarianism is severely flawed. My reason is that humans simply don’t have enough computing power to ever implement utilitarianism decently, it would take an entity with orders of magnitude more intellectual strength to be a utilitarian with falling into a Bella spiral.
Deontology that is steered by utilitarian goals and occasionally modified by utilitarian analysis, OTOH, seems very workable and keeps the best of utilitarianism while factoring for human realities (but I’ve been plugging Desirism for a while now).
If you’re nervous about publishing a top-level post, at least float something on the discussion side.
That indeed looks exactly like what I was looking for: I had seen people use the pattern I modeled reading through comments, which were probably from before that got implemented.
I abandoned fiction writing ~6 years ago and do not expect to be good at it, but we’ll see if I get happy enough with it to show the public
Sounds interesting, you should put it up somewhere regardless. Because A) it can’t be that bad, and B) unless you’ve got a public reading it and demanding more, you’ll very likely never actually go forward with this. :)
If you considered yourself able to take over the world (which all ultra-rationalist characters (whether pro- or antagonists) seem to) then actually taking it over would be one of the most rational things you could do.
But not one of the wisest (because most people who have taken over suddenly realize exactly how much of a pain it is to actually run the world that you’ve just taken over)
While I enjoyed the start of Luminosity quite a bit, I really didn’t like the last chapter (55). I suppose it’s where my misgivings about the story came to a head. Full disclosure: I have gotten consistent reports that I would not enjoy the Twilight novels, and so have not read them (but have checked out the twilight wiki to write this post), and this will weaken my first objection, but I still feel it worth making.
The premise is that it’s Bella with a brain; the personality is the same, most of the limitations are the same (I imagine Meyer’s Bella gets pointlessly upset when interrupted), but she’s got rationality training and thus behaves rather differently. I was genuinely pleased at the mention of the journals and the acknowledgment that thoughts and emotions change- that’s such a great example of knowing your limitations and rationally responding to them.
Except, Bella also plans to take over the world.
That isn’t a rationality boost. That’s a core personality overwrite. The main reason that bothered me is while I wasn’t surprised to see HP:MoR become Ender’s Game (for a time, at least), I really didn’t expect the same “one genius takes on the world!” stuff in Twilight. It was a domestic fantasy, and now it’s going to be The Punisher? Great.
Does every rationalist protagonist come out of the box thinking they’re the queen or king? It makes sense for the ten-year old whose INT far surpasses his WIS; it doesn’t make sense for the family-centered teen. What could possibly possess Bella such that she decided to risk everything important to her for political gain when she learned of thousand-year old vampires who ruthlessly enforce vampire law? Idiocy? I thought this was Bella with a Brain, not Bella with Revolutionary Aspirations.
Which, I suppose, leads to the main reason this bothered me: for the first ~20 chapters, I was planning to recommend this to my friends and family who enjoyed Meyer’s Twilight; after that, my desire to do so gradually waned; now, I would not recommend it. Which is such a shame, because the start really was promising, both as an interesting story and as a rationality teaching tool.
The phrase “Twilight for boys” is bouncing around my head- both because of the plot changes and the style changes. Meyer describes things the way she does for a reason; that’s part of what makes her books interesting to her audience. The sparseness of Luminosity really got harsh after a while- it was palpably obvious that all of the details of Bella’s life were being drained away. (By her political aspirations? Foreshadowing?) I haven’t gone back to check, but every personal description I remember came in the first few chapters. After that, no one is distinctive- only their names, powers, and affiliations come up.
Another way I’m thinking about this: are there any romance novels (or something similar enough) that you really like? Because that’s what Twilight was, and replacing it with something else kills it in a way that’s hard to explain if you don’t like any romance novels. One of the books I cherish is a romance novel about a gay football player and his boyfriend. I read it whenever I’m feeling down or lonely and it cheers me up. There’s still conflict- it’s a story, after all- but the conflicts are ones I care about as a gay guy looking for a mate. Reading about byzantine power struggles is sometimes entertaining, and I suppose possibly it’s training for a future as a leader or in a bureaucracy, but not what I care most about in my life. I’m not a plotter, I’m an optimizer.
