[commenting note: for the love of God, there are so many places on the Internet where one may discuss tragic dogs, you don’t have to do it here]
I would like to say, up front, as a disclaimer, that I am absolutely not suggesting that anyone vote for these stories in the Hugos. What you decide to do with your own individual vote is up to you.
However, probably a lot of rationalists are going to get Hugo memberships for the first time this year so they can nominate HPMOR. [ETA: Note that Eliezer does not want you to purchase a Supporting Membership to WorldCon, if you otherwise would not, for the purpose of nominating HPMOR.] As a public service I am rounding up other fiction by rationalist and rationalist-adjacent people that I happen to think was notably good.
Feel free to suggest additions in the comments.
SHORT STORY
Dogs, by Alicorn. Society begins to take wild-animal suffering seriously and eliminates all animals. An exploration of what is lost.
Muse, by Alicorn. A horrifying short story about art and space colonization with a twist ending that will give you nightmares.
Threshold, by Alicorn. A short story exploring the ethics of eugenics.
Grownups, by Alicorn. A post-Singularity story about a child who died before the Singularity.
And I Show You How Deep The Rabbit Hole Goes, by Scott Alexander. Based on a Tumblr post, munchkiny as hell, and concluding with a ridiculously groanworthy pun, this story will have you cackling from start to finish.
Amazing Man, by Eneasz Brodski. A satirical superhero story about tragic dogs.
NOVELLA
Water, by Alicorn. A fantasy novella about polyamory, transness, oppression, magic, terrible parenting, and water systems.
NOVEL
The Northern Caves, by Nostalgebraist. A Lovecraftian horror story that’s actually Lovecraftian rather than full of tentacles, combined with a loving pastiche of early-2000s Internet communities. One of the most stunning evocations of mental illness I have ever read. Make sure the lights are on.
Floornight, by Nostalgebraist. I have… actually not finished this one. However, it contains a character named Ratio Tile and has been often compared to Evangelion.
It sounds like Eliezer wants you to not do this you not do this:
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Literally the first post brings up tragically-minded dogs? For shame.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been meaning to go to Worldcon for a while now, and was finally nudged into looking into it by all the info being put out as a result of the HPMOR thing. “Here is a novel you can nominate by signing up at this website before this date” has a motivation all of it’s own.
(And since that date has passed, there’s no point arguing about these things.)
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Yudowski’s vison of award shows seems a bit naive; no matter how the voters/winners are selected, an award show necessarily reflects a multitude of biases which strongly impact the final result and make the competing piece’s “own merit” a minor or even negligible factor in their ranking — there are a few ways to reduce this effect, for instance by simply giving the prize to the biggest seller in each established category, or by allowing completely open and free nomination and voting, but those effectively make the organizers simple managers and removes the need for jurors entirely, and it of course also erase the differences between different award shows, so it’s not in the interest of award show organizers to implement them.
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Oof, good point, I’ll edit the post.
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Ozy, how do you expect us not to discuss tragic dogs when THE FIRST STORY IS A TRAGIC STORY ABOUT DOGS.
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SORRY, GUYS, TALK ABOUT WATER INSTEAD.
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>Amazing Man, by Eneasz Brodski. A satirical superhero story about tragic dogs.
About reproductively-viable worker ants, I think you mean.
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Actually, the description says otherwise. Nevermind.
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Ooh, thank you, that’s really handy.
And yes, please, please don’t people register just in order to vote for a specific thing. I’m not quite sure where the line is, but it would just be a big furore.
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The Northern Caves is such a fantastic story. It could use some editing and the suicide part feels a bit tacked-on, but it’s still better than 95% of the stuff on the Barnes & Nobel sci-fi rack. I hope nostalgebraist keeps writing!
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It’s a bit late now, but I’d strongly encourage people to buy supporting memberships to Worldcon. The Hugo-nominating community is tiny. In 2014 (pre-canines), one of the finalists for Best Short Story got onto the ballot with 43 votes. http://www.thehugoawards.org/content/pdf/2014HugoStatistics.pdf
There’s no sense this is representative of what SF&F readers more generally are interested in. The only reason why the canines _could_ swamp the Hugos was because so few people nominated.
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I think it’s too late to register for nominating if you weren’t a supporting member last year or haven’t registered yet this year. The deadline was January 31 according to their website.
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The.Amazing Man story seems a little contrived. You could just as easily write him up as the hero of Repent Said the Tick Tock Man or as Harrison Bergeron, but either way, you would be begging the question.
I haven’t done it yet, but I’ve heard that a supporting membership is a pretty cost effective way to get to read a lot of SF.
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What pun at the end of the rabbit-hole pills one?
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