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OnTheOtherHandle comments on Less Wrong fanfiction suggestion - Less Wrong Discussion
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Thank you.
I'm not sure why it is that you were reminded of that, however - was it the section about the Fire Nation?
It was just, in general, the thought that each family of traits has different times when they are most useful, and (at least in theory), a master of the art could bring the right ones to bear at those times.
Indeed, Musashi would have to have been an Avatar, were he transported to The Last Airbender's universe.
My first major question about this very interesting conceptualization of Avatar would then be: is being an Avatar just a one-in-a-million trait (assuming the population of that world is a million)? Because it seems like a rationalist Avatar would prefer not to be the only one on the planet.
That's a good point. In this version, the Avatar doesn't have to be a spiritual Chosen One - he/she could just be genetically lucky the way extremely high-IQ people are in our world.
Edit: However, I think that would defeat the point of fantasy rationalism, and might make the world too mundane. It would, however, be really interesting to see Aang go to the Spirit World and try to convince whatever spirits originally created the Avatar to make another one, possibly one with more raw intelligence to be more effective. (And then maybe deal with the fallout if this new Avatar is not as moral or noble as he is - FAI analogy, anyone?) The point of most of these rationalist fanfics is that one good rationalist can cause some Big Changes to their world, right? Multiple Avatars would be a Big Change.
Unless he's in the Avatar State, an Avatar is not a native to the other modes of thinking outside his own element. He is aware of them, and can purposefully invoke them once he's been trained, but they are not ingrained and reflexive. The Avatar State is a (hopefully) friendly (to you) AI, drawing upon the history and knowledge and personal ethical injunctions and methodologies of all past Avatars. And it renders its verdicts with terrifying efficiency and callousness without explanation to those watching.
Now that's something to think about! Proposed working title: Avatar: The First Voidbender