Perhaps I’m burdening you too much with my expectations, but I find myself worried when the primary plot you and EY have come up with is “death has to go.” There’s really a lot more to life than trying to prolong it, guys. That’s what makes spending any effort at all on prolonging life worthwhile. With Harry Potter, there’s enough other stuff bouncing around that it doesn’t take over the story- there’s still magic to figure out, and Voldemort to oppose, and the Dumbledore-Malfoy war to deal with- but with Twilight, there’s really only Bella, Edward, and family. And so when you add “Bella’s plan to replace the Volturi” to the mix, you unbalance things so massively that the flavor of family is entirely overpowered and we’re left with a Punisher story. Not only is that a distasteful bait and switch, it misses a great target: how to behave rationally with your loved ones to maximize their and your happiness. That’s something that would be immediately enlightening in the minds of readers (particularly Twilight readers), and instead we get vampire politics and war.
I changed Bella’s personality too. She’s got the same basic resources as canon!Bella, but she made some different choices a few years ago and has become a different young lady.
I’m sorry you’re not enjoying the story anymore. That’s a pity.
The closest thing to romance novels per se that I like (besides the Twilight canon itself, which I did enjoy) would probably be the works of Sharon Shinn. I am very puzzled about why you are trying to compare Luminosity’s fulfillment of this genre to Twilight’s when you have not read Twilight at all. (The wiki is a useful reference but I think it was mostly written by twelve year olds with untreated grammatical disabilities.)
Well, yes. Bella also does other things. I’m surprised that they didn’t stand out to you. I thought I might be being too heavy-handed with the massive clues about how often she gets laid, just as one example. But… seriously… I started working with a canon where there are immortal freakin’ vampires who can make more of themselves. Since death is bad, and my character was handed a tool to make it not happen so much… yes, lots of the action is going to be happening in that neighborhood. Not making the story even sort of about that would be like having a novel about a cancer researcher, who has cancer, and whose entire family has cancer, who then discovers the cure for cancer, but that’s just a side plot because all the actual drama is about how to break the news to Grandma Betty that no one likes her fruitcake.
First off, thanks for responding! As well, Archangel looks interesting; I’m assuming that’s a decent place to start on Shinn?
“I am very puzzled about why you are trying to compare Luminosity’s fulfillment of this genre to Twilight’s when you have not read Twilight at all.”
I’m comparing it to optimal; literally every book on my shelf is more readable (to me) than Twilight. The point of fanfic as I understand it is to be what the book could have been. The main reason I did make comparisons is that I get the feeling your work overcorrects on some things that are deficiencies in the original, and it’s worth analyzing the relevant continua.
I felt the opposite. The first piece of writing advice, for good reason, is “show don’t tell.” (I understand you’re shooting for teen, and so getting laid is not something you can show, but you can make up for it everywhere else.)
The first time- the “Among the enhanced vampire senses is touch” line- was well done, and you deserve props for it. But in the work as a whole the most memorable time Edward touches Bella is when he breaks her spine. Anyone can use the words “comfort” or “caress,” the challenge is evoking the emotions. Indeed, the only habit I can think of peculiar to them is that they just say “I love you” instead of “I love you too,” which is justified only by vampires being super-emotional.
For example, in the first section of chapter 45, there are ~8 lines about Bella rationalizing about her and Edward’s disappointment, and then ~2 lines about exchanging comfort that didn’t depend on rationalization. The reader’s impression is that rationalizing is at least four times as important as comfort: you gave us a walkthrough of Bella’s thoughts on the matter, but no details about her and Edward’s actions. Italicizing the “our” doesn’t capture why Bella wants Edward’s baby, and why Edward wants Bella’s baby. It would have been easy and effective to write eight lines there so the comfort took up more of the page than the sour grapes.
