## [RT] How to Succeed in Evil series. Edwin Windsor, Evil Efficiency Consultant tries to optimize his clients' evil careers. Maybe one day, they'll actually listen to his evil advice. Free evil audiobook and evil promotional comic, evil sequel and evil prequel on evil amazon.

* Author: u/Prezombie *
* URL: http://succeedinevil.com/
* Score: 19

* Created: 2014-08-15T15:45:27

### Post:

[Link to content](http://succeedinevil.com/)

### Comments:

> **u/blazinghand** [+9]  *Chaos Undivided* (2 days later)
> 
> An excerpt that may sell you on the novel:
> 
> >“So 20 years helping people with their rental cars, 40 hours a week at $10 an hour would be $400,000.”
> >
> >“$400,000! Without stealing anything?”
> >
> >“Without stealing anything. So, we’ll say the cost of getting caught would be the $400,000 you would give up in income.
> >
> >“Now, let’s say that you got away with the money 95% of the time. But there is still a 5% chance that you will end up in jail for 20 years.”
> >
> >“But NO ONE CAN — ”
> >
> >“Catch the mighty Lifto. Yes of course. But humor me. Stay with the numbers for just a moment longer. So 95% times a $10,000 benefit is $9,500. This is the incremental benefit to you of robbing a bank. That is, if our hypothetical Lifto were to rob an infinite number of banks.”
> >
> >“An INFINITE amount of money.”
> >
> >“Yes. Very good,” (and very loud, thinks Edwin). “That would be an infinite amount of money.”
> >
> >“So I go rob banks now. Thank you.”
> >
> >“Wait, wait, we haven’t factored in the cost yet.”
> >
> >“Lifto don’t like costs.”
> >
> >“Neither do I, Lifto.”
> >
> >“Costs suck.”
> >
> >“Yes, they do. But we know that already. The only question left to us is how much do they actually ‘suck’ as you say. So, there is a 5% chance that you will get caught — I’m sorry, sorry, that the hypothetical Lifto will get caught — times negative $400,000 is negative $20,000. So, over time, each time you rob a bank it costs you $20,000 dollars.
> >
> >“But there’s an infinite number of banks,” says Lifto with dreams of filthy lucre glittering in his eyes.
> >
> >“Yes, yes, so we add the costs and the benefits to learn what the true value of robbing a bank is to you and we see that, over time, it costs you -$10,500 each time you rob a bank.”
> >
> >“What!”
> >
> >“The numbers do not lie, Lifto.

> **u/logrusmage** [+4]  (49 minutes later)
> 
> So he's like Henry Killinger and his Magical Murder Bag?

>> **u/Prezombie** [+1]  (57 minutes later)
>> 
>> Yes! Only without the creepy Mary Poppins vibe. And honestly, Edwin's ideas are more entertaining.

>>> **u/logrusmage** [+2]  (an hour later)
>>> 
>>> >Only without the creepy Mary Poppins vibe. 
>>> 
>>> Aw... but I love the creepy Mary Poppins vibe!
>>> 
>>> I wonder if any other /r/rational peeps like Venture Bros. It isn't rational fiction but it is certainly a deconstruction of a ton of old school sci-fi and modern fantasy tropes. 
>>> 
>>> Ooooo Rational!Venture Bros would be cool. Maybe a Rational!Dean taking in and improving upon his dad's utter failure. Maybe uniting super-science and magic via Dr. Orpheus. Could be fun. Though the entire point of VB is that everyone on the show is a failure.

>>>> **u/Prezombie** [+5]  (an hour later)
>>>> 
>>>> In a way, it is rationalist fiction, just that rationalism is only in the script rather than the characters. Promises die, failsafes fail, people make do and move on, and things never go as planned.

>>>>> **u/dysfunctionz** [+14]  (2 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I wish there wasn't this idea that rational fiction means the characters are rational. People aren't rational. I enjoy competence porn like HPMOR as much as the next human on this sub, but avoiding the idiot ball doesn't require characters to be intimately familiar with Bayes' rule or expected utility; it just requires the world they inhabit to operate as closely as is possible to either the real laws of physics and human behavior or to the setting's made up internally-consistent equivalents of such (such that if there *were* a hyper competent Bayesian character they would win everything).

>>>>>> **u/None** [+13]  (3 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> > competence porn
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> That's a *really* good piece of terminology.

>>>>>>> **u/Chronophilia** [+2]  *sci-fi ≠ futurology* (6 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Keep using it, maybe we can get it to stick.

>>>>>> **u/Zephyr1011** [+2]  *Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity* (4 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I much prefer to read fiction where the characters are rational and tend to act logically, than just do stupid things for no good reason. The value of this subreddit is in giving me access to lots of wonderful stories like that. Lumping in fiction where the characters do not act rationally would detract from that. Calling fiction where characters act rationally rational fiction and coming up with a different name for what you refer to would keep that distinction

>>>>>> **u/logrusmage** [+1]  (2 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> >but avoiding the idiot ball doesn't require characters to be intimately familiar with Bayes' rule or expected utility
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> What if all of the characters are explicitly idiots?

>>>>>>> **u/dysfunctionz** [+5]  (2 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> If there's a point to them all being idiots it can still be rational fiction- for instance, exploring in depth what a world would be like if everyone really were idiots. If it's mostly for comedy, like Venture Bros., it's probably not rational fiction anyway, but stuff doesn't have to be rational fiction to be *good* fiction (it helps though!).

>>>>>>> **u/Nepene** [+2]  (4 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In fiction characters often display an intellect well below that of an idiot. A supervillain who hates someone captures them and brings them to their base rather than killing them for example. To be better than most fiction is a very low bar.

>>>>>>> **u/Chronophilia** [+2]  *sci-fi ≠ futurology* (6 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I'm fine with such people - my favourite such villain is Mr. Kordana from *Freefall*.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The Idiot Ball trope refers to an otherwise intelligent character momentarily acting like an idiot for the purposes of plot advancement. As if they caught a ball, held it for a few seconds, then passed it on. It's bad characterisation, railroading, and more often than not creates massive plot holes.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Characters who are permanently and consistently stupid are fine by this trope, and I can grow to love them more than any hypercompetent invincible badass.

>>>>>>>> **u/DataPacRat** [+2]  *Amateur Immortalist* (7 hours later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> How about characters who aim for rationality but have explicitly questionable sanity?

>>>>>>>>> **u/Chronophilia** [+1]  *sci-fi ≠ futurology* (17 hours later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Sounds cool. Have you got an example in mind?

>>>>>>>>>> **u/DataPacRat** [+2]  *Amateur Immortalist* (a day later)
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Well, I'm /trying/ to write [one](http://www.datapacrat.com/SI/), though with questionable success...

>>>>> **u/logrusmage** [+1]  (an hour later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Very true. Of course, none of the characters are rational. Though technically, they don't hold the idiot ball... they're all just idiots, lol.

>>> **u/Imosa1** [+1]  (10 hours later)
>>> 
>>> He still has the accent though, right?

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