14 KiB
The Standard Accepted Rational Fictions
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Author: u/EliezerYudkowsky Godric Gryffindor*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/1wriom/the_standard_accepted_rational_fictions/
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Score: 27
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Created: 2014-02-01T23:39:55
Post:
Can we have a compiled list of the fictions that obviously, definitely meet the standard for being considered rational/rationalist? And maybe put it in a sidebar, or in a wiki (and then sidebar-link to the wiki)?
Here are some old masters' non-fanfictions that should surely be on the list:
Comments:
u/None [+6] (21 minutes later)
Sounds like a fine idea. Unless /u/seraphnb wants to do this tonight as a last modding act, I'll get on it tomorrow evening.
(Sorry, but it's late at night for me and I have an exam in the morning.)
u/rthomas2 [+6] (14 days later)
Annoying nitpick: This should be called "works of Rationalist Fiction." "Rationalist Fictions" would, in current vernacular, mean "lies told by Rationalists", usually with the connotation of politics.
u/keturn [+1] (15 days later)
The World of Null-A is still published (in DRM-free formats, no less), no need to link a pirate scan.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+11] Godric Gryffindor (15 days later)
The book was first published in 1948. I cannot morally approve of its continued copyright.
u/SoundLogic2236 [+3] (16 days later)
1954-2008 didn't actually happen. It turns out the laws of physics use discrete sums of surprisingly large intervals. How does this effect your claims of duration in ethics?
u/rthomas2 [+1] (2 months later)
Copyright as currently implemented is wrong, but not because anyone says so; because it objectively impairs the quality of a society. I imagine this is what Eliezer meant, though perhaps his implication was less clear than it could have been. Still, true philosophers take all statements in bona fide, meaning that they do not dispute statements, simply attempt to clarify them--for no one can believe an untruth, though they may occasionally undergo confusion..
u/lodhuvicus [+1] (18 days later)
"Copyright law doesn't matter because I'm Eliezer Fucking Yudkowsky."
u/DiscyD3rp [+3] Wannabe Shakespeare (a month later)
Copyright was created as an incentive for authors to create works without fear of theft and no profit. Why write Harry Potter if the first person to read it can make their own copies and sell them just a rightfully?
However, maintaining that copyright years past the creators death is completely unjustifiable. Idk about you, but my utility function (in regards to money) doesn't really go past my death, seeing as I wont be around to get paid. The Copyright is now just lining the pockets of whomever's got their hands on it, and happens to be disincentivizing derivative creative works while no longer rewarding the creation of original works! I've yet to hear a single good argument for why copyright should last as long as it currently does.
u/None [+5] (2 months later)
The best I can come up with is that extending copyright past the author's death removes the incentive of assassinating someone to make money off his work. Which would probably make more sense with patents that you can use to make commercial products than books that you couldn't make that much money off of, especially if everyone else could sell and make copies too.
u/lodhuvicus [+0] (a month later)
And this justifies breaking the law how?
u/DiscyD3rp [+2] Wannabe Shakespeare (a month later)
because causality goes in the other direction than what you seem to be saying. What's right and wrong should be used to justify what should and shouldn't be put into law. It's wrong to maintain copyright for >60 years, ergo the law that attempts to do such a thing is wrong. And there's nothing bad about breaking a law that's wrong.
u/None [+1] (2 months later)
What about the author of Peter Pan selling his copyright to a hospital that he liked so that all profits after his death went to charity for that hospital and the treatment of patients in that hospital?
u/DiscyD3rp [+2] Wannabe Shakespeare (2 months later)
It's a matter of game theory. Of course the author should be able to sell the copyright, but should these kinds of situations influence our decision making on what length a copyright should be maintained for? I would argue "only so much as it influences an author's decision to write the book in the first place."
If a ten year reduction on copyright would have meant Peter Pan was never written, then it'd be tough to say. How much do we value that book?
u/qznc [+1] Chaos Legion (5 months later)
In Germany there is "Urheberrecht", which is usually translated as "copyright", but has some subtle differences. For example, you cannot sell the right. You can give out licences and it can be inherited. Time limit is currently 70 years.
u/lodhuvicus [+0] (a month later)
You're missing the point: breaking the law is no way to change the law. Whether copyright law is justified or not, breaking it only hinders your cause.
u/JackStargazer [+4] Primordial Apologist (2 months later)
Actually, most of the time laws only get changed after or because someone has broken them.
This is not just the standard civil disobedience argument, that one is common and I have no particular skill which would allow me to speak accurately about it.
The two main ways laws do change however are via legislative rewriting or judicial review. Judicial review can cause laws invalidated for constitutional reasons to be destroyed, changing the current state of the law itself. What most people do not think about however is that the court is a purely reactionary institution.
The court cannot simply say "Hey, we were reading that law you passed and it's no good", they must wait until a case comes to bar that touches directly on the law itself. Not only that, but they must wait until an advocate for one side in that case makes an argument that the law should be set aside for one reason or another. That advocate would only be doing so if it benefited the one they represented for it to be so. That likely means that person has broken that law. That is how it happens.