If you make a habit of that- giving even equal description to emotion/perception than you do to rationalizations- then it’ll stand out. (Since action/rationalization tends to happen more, I mean equality in paragraph-lengths, not number of lines on each.) There are exceptional cases where the emotion is treated with the same level of depth than the rationalizations are- but for most of them, even more would help.
(On the subject of perception: the primary description we get of vampire senses is essentially “they’re too high-level to describe.” This is the Vizzini method- “Have you ever heard of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle? … Morons,” and it’s worse than just overwhelming. Write a paragraph or two or twelve about what it’s like to run through the trees, seeing their branches and twigs turn and dance all at once, able to focus on more than just one small bit. Ultraviolent is her new favorite color- why not tour botanical gardens, and get the full bee experience? The reason that “show don’t tell” is convincing is that the author demonstrates they have extra information: they don’t just know “love” is the symbol to call upon, they have an experience to describe to you.
I’m not saying immortality shouldn’t be part of the story- it should. I’m saying that the scale of Bella’s ambitions needs to be sensible. Why would any sane person do more about overthrowing the Volturi- who at that point had done nothing but help her- than convincing her parents to become immortal? I’m convinced my government is evil on a stupefying scale but I spend more time trying to create wealth and improve them than overthrow them. You’d have drama far more interesting than Grandma Betty’s fruitcake, but be operating on a level that doesn’t strain credulity or naturally lead to defeat.
I think another thing that bothers me, when it comes to Bella Guevera, is that neither of her stances have strong backing / she doesn’t rigorously examine them. There are strong reasons to prefer the Volturi to their absence (beyond their ability and inclination to murder those who think otherwise), and arguments against utilitarianism (I’m thinking of the Utility Monster here) demonstrably apply for vampires. Eating humans might be the most moral thing to do, from the utilitarian perspective. And counterarguments against that could also apply to animals- why don’t the Cullens have a ranch and drink the blood of their animals instead of hunting? Among other justifications, that’s already an accepted practice in some lactose-intolerant parts of Africa.
And so if the fic’s Bella sets on a violent path than requires risking her most cherished desires to achieve political goals she hasn’t fully examined, should we really call her rational or luminous? And if this a morality play where she does everything wrong and learns the error of her ways too late, why write that?
Yeah, Archangel’s a fine place to start, although it’s a little hard to say in what order you ought to read the angel books because they were written out of chronological order.
I actually explicitly address this one in the fic. I’m starting to doubt that you’ve been paying much attention.
Anyway, my point isn’t that Bella does everything wrong, or that she isn’t really luminous or smart or rational. She made mistakes, which stemmed more or less directly from flaws in her personality, and bad things happened.
I remember you addressing why a butchering facility is impractical. I don’t recall you addressing why it’s morally acceptable to hunt animals but not morally acceptable to hunt humans; if you did and I missed it, then I apologize sincerely, as that’s solid evidence I wasn’t paying attention.
What I’m talking about is not the Scottish method of making a blood pudding out of a butchered animal, but the Maasai method of bleeding a cow- essentially similar to the European method of milking cows or Canadian method of collecting maple sap. Since they’re doctors, they’d use syringes instead of arrows and plugs, but the basic idea would be the same: have a ‘dairy cow’ whose relevant organ is their marrow, not their udder.
They already considered this, but dismissed it, when it came to humans- they would be able to get the blood without killing, but would lose the benefit of calming animal blood.
(Since I’m thinking about this, the way I’d introduce it is not Bella thinking “wait, why are we killing them when we don’t have to?” or suddenly being interested in animal rights- but as a product of a debate where Bella raises the issue of vegetarianism with a human-eating vampire and the human-eater (particularly if it’s one that buys blood to consume, rather than killing) points out that Bella’s really not any better than the human-eaters or humans in general, and asks why they don’t put their morals into practice and abandon hunting- which Bella might then adopt as a great idea.)
I think the two main things that bother me about her mistakes are that, as far as I can tell, they come from flaws that you introduced and those flaws are unrelatable. Bella’s flaw is that she thinks that assassinating the world government is a good way to go about things (another way to think about this flaw is she considers politics more important than people). What’s the moral, here? Don’t try to assassinate world governments? I already knew that one, thanks.
