Robin, fiction also has the benefit of being more directly accessible; i.e., people who would or could not read explicit academic argument can read a short story that grapples with moral issues and get a better sense of the conflict then they would otherwise. Even with the extremely self-selected audience of this blog, compare the comments the story got vs. many other posts.
And while of course the story was influenced by Eliezer’s beliefs, the amount of arguing about the endings suggests that it was not so cut and dry as simply “moving readers toward his beliefs”.
Robin, fiction also has the benefit of being more directly accessible; i.e., people who would or could not read explicit academic argument can read a short story that grapples with moral issues and get a better sense of the conflict then they would otherwise. Even with the extremely self-selected audience of this blog, compare the comments the story got vs. many other posts.
And while of course the story was influenced by Eliezer’s beliefs, the amount of arguing about the endings suggests that it was not so cut and dry as simply “moving readers toward his beliefs”.