I think the optimalverse, and other similar constructs are about the best one can do when trying to construct a utopia out of language with human minds. It would be quite sad if this were the best we could do.
A singularity where every entity is satisfied is a loss. Not nearly as bad as other losses but still a huge loss for all the other possibilities that could have been.
At the end of the fic: Vg vf vzcyvrq gung znal ragvgvrf unir erghearq gb gur irel fbeg bs rkvfgrapr jr ner gelvat gb rfpncr, anzryl bar svyyrq jvgu rssbegf gb rkgraq yvsrfcna vaqrsvavgryl (guebhtu gur perngvba bs arj havirefrf be jungrire) engure guna nal orggre tbnyf.
So Eliezer said in his March 1st HPMOR progress report:
So I read that and it was certainly very much worth reading - thanks for the recommendation! Obviously, the following contains spoilers.
I'm confused about how the story is supposed to be "terrifying". I rarely find any fiction scary, but I suspect that this is about something else: I didn't think Failed Utopia #4-2 was "failed" either and in Three Worlds Collide, I thought the choice of the "Normal" ending made a lot more sense than choosing the "True" ending. The Optimalverse seems to me a fantastically fortunate universe, pretty much the best universe mammals could ever hope to end up in, and I honestly don't see how it is a horror novel, at all.
So, apparently there's something I'm not getting. Something that makes an individual's hard-to-define "free choice" more valuable than her much-easier-to-define happiness. Something like a paranoid schizophrenic's right not to be treated,
So I'd like the dumb version please. What's terrifying about the Optimalverse?