What’s the deeper moral? If you’re vapid, the consequence is spending eternity telepathically beaming love at your husband, who is overcome by emotion and distracts you with the physical manifestation of that love. If you’re thoughtful, the consequence is spending eternity bound to a pile of ash while every day your husband’s ghost eats your liver anew. Why choose to rewrite the Prometheus myth?
The reasons I give for not having a butchering facility apply to any other facility that would keep domestic animals. The animals would still need a place to live that would be hard to pick up and move when the vampires got suspiciously youthful-looking for their claimed ages. Also, if the vampires were trying to keep animals alive, they would suck at it. The poor cows would die of stress from having to be around them.
As for your other criticisms: I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying the story I have chosen to tell. That’s a pity. I suggest you don’t waste more of your time on a story you don’t like. Hopefully you will be able to find something more worthy of your attention.
True- but one can buy animal blood much more easily than human blood. As far as I can tell, the sites I found googling only require a credit card, and your only contact will be the FedEx deliveryperson. The prices (about ~$150 to get as much sheep’s blood as it would take to fill a person) seem like they would be nowhere near troubling for vampires, and a front corporation doing medical research would be trivial to create.
Indeed, if Bella’s primary objection to vampires consuming blood is that it has to come from people, why not sell packaged blood to vampires? They still get the tasty blood they prefer, and people don’t have to die for it. They miss out on the calming effect, and more importantly miss out on the hunting, but I imagine there must be some vampires out there who don’t live to hunt, or would prefer being able to reside more permanently by hunting less frequently.
It’s possible anyone willing to take that option would already be taking that option- but people are more willing to make changes the easier you make those changes. Again, directly relevant experience for people- “I’m going to help my neighbors switch to vegetarianism by grocery shopping and teaching recipes” over “I’m going to murder Jim Purdue.”
There is no need to apologize: you’ve written a story that you wanted to tell and it is no offense against me that it’s not the story I wanted to read. I think it’s mistaken, though, to consider time spent on things one doesn’t like a waste. I am still interested by the story, I am still attracted by the story’s potential; I just think the choices you’ve made are suboptimal, and believe it’s better to explain to you why I responded that way than fling my hands up in disgust and silently fade away.
I do feel the need to mention I do not expect you to change the story to suit my tastes- if I lend weight to any changes, I expect the most likely would be you deciding to beef up some descriptions. But I hope the feedback is useful even if not reacted to.
Why would vampires put themselves in charge of keeping the animals alive? It’s been established that the Cullens have staggering amounts of money. Just find a small, publicly-traded company that does something related to what you’re looking for, and buy up a controlling share of the stock. Make some unreasonable demands, ratchet up relevant salaries until those demands start sounding very reasonable indeed, then add layer after layer of nondisclosure agreements just in case. Once it’s set up, you never need to visit again. They mail the packaged, refrigerated blood to an entirely separate institution whose sole purpose, in this context at least, is to keep track of your forwarding address.
Routine problems can be handled by professional investigators of the appropriate sort (would Temple Grandin qualify as a witch in this setting?) and severe/bizarre/supernatural problems can be handled by divesting yourself of the shares, starting over from scratch with a different company, and leaving just enough lawyers in your wake to remind those involved that the nondisclosure agreement still applies.
As often as necessary, packages of animal blood arrive in the mail. If someone notices, you mumble something about medical research; if they call you on it, explain in shameful tones that your spouse has a weird fetish, you found a company that sells the stuff, all very humane, it’s expensive but who can put a price on a happy marriage, and (depending on how the situation develops) follow up with either an indignant rant about the rights of consenting adults within the privacy of their own home, or pleading and an appropriate bribe.
I’ve stated elsewhere under this post that I’ve ruled that animal blood is impossible to tolerate when it isn’t fresh. This is to explain the canon fact that the Cullens do not keep any preserved animal blood in their home, which would make immense sense if it were drinkable that way.
