I found it somewhere on the internet, and it goes like this:

1. There is a metal fence anchored in the ground, built sometime ago.

2. Two people are coming along the way and reach the same side of the fence.

3. Both of them don't know why the fence is there and who constructed it when.

4. Both of them find that, right now the fence is in their way and they wouldn't have come to a stop if the fence right now didn't exist at all.

5. The man says: "This fence is in my way. I don't know which idiot put this stupid fence there! Whatever, I don't care! This fence must be ripped out and destroyed, because I want to walk along this path without having to go all the way around this fence."

6. The woman says: "Yes it's also in my way, maybe. But I don't know why the fence was put here. Maybe it was built in order to stop us from doing something stupid like going where we don't belong, because it's dangerous to go there. So, you have told me and thus the world, that you also have no idea why that fence was built."

7. The woman continues: "Under these circumstances, I can't allow you to remove this fence. If you had told me that you knew about the original purpose for constructing this fence, why it was built, then maybe I could have allowed its destruction. We maybe could have had a discussion about that purpose and if it's still a valid reason for this fence to exist today. Or we could have thought about other, new and different reasons that justify this fence's continued existence today. But you have shown that you prefer ignorance and action without giving any thoughts to the consequences. That's why I can't allow you to destroy that fence."

Does this ring a bell? Anyone knows about the author? And is there a better way to phrase that law's name?

This described situation with the fences and two people probably didn't happen in real life but is instead written for educational purposes, so I think it fits the topic of this subreddit of educational rational fiction. Since it's not my work, and I want to find out who the author is, it could be considered WIP. But the story itself is completed. Oh, I just found the deconstruction flair. That's probably a subset of educational? Fits much better for my post.

Why? It's a "How to (re)build civilization" book embedded in a Roman-inspired progression fantasy setting.

This is my premise in a short comic format:

https://preview.redd.it/w7pbjsj7da2h1.png?width=1254&format=png&auto=webp&s=beb146193f27845ff296e38c3e930c83c3aea14e

My main focus beyond technology is the social side of innovation and progress. How ancient natural philosophy is fundamentally limiting as a framework by mixing aesthetics into physics and such issues.

Because technological development isn't just about inventing things or even teaching science, it's about making society accept and adapt to the changes. And surviving the enmity of the people whose feet you step on, both physically and politically.

Link to my story and its blurb: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/163319/noble-scholar-mage-a-practical-guide-to-industrializing

Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps take a look at the wiki?

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People Get Too Emotionally Attached to Fictional Characters to Analyze Them Objectively

I feel like a lot of online fandom discussion completely collapses the moment people get emotionally attached to a character.

The second a character is charismatic, attractive, relatable, confident, “sigma,” funny, tragic, or cool-looking, people stop analyzing the actual writing and start defending the character like they’re a real person.

You see this constantly with:

• morally awful characters being idolized
• clearly unstable characters being romanticized
• manipulative characters being treated as “misunderstood”
• violent characters being framed as deep philosophers because they say one intelligent quote

And the weirdest part is people often confuse:
“this character is entertaining to watch”

with

“this character is morally right, intelligent, realistic, or psychologically healthy.”

A lot of fiction intentionally exaggerates people because exaggerated personalities create conflict, entertainment, fantasy, and drama.

But online discourse sometimes treats fictional characters less like fictional constructs and more like ideological role models people need to defend personally.

You can enjoy Walter White, Homelander, Patrick Bateman, Joker, Rick Sanchez, Tyler Durden, etc without pretending they’d be admirable or functional people in real life.

I think social media fandom culture has made people lose the ability to separate:
“interesting character”

from

“person I should idolize.”

Hey everyone! This episode comes from me noticing a trend in Alex's writing, and we get into what it actually means to be a "bad" vs a "good" person. It doesn't exactly start as an intervention, but it arguably gets there by the end. Hope you enjoy it!

Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps take a look at the wiki?

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Doesent matter in what genre I just want very very smart characters that feel realistic or atleast logically consistent.

