I think you’re misreading the story. It’s not an argument in favor of irrationality, it’s a horror story. The catch is that it’s a good horror story, directed at the rationalist community. Like most good horror stories, it plays off a specific fear of its audience.
You may be immune to the lingering dread created by looking at all those foolish happy people around you and wondering if maybe you are the one doing something wrong. Or the fear that even if you act as rationally as you can, you could still box yourself into a trap you won’t be able to think your way back out of. But quite a few of your peers are not so immune. I know I’m not, and that story managed to scare me pretty effectively.
The protagonist isn’t an ideal rationalist, and the story isn’t trying to assert that this is what the ideal rationalist does. Instead, the protagonist is an adolescent proto-rationalist, of a type many of us are familiar with, with her social instincts sucking her into a trap that a lot of us can understand well enough to dread.
And so there’s a reason she thinks and acts like a Hollywood stereotype of an intelligent person is that, especially when they’re just barely at the age of being able to really think at all. Where do you think Hollywood got the idea for the stereotype in the first place?
I submit that the reason so many of the average people think intelligent people act that way is because they lose social contact with the geniuses in high school, which is when they do think and act like that.
For a lot of the smartest people, being socially functional is a learned skill that comes late and not easily.
What should make this an effective horror story, as you put it, is that it’s based on the very real possibility that there are people whose brains are wired in such a way that they can’t be happy and rational at the same time. In order to more effectively ‘scare’ the reader, the author attempts to convince us that this is more than a possibility by making an argument by fictional example, the example being the main character.
My beef with the story is that this example is way too unlikely to be convincing as an argument (and therefore scary as a horror story). If there are people who can’t possibly be rational and happy, I’m pretty sure it’s not because they’re incapable of keeping their tongues under control in order to start a relationship on the right foot.
I dunno. I mean, a lot of horror stories that are famous for being good talk about stuff that can never be and should never be, but that nonetheless (in-story) is. I think it’s that sense of a comforting belief about the world being violated that makes a good horror story, even if the prior probability of that belief being wrong is low.
I think you’re misreading the story. It’s not an argument in favor of irrationality, it’s a horror story. The catch is that it’s a good horror story, directed at the rationalist community. Like most good horror stories, it plays off a specific fear of its audience.
You may be immune to the lingering dread created by looking at all those foolish happy people around you and wondering if maybe you are the one doing something wrong. Or the fear that even if you act as rationally as you can, you could still box yourself into a trap you won’t be able to think your way back out of. But quite a few of your peers are not so immune. I know I’m not, and that story managed to scare me pretty effectively.
The protagonist isn’t an ideal rationalist, and the story isn’t trying to assert that this is what the ideal rationalist does. Instead, the protagonist is an adolescent proto-rationalist, of a type many of us are familiar with, with her social instincts sucking her into a trap that a lot of us can understand well enough to dread.
And so there’s a reason she thinks and acts like a Hollywood stereotype of an intelligent person is that, especially when they’re just barely at the age of being able to really think at all. Where do you think Hollywood got the idea for the stereotype in the first place?
I submit that the reason so many of the average people think intelligent people act that way is because they lose social contact with the geniuses in high school, which is when they do think and act like that.
For a lot of the smartest people, being socially functional is a learned skill that comes late and not easily.
Agreed. I went in expecting a parable against rationality, and about halfway through I realized I was reading existential horror (the best kind).
The writing isn’t great and the points are made hamhandedly, but there is the core of a good story here.
I’ve upvoted this comment, but I disagree.
What should make this an effective horror story, as you put it, is that it’s based on the very real possibility that there are people whose brains are wired in such a way that they can’t be happy and rational at the same time. In order to more effectively ‘scare’ the reader, the author attempts to convince us that this is more than a possibility by making an argument by fictional example, the example being the main character.
My beef with the story is that this example is way too unlikely to be convincing as an argument (and therefore scary as a horror story). If there are people who can’t possibly be rational and happy, I’m pretty sure it’s not because they’re incapable of keeping their tongues under control in order to start a relationship on the right foot.
I dunno. I mean, a lot of horror stories that are famous for being good talk about stuff that can never be and should never be, but that nonetheless (in-story) is. I think it’s that sense of a comforting belief about the world being violated that makes a good horror story, even if the prior probability of that belief being wrong is low.