Even with that constraint, it would be financially feasible to create a ‘filling station’ within half a night’s walk of any given house, and the technicians still don’t need to see any ‘customers’ face-to-face. Just run the IV pipe through an opaque wall, and set up appointments by calling ahead.
The story isn’t finished yet...
Sure, Herakles comes by and kills the eagle. Even the Greeks weren’t that cruel.
The motivation for that objection is that the only non-pathological reason to be rational is it improves your life. So, when a story shows characters making worse decisions and leading worse lives than normal, I find it hard to swallow that they’re behaving more rationally or living more luminously, and I become skeptical of the author’s models of rationality and luminosity.
Just checking: your standard of “than normal”, for Bella, is the plot of canon Twilight, which you have not read, in which canon Bella only survives her many insanely stupid decisions via Plot Armor, and in which canon a confrontation in which the Volturi drew out unprecedented resources in order to attempt to deal with the Cullen family and their witnesses ended with no fighting, no casualties, and no unhappy endings whatsoever except for the part where the overwhelming majority of vampires go on murdering humans several times a month but that’s okay because nobody Bella likes is hurt?
Yes. Because every fanfic, by its nature, invites comparisons with the original before all other works. Even if the reader has only read the fanfic.
My consequentialism may be showing through a bit more than it should, but it seems reasonable to me that someone who reads two stories with the same source will compare their endings, and will make judgments based on those endings. (For reference, the “canon Twilight” I have read is checking the wiki, not slogging through the books.)
If your argument is that canon Twilight was a Promethean story where Bella should have been struck down for stealing Vampirism from the gods and bestowing it to men, and the only reason Aro and company failed to do so is because they’re idiots, I have neither the experience nor the inclination to counter that argument.
Because that’s not what interests me. What interests me is the choice presented: if canon Bella made stupid choices that should have gotten her killed, and our Bella is different, will we make her make smarter choices or have worse luck?
Yes, rational agents should WIN. But, as Eliezer explains
If you care about improving the entire world, you just might end up multiplying small probabilities by large utilities, and concluding that you should take chances that are likely to go bad for you personally.
Also, it doesn’t seem right to compare the results of Canon!Bella to Luminous!Bella, who is facing tougher challenges. It wouldn’t be right to say that Frodo’s Jedi powers were actively harmful when his greater problems came from Sauron’s Death Star.
First off, thanks for the link- that was a rather informative read, though I feel it supports my position rather strongly.
That’s an argument for becoming a cancer researcher instead of an investment banker, and I agree that can be commendable. That’s an argument for signing the Declaration of Independence, and I agree that can be commendable.
That is not an argument for deciding to swim across the Atlantic and kill King George with your bare hands.
My complaints about Luminous!Bella’s personality and plans are twofold: first, her motivations are nonsensical, and second, her plans are idiotic.
I won’t bring up any of my complaints about utilitarianism proper, but just comment that it is entirely self-defeating and out-of-character for Bella to adopt it. What does she have, and what does she want? She and her sole, destined mate are both vulnerable to other vampires but not to age, and she enjoys his presence more than any human can enjoy life. She should want to preserve herself and her mate at almost all costs.
I put in the ‘almost’ because it’s feasible that Bella would prefer some goal to her and Edward’s personal survival. It would make sense for her to sacrifice herself to save Edward (if he didn’t prefer the opposite), say, or to save a massive number of people. We know, though, from her thoughts in Chapter 23, that human Bella explicitly prefers herself to other people. She might change her mind when it’s a large number of people, but I wouldn’t bet on it, and the odds go lower when she turns into a vampire, because her life is then that much more valuable.
So, it is possible that Bella would decide to sacrifice herself to save everyone else, but that’s not something humans (particularly female humans) do very frequently, and it’s not something Bella has a history of doing. It’s also not terribly relatable because few people have a chance to sacrifice themselves to save the world; at most, people can divert their time and resources towards improving their local world. Bella is even more attached to her local world than most humans, and humans are already very attached to it.