The other time the law will be changed is when the legislature changes it. Legislatures are inherently focused entirely around electable platforms. Elections are what drives policy, you put policy into place so you will win support in the next election. Laws which are not important to your policy or to public opinion tend to not be modified, even if legally they cause enormous issues - in Canada, our Criminal Code both has 30 sections or so that have been eliminated but still exist in the printed version, because Parliament hasn't updated it since 1985, and has no section with clear definitions of all included terms which causes a hell of a lot of problems.
As such, we know that issues which are in the public eye, and which are policies which can effect an election, tend to get changed. I can list off the top of my head a dozen or more instances of controversial court rulings on a case, usually criminal, which prompted legislative reform of the laws governing that case. This would never have happened if that crime had not happened, been prosecuted, and then created a media frenzy, which led to political fallout. And again at the base of this, you have a person who committed a crime - breaking the law.
It is in fact very, very rare for a law to get changed without a direct correlation to a time it had been broken. It's one of those ever so wise sounding statements spoken by those who think they know how something occurs, but doesn't understand the actual numbers. Something that sounds good, a meme that is oft repeated, but something that has no basis in actual fact.
Of course, by the same logic, breaking a law is much less likely to lead to that law being changed than it is to you being punished for the transgression. That doesn't change the fact that change only tends to happen at some point after a breach, even it it is less that 0.1% of cases.
As most things in life, it ends up being a lot more complicated than just 'Don't do x'.
u/lodhuvicus [+1] (2 months later)
Actually, most of the time laws only get changed after or because someone has broken them.
Do you have a source for this claim? (Not the "after" claim, of course people break laws.)
While I agree, for the most part, with the rest of your post, I don't see how any of that changes my point. (That "breaking the law is no way to change the law. Whether copyright law is justified or not, breaking it only hinders your cause.") A D-list pseudointellectual like Yudkowsky breaking copyright law, even if his posse helps out, won't change shit.
u/JackStargazer [+3] Primordial Apologist (2 months later)
In the US, the number of laws overturned or changed by the Supreme Court is a matter of public record.
Unconstitutional and Preempted Laws 1789-2002 According to the GPO (Government Printing Office Database):
1789-2002 Acts of Congress Held as Unconstitutional..............................158
1789-2002 State Statutes held unconstitutional......................................935
1789-2002 City Ordinances held unconstitutional....................................222
1789-2002 State and City laws preempted by Federal laws.......................224
Total State, Local and Federal Laws Declared Unconstitutional................1,315
Total State and Local Law Preempted by Federal Laws..............................224
Total Laws Overturned, all governments..............................................1,539
This of course doesn't cover all changes to law which come as a result of previous cases however. Part of my post above is about how public opinion and reactionary responses to past cases (even those which failed to change laws) is one of the primary drivers in the alteration of laws. I don't have on hand statistics on the ratios or similar on that, and as it was something I spent 8 months on in a single class in law school, accurate evidence is likely not something that can be summarized quickly in a reddit post.
As an aside, I made no claims on the effectiveness of Yudkowsky breaking laws in this case, or copyright in general, simply a general point on law itself.
u/lodhuvicus [-2] (2 months later)
the Supreme Court
This is only a part of the data I asked for, and it doesn't even address your claim at all. I really doubt that there is data on that sort of thing.
u/Escapement [+0] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (an hour later)
If this community continues and grows, and everyone upvotes fictions that are 'rationalist' and downvotes those that are not 'rationalist', then sorting the subreddit by top - all time would serve much the same purpose. That said, a lot of works upvoted on this subreddit don't really meet most definitions of rationalist I use, sadly, so some form of curated index would be very appreciated.
I would be hugely in favor of more people posting actual books and novels rather than just web-based fiction.
Thanks for the recs, by the way - I hadn't heard of Marc Stiegler before now, and I will have to find and try his stuff.
u/None [+6] (5 hours later)
[removed]
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (8 hours later)
Reddit really needs to implement "Best - all time" instead to get rid of that bias.
u/jaiwithani [+1] Insufficient data for a meaningful answer (2 days later)
This exists - click "top"
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (2 days later)
Top and Best sorting are different. Top is simple upvotes minus downvotes, while Best is a confidence interval type of thing (explained here).
u/Paladin_Neph [+3] Knights of Slaanesh (16 hours later)
If this community continues and grows, and everyone upvotes fictions that are 'rationalist' and downvotes those that are not 'rationalist', then sorting the subreddit by top - all time would serve much the same purpose.
...and that seems like a probable scenario to you?
u/earnestadmission [+7] Singular "they" user (a day later)
this plan requires three things to go right.
Seems... tenuous.
u/rthomas2 [+0] (14 days later)
Should we consider Song of Ice and Fire as Rationalist? Should we consider Ender's Game as well?
Also, an obscure one: Vampire High by Douglas Rees might count. There's some very fun supernatural munchkinry afoot, not to mention it's a great book (which has NO SEQUEL. IGNORE THE NONEXISTANT SEQUEL.)
u/kybernetikos [+2] (2 months later)
ASOIAF is deep and can be analysed deeply, and in a few respects has a more real feel than similar works but I'm not sure why anyone would consider it rationalist.
u/rthomas2 [+1] (2 months later)
Because the smart win and the stupid lose ;)