scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/2ud4co.md

## [RT][WIP][HSF] Set In Stone: Follower Chapter 04 Rational Stonepunk

* Author: u/Farmerbob1  *Level 1 author**
* URL: https://setinstonestory.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/chapter-04/
* Score: 8

* Created: 2015-02-01T01:37:21

### Post:

[Link to content](https://setinstonestory.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/chapter-04/)

### Comments:

> **u/Farmerbob1** [+3]  *Level 1 author* (17 hours later)
> 
> This was one chapter where I was expecting at least some pushback on something, since there was a lot of emotional content.  Emotion and rationality mix poorly, in general, but all of the characters are supposed to be rather pragmatic.  Did I really manage the chapter without breaking anyone's immersion?

>> **u/Empiricist_or_not** [+3]  *Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm* (18 hours later)
>> 
>> The one point that breaks immersion for me is Albert not interfering with trade that causes death.  It's necessary for the story but even after five minutes I can't see any logical path to it as a conclusion.

>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (19 hours later)
>>> 
>>> If I were to indicate a little more clearly that Albert expects the net outcome to be fewer people with violent tendencies in the world (and capable of reproducing) would that ease the loss of immersion?

>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> I can maybe see how Albert doesn't want to intervene when he doesn't absolutely have to. It was stated earlier that he believes the best course of action is to let humanity fend for itself wherever possible.
>>>> 
>>>> What I can't see is him *on principle* not interfering with economic policies that result in starvation, probable war, and lots of deaths, for the profit of a single state. This seems like exactly the behavior he wants humanity to grow away from.
>>>> 
>>>> Also, the result of war usually isn't less violent people in the long run. The winner (who was if not more violent, at least *more efficient* at being violent) gets more resources, conferring a survival advantage. I would expect this process to probably increase violent tendencies over time, not lessen them.
>>>> 
>>>> This isn't to say people can't *believe* that Albert doesn't interfere with economic policy on principle. Or that Albert wouldn't allow a war to occur. Just that what Albert *actually does* is consistent with his stated goals, and what he *actually allows to happen* for good and clear reasons strongly steers humanity in the direction of his goals.

>>>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I discussed this in answer to Empiricist_or_not, a couple posts above this.  There's also a much bigger entry of comments resulting from someone on the linked chapter page.

>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> I think a lot of the confusion is that Albert is seeking a nature solution to human conflict, not a nurture solution.  He literally wants to isolate out genetic material which results in violent reactions to conflict.
>>> 
>>> Even the most utopian society will have conflict.  Maybe it will be rare, but it will happen.  If the tendencies for human violence aren't weeded out, conflict even in a utopian society might lead to violence.
>>> 
>>> The evidence of human violence in a utopian society is exactly what Albert discovered to make him choose this course of action to begin with.

>> **u/OffColorCommentary** [+2]  (19 hours later)
>> 
>> There's an awkward spot where you go into a technical description of the swine carriage during the middle of a more emotional scene.  It's a pacing and tone problem, not an emotion vs rationality problem.
>> 
>> Albert's actions continue not to make sense if I think of him as an actual AI instead of a Hollywood AI, but I already filed that under my suspension of disbelief for this story.
>> 
>> > Emotion and rationality mix poorly, in general
>> 
>> I disagree.

>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (19 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Thank you.  I was worried about that.  I clearly need to touch it up to make it a little clearer that the swine carriage was intended as both a gift, as well as a way for Allen's grandfather to show affection without breaking down.

>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> > Emotion and rationality mix poorly, in general
>>>> 
>>>> I second the disagreement.
>>>> 
>>>> Emotionally-influenced behavior can be irrational, but doesn't always have to be. Being influenced by strong emotions is a perfectly valid character trait, and one that many real-life people share. And for that matter, having characters that do not always behave rationally is completely ok. In fact, how many people do you know who always behave rationally? (Hint, it's probably less than 1)
>>>> 
>>>> The requirement here is just that the reasons for the irrational behavior, and the situations in which characters act irrational needs to be *believable*, *consistent with their personality*, and *consistent with the narrative*. So if you put yourself in that person's shoes, it should be clear to see how they might act irrationally in that situation, given their personal disposition. And it should be equally clear to see how the story flows from and is influenced by that character's actions.

>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> I think I know what you are talking about, and touched it up a little, but Granpa was intentionally using the carriage as an excuse to allow him to break up the emotional burden.  At one point he used the carriage as a way to get Allen to bend over so he could ruffle his hair as if he were still a kid, which, of course, to Granpa, he still is.
>>> 
>>> I've tried to address some very good questions about Albert and the world in a recent, separate place.