Those discussions of motivation all assume Bella has a chance of being effective. If she knew it was her life or 6 billion human lives, I hope she would pick the 6 billion human lives. If she knew it was her life or a one billionth chance of saving 6 billion human lives, why would we expect her to put her life on the line for six lives?
I’m not saying the odds are against her because she’s an idiot, or that it’s unfair for Alicorn to give her a one billionth chance of success- that seems pretty realistic to me. The thing that’s idiotic is that she doesn’t even think that there might not be a way for her to win until she’s already lost. Victorious warriors win first, then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
So, again, the story works as a morality play. If a plan requires you to not talk to anyone else about it, then it’s doomed to failure, and you shouldn’t try. But morality plays strike me as inferior to positive stories: teach that preparation leads to victory by showing someone who prepares and wins, not by showing someone who fails to prepare and loses. They may have lost for a number of reasons.
I think the word “tougher” there is obfuscating, because there are changes on several different levels. Everyone is smarter, but Bella has hubris in the Greek sense.
Essentially, this isn’t Frodo having to use his Jedi powers against the Death Star. This is Sauron using his Sith powers to send the Nazgul to kill Frodo before he leaves the Shire. Then Sauron flies the Ring back, and game over.
While realistic, it makes for a poor rationalist story. Especially when Frodo is the rationalist and Sauron is a murderous autocrat.
I keep on bringing up the Greek myths because the Greek myths are horrible life lessons for modern people. “Don’t taunt the gods” is bad advice for scientists. And so when I see a new story forged in the model of a Greek myth, I try and dig deep and figure out why. When I see someone associating their protagonist with hubris- not justified confidence, but hubris in its full sense- I get worried. Why not imagine a world without hubris- a world where cleverness allows you to bypass the gods? Why not imagine people clever enough to see the trap of hubris and ignore it? Why choose hubris?
Maybe Alicorn can give us both: tragic failure here, analysis of the failure in the “media res” introductory chapter, and the positive lesson in the promised sequel. Works for me.
I dunno, but I’ve never read one that doesn’t.
If you considered yourself able to take over the world (which all ultra-rationalist characters (whether pro- or antagonists) seem to) then actually taking it over would be one of the most rational things you could do.
This is the part that confuses me, though. Maybe it’s just because I’ve studied economics and/or am a libertarian, but as soon as you realize that the world is ordered by systems instead of by people then the idea of taking over the world is ludicrous. There’s a great Steve Jobs quote-
And so, when I see someone who thinks they can, let alone should, take over the world, the first impression I get is the “d’awww” that mature adults feel when they see a pretentious teenager. And maybe stories about pretentious teenagers are valuable? But I found that I became a mature adult by, among other things, reading about mature adults. And it seems to me that a pretty important precondition to rationality is being a mature adult (or, perhaps more correctly, the idea of being rational and the idea of mature adulthood are strongly connected).
I agree on all points. But tales of ultra-rationalists (at least when they’re protagonists) are wish-fulfillment stories. That’s why they’re fun to read. If they were realistic then they’d quickly end up with the protagonist shattered, her loved ones killed or scattered, and the ruling systems just as entrenched as ever (if not even stronger).
Which is why I’m pretty sure Elspeth will succeed where Bella failed. These sorts of stories aren’t meant to be accurate reflections of the real world, they’re meant to give a vicarious thrill as the hero finally brings down all those bastards that are screwing things up for the rest of us. If I wanted a realistic story that ended in the crushing of the human soul under the heel of an inhuman system I’d watch the news.
There is, of course, a third option. The rationalist who sets their sights on something human-scaled instead of humanity-scaled is likely to do very well for themselves.
And so, in some sense, it’s worth examining the scope and effect of wish-fulfillment stories. If I play a lot of video games where I’m the only relevant character who reshapes all of reality around him according to my whims, what does that do to my empathy? My narcissism? My ability to reshape reality, and my satisfaction with the changes I attempt? If I read a lot of books about the lives of software pioneers and their companies, what does that do to my empathy? My narcissism? My ability to reshape reality, and my satisfaction with the changes I attempt? If I read a lot of books about successful relationships, how people work, and how to control myself, what does that do to my empathy? My narcissism? My ability to reshape reality, and my satisfaction with the changes I attempt?
