I always thought the Ixian and Tleilaxu(who, it should be noted, can clone unlimited copies of the most powerful mentats they could find samples of) would have done much better in a fair Dune universe.

One thing I've never seen in these threads about rationalist literature is RPG handbooks. The 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide had an enormous influence on me, because it suggested that the world ran on understandable, deterministic rules, which could be applied both to explicate dramatic situations, and to predict the outcome of situations not yet seen.

One of the first things I ever did (I lacked friends to play D&D with) was to assign stats to fictional characters and make pre-existing stories I felt were unsatisfying play out in a more "realistic" manner. A better word would be internally consistent. But I felt very strongly after that point that it was logical to expect that 9 times out of 10 that the entity with the most advantages would come out on top, contrary to the manner of stories, although the dice-rolling kept total predestination at bay.