I hear you - and I don't disagree.
However, I ask that you imagine it from the perspective of a small village.
It's fairly well known that, in some villages, everyone is responsible for raising the children, not just the parents who conceived them. Over time, this process might evolve and grow, as populations evolve and grow, into the modern day version I've depicted.
In this latest version of the system, you're still allowed to keep in touch with the children you've conceived (and the wives you've had); it's just that someone else from your village is raisin...
Many thanks!
Sidenote: There's a new short story @ Word Cereal every week
(This week's is running a little behind, but we won't mention that :)
Thank you so much!
Thanks :)
Hi All -
This is my first time posting a comment here @ Less Wrong.
I really liked both this post and Eliezer's story 'Three Worlds Collide' - so much so that I've written my own weirdtopian story, 'Round Robin'.
You can read it at the following link, if you'd like:
http://www.wordcereal.com/serial/?story=18
p.s. I apologize that this comment is kinda spammy - I'm posting it because I actually think you might be interested, not to drive traffic (but you'd just have to take my word on that :)
It's a well-written story, and you packed a lot of characterization into not much text. But you show some gender bias that you may or may not be aware of. For instance, in weirdtopia men move around while women stay with the house and kids, and you say that in utopia, "Men provide stable home-lives for their wives and children." Do you believe that it's better for men to work for a living and women to stay at home and raise children, or am I reading too much into literary license?
Your story doesn't immediately come across as a horrible dystopia only because you chose not to depict the emotions men would feel when leaving their kids behind, or to describe the truly equitable arrangement where women would be forced to leave their kids behind 50% of the time.
I'm pleased to hear that you liked my characters. I'm new to writing and characterization is something I'm focused on improving.
You're right, and I'm willing to own a certain amount of gender-bias. While I have no problem at all with woman having equal rights, I do on some level tend to see the world tinted with a "men hunt/gather and women nest" perspective.
I hadn't noticed that come through in the story, though, until you pointed it out. Honestly, I think length played a large part in it.
As you noted, I don't have a great deal of room to work w... (read more)