>>>> **u/OffColorCommentary** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> I actually caught that you were going for that, and it's a subtle thing to convey, so you're doing well there.  The parts that I thought could use shortening - and it looks like it needs less of it now than it did when I first wrote my comment so maybe this is what you touched up - are these two paragraphs:
>>>> 
>>>> >“A swineherd’s carriage?”  I looked back at the carriage.  Knowing the name started to let me imagine the functions, and some of the strangeness started to make more sense.  The bundle of slats.  The holes in the planks that extended beyond the bottom of the frame of the carriage slightly.  The slats matched the holes.  I slid a slat out of the bundle and it fit into one of the holes in the plank with just a little room to wriggle.  It extended about a foot out of the top of the hole.  “The slats can make a pen under the carriage?”
>>>> 
>>>> > [Perfectly fine paragraph between them.]
>>>> 
>>>> >I put the slat back in the bundle and secured it.  Then I noticed that there was no door on this side of the carriage.  Looking inside the window, I did not see two benches facing one another as I expected.  There was no little aisle between the two benches that didn’t exist.  There was one very long, wide padded bench underneath the window I was looking in, on the side with no door.  No, the padding was a mattress.  The bench was a bed.  There were two cabinets, one on either side of the door opposite where I was looking.  There were little storage compartments of many different types everywhere.  I scanned the interior through the glass.  A few shelves with high lips so things wouldn’t slide off easily.  Side-swing doors over cubicles.  Netting across the ceiling.  Pull-out drawers of half a dozen different sizes.  “Granpa, this isn’t really a carriage, it’s a little house?”
>>>> 
>>>> Everything inside quotation marks in these is golden.  The rest - the puzzling and the descriptive bits - are what cut up the flow of a more emotionally-oriented scene.  It might work to rearrange the surrounding paragraphs so some of this information gets conveyed earlier, though my first impulse is always to cut as much as possible.

>>>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> That is a bit wordy and distractive, I suppose.  (Pulls out scissors.)  Let me take another look!

>>>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Broke it up a bit, simplified it some.  Made it try to feel more like the acceptance of a gift than an analysis.  Better?
>>>>> 
>>>>> **
>>>>> 
>>>>> "A swineherd's carriage?"  I looked back at the carriage.  Knowing the name started to let me imagine the functions, and some of the strangeness started to make more sense.  The bundle of slats.  The holes in the planks around the base of the carriage.  The slats matched the holes.  "The slats can make a pen under the carriage?"
>>>>> 
>>>>> "Very good.  Yes.  Some farms have dogs with more fight then sense.  If you're working a farm for a fee and some idiot dog tries to get at your swine when you aren't working them, the slats will delay things long enough to give you a chance to intervene.  Paying customers won't react well if they see your sounder eating one of their dogs.  Around here, people know better then let their dogs bother our swine, but it still happens now and then."
>>>>> 
>>>>> I nodded.  Having dealt with aggressive dogs a couple times myself, I knew how quickly swine vs. dog could escalate.  That's when I noticed that there was no door on my side of the carriage.  I touched the side of the carriage where the door should have been and looked at Granpa, who was watching me with a big grin on his face.
>>>>> 
>>>>> He nodded his head at me.  "Go on, look inside.  There's a reason there's no door on this side."
>>>>> 
>>>>> Puzzled, I looked inside the window.  I did not see two benches facing one another as I expected.  There was one very long, wide padded bench underneath the window.  As I scanned the inside of the carriage I saw cabinets and little storage compartments of many different types everywhere.  Shelves with high lips so things wouldn't slide off easily. Netting across the ceiling.  Pull-out drawers of half a dozen different sizes.  "Granpa, this isn't really a carriage, it's a little house?"

>>>>>> **u/OffColorCommentary** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yeah, that looks a lot better!