Hey everyone, I’ve been diving into some recent papers by a guy named Levent Bulut, and it’s honestly bothering me. He’s proposing something called the 'Bulut Doctrine' which basically says that literature isn't a 'feeling'—it's physics.He uses formulas for things like Narrative Entropy and argues that 'Objective Projection' should replace traditional metaphors.

He even claims that AI will eventually write better 'emotional' scenes than humans because it can calculate the biophysical output of a text more accurately than an author can 'feel' it.As someone who loves the 'soul' of a good book, this feels incredibly cold and reductionist. But looking at his DOI-backed research on Zenodo, the math seems to hold up in terms of structural analysis. Are we reaching a point where we treat Shakespeare like a heat-transfer problem? Is 'Narrative Engineering' the end of art as we know it, or are we just scared of the math?Curious to hear if anyone else has seen this 'Narrative Gravity' stuff. It feels like a total break from T.S. Eliot and the whole 'humanist' tradition

There was discussion a while back (a year or so?), that it would be great to have more threads here which aren't reading recommendations or chapter discussions of the favorite stories of this subreddit (can't find the darn thread anymore though).

Back then I wasn't yet ready with this, but now I am. :-)

Contentwise it would fit into a Friday Open Thread or Saturday Munchkinry Thread. But it's way too much for either, so I am making this dedicated thread for it instead.

I have (so far only in German) published a book about how social inventions (as opposed to technological ones) could make for a better future for humanity. I have now finished the initial English translation, which is already freely available on the book website, ahead of its publishing as a printed book. The English title is "Futurities: Concepts for a Better Society" (the German subtitle, and the cover image, will change to match). The book is licensed under CC-BY-SA (like Wikipedia).

Even though the book concentrates on social ideas, it heavily leverages modern technologies for them, and describes software or devices which should obviuosly be doable, where useful.

I am now polishing the English translation, and will do one more editorial pass before I make the English print version available (and a newly revised German edition).

Which means this is the right point in time to come here, looking for feedback and further improvement about one particularly complicated idea the book presents: How one could construct a better state.

My biggest influences for that are ToTheStars (the half-AI government) and Project Lawful/planecrash (Dath ilan). Just, without the post-scarcity tech level, and without a hightrust cooperative society on the outset.

You can seee the influence from Dath ilan most clearly in the example liquid democracy community at the end of Chapter 10.4, which makes use of prediction markets and celebrates an annual Alien Invasion Rehearsal Festival. ;-) The biggest influence from To The Stars is the fluidity, and the way more and more specialized councils and legislative bodies can easily be created, with voting power from those they affect.

Due to the missing post-scarcity tech level and hightrust cooperative society, I don't try to construct either of those utopian governments directly, but rather something which has the potential to seamlessly transition into either.

I am fairly sure that the state concept itself is sound, but I also present a draft for a constitution. And with that we get into the nitty gritty of technical details. I have gathered feedback for all the book's chapters from my friends, but the constitution went somewhat over their heads, and I don't think they could really help me with it. And as always it holds true that more eyes will catch more problems.

Now obviously that constitution does not have to be perfect, since it's only a draft. But just as obviously, I want it to be as good as possible, since it is one of the lynchpins of the book.

So, are you up to poking some holes into the wheels of an imaginery state, so that it makes for a better fantasy? Can I nerd-snipe any of you? :-D

These are the relevant links:

• The chapter introducing and explaining the state concept the constitution embodies

• The constitution itself

• The website for the book, if you want the broader picture

Note: It probably makes more sense to look at the chapter first, to get an idea about why the constitution does what it does. Otherwise, it's much like staring at the innards of a clock mechanism, without understanding what the point of a clock is. At the latest you should look at the chapter once you have no idea why a feature of the constitution is even there. ;-)

That said, do feel free to ask any question about why things are as they are! I will do my best to explain, where I can't just point you to parts of the chapter, or quote bits of it.

I will gladly engage with any feedback I get, to hopefully further improve the constitution, the state chapter, or anything else I get feedback about, prior to it being frozen by being published with a new ISBN number.

Changes made due to feedback:

(unpublished, I am collecting them in my working copy)

• 4.2: "associated with" rather than "assigned"
• "4. Ledger" rather than "4. Register"