Now i’m wondering about that too. The best way to show how rationality wins (if it does, in fact, win) would be to show how it works even for someone of average intelligence—otherwise you can never be sure if you’re looking at the effects of superior intelligence instead.
A very intelligent but irrational person is easy to show, but a rational yet dumb one seems much harder to me. I suppose you could ham-fist it by making them suck at various intellectual challenges—any better ideas?
A very intelligent but irrational person is easy to show, but a rational yet dumb one seems much harder to me. I suppose you could ham-fist it by making them suck at various intellectual challenges—any better ideas?
I thought early Bella from Luminosity did a pretty good job at showing someone rational but with no special cognitive abilities (we’re talking about averages, here, not idiots). She just had noticed her limitations and practiced at overcoming them, but that by itself was very good at making her more effective.
One of the simplest author tricks I can come up with is to give your character a thought speed and stick to it. Harry seems to run through ten lines of text in seconds, sometimes, but if you go with, say, your speed reading aloud you can get a reasonable estimate of how long it takes an average person to ponder something. People can mention how they zone out; they can miss opportunities; they can not come up with a good enough solution in time. They can make conscious decisions about what they will and will not think about.
Stubbornly agreeing with an outside view prediction even when faced with many convincing arguments why this example is special, if most examples are expected to have similarly convincing arguments.
Stubbornly refusing to consider solutions to a problem before examining it more carefully.
Quickly changing opinion when faced with a valid argument, even though it “should” be emotionally unconvincing.
You can catch a glimpse of this in Harry dealing with McGonagall if you remember that adults are significantly prejudiced against children, before his extraordinary intelligence overpowers and dissolves the situation.
Assuming their goal is to remove the prejudice, my guess is they would work within the confines of the prejudice where possible, towards changing the environment into a place where the prejudice is untenable. Something like agitating for a law that requires subservient tasks to be performed by the prejudiced group, then pulling a Fight-Club-esque “we drive your ambulances, we guard you while you sleep.” In a smaller environment such as a woman in an unenlightened workplace, become the indispensable secretary to everyone and then punish the prejudice when it appears (changing the environment so that the prejudice is now directed at an authority figure).
It would be an unfolding plan rather than an impassioned speech and I expect would involve a lot of simple judo-ing of peoples’ surface treatments of the issue.
Now I’m wondering what fiction about a rationalist who’s not extraordinarily intelligent and who’s up against significant prejudice would look like.
Now i’m wondering about that too. The best way to show how rationality wins (if it does, in fact, win) would be to show how it works even for someone of average intelligence—otherwise you can never be sure if you’re looking at the effects of superior intelligence instead.
A very intelligent but irrational person is easy to show, but a rational yet dumb one seems much harder to me. I suppose you could ham-fist it by making them suck at various intellectual challenges—any better ideas?
I thought early Bella from Luminosity did a pretty good job at showing someone rational but with no special cognitive abilities (we’re talking about averages, here, not idiots). She just had noticed her limitations and practiced at overcoming them, but that by itself was very good at making her more effective.
One of the simplest author tricks I can come up with is to give your character a thought speed and stick to it. Harry seems to run through ten lines of text in seconds, sometimes, but if you go with, say, your speed reading aloud you can get a reasonable estimate of how long it takes an average person to ponder something. People can mention how they zone out; they can miss opportunities; they can not come up with a good enough solution in time. They can make conscious decisions about what they will and will not think about.
Stubbornly refusing to believe in magic.
Stubbornly agreeing with an outside view prediction even when faced with many convincing arguments why this example is special, if most examples are expected to have similarly convincing arguments.
Stubbornly refusing to consider solutions to a problem before examining it more carefully.
Quickly changing opinion when faced with a valid argument, even though it “should” be emotionally unconvincing.
You can catch a glimpse of this in Harry dealing with McGonagall if you remember that adults are significantly prejudiced against children, before his extraordinary intelligence overpowers and dissolves the situation.
Assuming their goal is to remove the prejudice, my guess is they would work within the confines of the prejudice where possible, towards changing the environment into a place where the prejudice is untenable. Something like agitating for a law that requires subservient tasks to be performed by the prejudiced group, then pulling a Fight-Club-esque “we drive your ambulances, we guard you while you sleep.” In a smaller environment such as a woman in an unenlightened workplace, become the indispensable secretary to everyone and then punish the prejudice when it appears (changing the environment so that the prejudice is now directed at an authority figure).
It would be an unfolding plan rather than an impassioned speech and I expect would involve a lot of simple judo-ing of peoples’ surface treatments of the issue.