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MathiasZaman comments on Open Thread, November 1 - 7, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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This leads to another comment on rationalist fiction: Most of it seems to be restricted to fan-fiction. The mold appears to be: "Let's take a story in which the characters underutilized their opportunities and bestow them with intelligence, curiosity, common sense, creativity and genre-awareness". The contrast between the fanfic and the canon is a major element of the story, and the canon an existing scaffold which saves the writer from having to create a context.
This isn't a bad thing necessarily, just an observation.
So, the question becomes, how do you recognize "rationalist" stories in non-fan-fic form? Is it simply the presence of show-your-work-smart characters? Is simply behaving rationally sufficient?
Every genre has a theme...romance, adventure, etc.
So where are the stories which are, fundamentally, about stuff like epistemology and moral philosophy?
I'd say the difference between "rationalists" stories and "non-rationalist" stories lies in the moral of the story, of the lessons the story teaches you.
I don't think it's a genre in the same way romance or adventure are. It's more of a qualifier. You can have rationalist romance novels or rationalist adventure movies.
Although you could argue that it is a genre. While discussions about "genre" are often hard, since people don't tend to agree on what makes something a genre.
But rationalist fiction already has a couple of genre conventions, such as no-one being allowed to hold the idiot ball or teaching the audience new and useful techniques for overcoming challenges.