It’s difficult to write a story about start-ups. (Either the idea is good and has been done, so you’re writing history instead of fiction, or good and not done, in which case you should be doing it not writing about it, or bad, in which case disbelief will be hard to suspend.) But it’s easy to see someone using rationality to turn around their relationship or their life or a school or business.
The author’s problem is twofold: those problems are hard, and those problems are local. Stories tend to go for the cheapest thing: the cheapest/simplest plot is one person punching another, and the cheapest emotional hook is the fate of the world.
But those problems are solvable. And I, as suggested, would love a rationalist story where the hero devotes their time to solving useful, even if they are limited, problems instead of figuring out the best way to punch someone. You can see this in HP:MoR: compare the chapters where Harry is trying to figure out magic, or convert Draco, to the Azkaban chapters. (I am in the early early stages of starting a rationalist work on these lines; I abandoned fiction writing ~6 years ago and do not expect to be good at it, but we’ll see if I get happy enough with it to show the public.)
My thoughts here are that, for Elspeth, succeeding is having an accurate idea of what scope she can change the world at. That was Bella’s core failure: her delusions of grandeur. For Elspeth, who has a less useful power, no ultra-rich family with several massively useful witches, and only half-vampire status, for her to defeat the Volturi where Bella failed seems to me to be impossible (unless she does the “well, I’m going to steal a bunch of money, buy a bunch of explosives, and burn Volterra to the ground” plan, which is definitely not the utilitarian way to conduct regime change).
I don’t mind that this lesson, which is of critical importance, is a really painful one. Pain is the best teacher. I mind that Bella didn’t know it beforehand, but it’s a reasonable flaw to give a character (especially if you’re writing for the LW community, apparently). But if Alicorn has the second book narrated by Elspeth and she makes the same mistakes as Bella (especially if she lucks into a win), then I will stop reading in disgust.
Unless it’s been done in the real world but not in the world you’re writing in, in which case you may be Terry Pratchett.
Put in a separate post: I am strongly considering writing a top-level post about the failings of utilitarianism, because I see that as very strongly linked to Bella’s scope failure (the utilitarian goal is the Volturi gone, thus I should eradicate the Volturi). I’ll also write it for people, not for fictional characters, if that’s a worry.
If you are interested in seeing my thoughts on the matter, vote this up; if disinterested, vote this down. (But not negative, please, my karma is tiny!)
I would strongly prefer that my characters not be used as examples in non-fiction didactic works at least until I announce that I have finished with the story. (I currently expect Radiance to be the last work I do in the universe.)
Understood and anticipated, though I certainly could have been clearer. I would write what I know- anarchism- not what I don’t know- your characters.
This is a reply deep in a thread on a relatively old post, you won’t likely get many people that even see this request. :) If you’re nervous about publishing a top-level post, at least float something on the discussion side. I agree that utilitarianism is severely flawed. My reason is that humans simply don’t have enough computing power to ever implement utilitarianism decently, it would take an entity with orders of magnitude more intellectual strength to be a utilitarian with falling into a Bella spiral.
Deontology that is steered by utilitarian goals and occasionally modified by utilitarian analysis, OTOH, seems very workable and keeps the best of utilitarianism while factoring for human realities (but I’ve been plugging Desirism for a while now).
That indeed looks exactly like what I was looking for: I had seen people use the pattern I modeled reading through comments, which were probably from before that got implemented.
Sounds interesting, you should put it up somewhere regardless. Because A) it can’t be that bad, and B) unless you’ve got a public reading it and demanding more, you’ll very likely never actually go forward with this. :)
But not one of the wisest (because most people who have taken over suddenly realize exactly how much of a pain it is to actually run the world that you’ve just taken over)
Exactly; Baron Wulfenbach from Girl Genius comes to mind, or the The Onion article entitled “Black Man Given America’s Worst Job.”