> **u/Farmerbob1** [+2]  *Level 1 author* (2 days later)
> 
> One reader was kind enough to point out some perceived problems with the story from a rationalist point of view.  Here are my responses.  If anything isn't clear, you might want to look at the link itself.
> 
> Q) Physically attempting to “coerce another to do your will” is wrong, but Albert gives a free pass when someone attempts to do the same economically.
> 
> A) Albert does not care what humans do economically or politically, provided that any who resort to violence repeatedly are removed from the gene pool by being sent to the prisons.  He is not trying to make vast, sweeping changes to the human genome.  He's trying to naturally select for nonviolence with as little impact on human genetics as he can, while keeping them at a technology level where they are unlikely to be able to effectively resist him.
> 
> Q) After all, the NT people aren’t going to force the SL people to starve. So if an SL person physical forces away three NT people, then that SL person would be branded and have to spend the rest of their live in a prison camp.
> 
> A) If there is a fight, and the one who instigated the fight was sixteen or older, they would have an adult fighting infraction placed upon them, true.  However, it is very possible and permissible to defend oneself and/or one's possessions, as long as your intent is to protect someone, or something valuable.  If an NT person walks up to a SL person's granary and tries to take a bag of grain, and the SL person and their family restrains them, then there was not necessarily a fight.  If blows are exchanged, then Albert would interview all involved, and determine who lost control and started the fight.  Think of it like fouls in a basketball game.  There are all sorts of permissible ways to physically pressure your opponents, but if you go over the line.  Bam. Foul.  Three fouls as an adult, and you're out of the gene pool.
> 
> Q) Look, only mentally ill people harm themselves, right?
> 
> A) Wrong.  I would harm myself to protect my family.  I suspect you would too, unless you come from a truly dysfunctional family.  I would also harm others who are not my family, in order to protect those that are my family.  Not as a first choice, but if I have to choose, my family wins.
> 
> Q) Albert should be attempting to get everyone to see everyone else as part of the greater whole.
> 
> A) No, you are misunderstanding Albert's goal here.  Removing the potential for conflict does not alter how humans deal with conflict, when that conflict does inevitably happen.  He cannot select against something that he never allows to happen.
> 
> Q) Albert is carrying a strong stick, but he doesn’t seem to be using any form of carrots and a carrot/stick combination always work out better than just a stick.
> 
> A) Albert provides infallible law enforcement when called upon.  He provides knowledge when requested.  He provides guidance on genetic policy.  While it has not been clearly indicated, he modifies pest species, controls invasive species, and prevents extinctions when he is asked to help doing so.  He mostly stays aloof, and people who are in positions to get his attention generally don't want to get his attention unless they really can't handle a situation themselves, and it's serious.
> 
> Q) Albert has already made it clear that he’s just fine with selfishness, which really seems the wrong tact to take when you’re trying to encourage everyone to love each other and treat each other like close family, and also contradictory when you’re fine with selfishness that hurts other people but don’t favor selfishness that introduces a net gain.
> 
> A) It becomes clearer that we are having a nature vs. nurture argument here.  Albert does not want a world without conflict.  He wants a world where conflict is resolved without violence.  The only way to prevent all conflict is by enforcing perfect stasis, which is not something that he wants to inflict on humanity.
> 
> Q) (#17): When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice. -> Albert never asks any of the people that represent him for advice. In fact, if they ever attempt to communicate with him for any reason at all, they are deemed to have failed. (#32) I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by. -> Nobody wants to give any message to Albert for any reason, because it will mean that they have “failed” and the “trapdoor” might very well open underneath them — they might be back working in the fields.
> 
> A) Albert is able to tell when those responsible for calling him are doing so because they are being lazy or are no longer mentally competent.  When he does seek out replacement contacts, he specifically seeks out people who are patient, competent, thoughtful, and confident.  I don't think it would hurt things too much to reveal a little early that Albert will never remove someone from office that requests his attention for something worthwhile that they truly do need help with - and his chosen contacts know it. The contacts are forbidden to tell others about the real limits on them, because that would cause conflict between the contacts and the people they represent, as people constantly try to sidestep the authority of the contacts to get to the 'real' authority.  By being aggressively passive, Albert is actively resisting humanity building a nanny state around him.
> 
> Q) Surely there are people in the world, far outside the normal realm, who have plenty of surplus food this year and would want to make some money by selling it to other people. They should be able to transmit a message, ship most things by sea. They have two months to get the message out and arrange things until the regular harvest is done. With other areas already willing to provide assistance, they should be able to get the message out and get some massive shipments of additional food/stuff before winter hits.
> 
> A) There are no agricultural areas where locusts are not active because locusts are the primary mover of biological metals from seaside to internal lands.  Most of Nirvana's land is concentrated in a Pangea-like continent with a long north-south inner sea splitting the supercontinent apart.  The split continent is centered fairly close to the equator.  Transport is not a serious problem.  If arrangements could be made for food, that food could be delivered.  There are a great number of sailing ships, and they would have immediately put out to sea or temporarily sunk when the forerunner locusts were reported.
> 
> Q) If people generally stick to the reasonable “I need labor in the future, you need food right now, let’s work something out”, it shouldn’t be a major problem.
> 
> A) Indentured servitude is not a typical practice on Nirvana.  Nirvanans know the history of the human condition quite well, and anything that even smells like slavery is going to make them very nervous because slavery is almost always accompanied by violence.  Indentured servants, treated well, aren't a problem.  However, most people on Nirvana who might have an interest in taking on indentured servants already have employees.
> 
> Q) Lots of questions about law enforcement and the prison system.
> 
> A) For the prison system, imagine early Australia.  The prisoners are dropped off, and that's that.  Males on one prison island, females on another.  Zero crossover of sexes at either prison, including visitors, or staff.  If the prisoners don't work, they don't eat.  They are not forced to work like slaves, but they have to be productive.  Escapes are not unheard of, but they are rare, because there is very little unmonitored traffic to and from the prisons.  The prisons are designed to take people out of the gene pool, but they aren't gas chambers.  They perform useful work.  They grow food for themselves, and produce some simple exports to keep them from being a significant burden on the world economy.  The permanent prisons are not heavily populated.  For typical lawbreakers, there are jails that aren't prisons.  If someone kills a single person in a fight, they might be sentenced to life in a jail, and allowed conjugal visits.  Go to the prison islands, and all your sex will be with same sex partners, or yourself, even if you strike up a friendship with staff.

>> **u/None** [+2]  (a month later)
>> 
>> This is a very rose-coloured view of early Anglo-Australian settlement, but okay.

>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (a month later)
>>> 
>>> I understand that Australia was by no means a pleasant prison when that was what it was being used for.  The main similarity is the use of remoteness and lack of transportation as the 'walls' of the prisons.

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