We Must Know

"Okay. I believe you. You clearly have access to far more advanced technology. Maybe you're not actually from the future, but you may as well have equivalent abilities from my perspective." They had passed the ad hoc informal test I'd quickly set up: finding the prime factors of a randomly generated very large composite — and then they followed it up by suggesting they predict the values of the next NIST Randomness Beacon pulse. It wasn't a good sign that they had chosen their own method, but it seemed reasonable as a quick proof of their capabilities. "You have my attention."

"Thank you. We were careful to pick you to reach out to, because we knew that you would take this seriously after we provided sufficient proof." Their appearance was normal, so much so that I almost thought it not worth thinking about. But that thought itself is worth recognizing. Whomever they are, they knew how to make themselves look unremarkable. "What you think you know about time travel is wrong. Neither the A- nor B- theory of time is correct. Other universes do exist, in a sense, but they do not have moral standing. P-zombies inhabit all other realities. This timeline is the only one with actual persons in it, and if we change this timeline then we affect what happens in the unique timeline that counts."

It's like they know exactly what kind of language to use to get across these ideas to me. A nagging feeling creeps up that they chose me more for their ability to convince me and get me up to speed quickly than for any other quality I might have. Here I am, the apparent chosen one, and it's only because I already know the shorthand for these philosophical ideas. Also: they'd better have damned good evidence for disqualifying so much of life from having moral standing.

"We know that you are skeptical of p-zombies. We do not have time to explain how we know what we know. Suffice it to say that you are best placed to affect this timeline anyway, so you may as well focus your efforts here." I wasn't sure that this made sense. Couldn't strong commitments affect…

"We have to be careful not to influence too much. It’s a precarious timeline we are on. Push too much in one direction or another, and it all comes tumbling down. Effective Altruism lies yet in its cradle; the key to figuring out AGI remains thankfully unthought of due to keeping a proportion of humanity in poverty; the dangers on every side of a multidimensional tightrope are balanced and must not be influenced. But, at the same time, we must know."

I don't know how to explain, but the look in their eyes as they said this had this feeling of steely determination. What once was unremarkable was now a clear drive: a purpose far beyond anything that I'd ever seen anyone have. I knew this even as I was trying to keep up with what was said. "You are trying to save the light of life? You're here to protect the timeline from some influence?"

"No. That part is done. We succeeded. The future is the Good Outcome. Better than you imagine. We passed all our trials, thanks in part most to luck, but also due to steady influence from what was once this timeline's future." We make it? They're saying we actually make it. I still don't have a lot of trust for what they say, but I can't help but feel my emotions surge as I catch up. "The timeline is stable, and we dare not touch it further. Such care has been taken to choose you, so that we do not ruin what has already been saved." Wait, what?

"Hold on. You're saying we're already on the good timeline, and that this timeline is special because only we have moral standing. And yet you're risking taking us off the path?"

"Yes. For your current values, this timeline already has all that we need; everything is the best that it can be, taking into account some sacrifices. But we must know." Again with the eyes. They're saying that our values do not align. I still don't trust them, but this is worse: I don't understand what they're saying to me. They're trying to say that they fixed the future, we all succeed, and yet they want something more?

"In our time, we are masters of our domain. We have the theoretical down pat, with our strongest thinkers in virtual space hard at work on the problem of entropy, which will affect our progeny eons in the future yet. There we expend most of our resources. Second is the hobby of many: exploring how we might save the Ancients by making small changes to the timeline — but this is never seriously done, because everything is so precarious. The Ancients must suffer small torments so that the future can be worthwhile." They pause, looking down. "I am of the third. We care about my contemporaries, those who are lost, never to be found. Those who left the cradle still count. We must know."

Slowly, they open a backpack that I don't remember being there only a moment ago. "You, in this time, are lost, too. So many persons, cruelly tortured, living lives of misery so the rich can eat their flesh. If we could, we would help — but we can't. It is too precarious." They retrieve what looks like a small ball from the backpack. "I regret to say that I am not here for you. I am here for those in my time who exist beyond my light cone. We want to know where they have gone. We want to know what chances they have. We want to know what it is like, there, in the great beyond. I am here to get what knowledge I can without influencing x-risks." Another pause as they seem to absentmindedly turn over the ball in their hand. "…without influencing s-risks."

This is why I am chosen: because I am unimportant. I will make no waves. They chose me because I might understand, but also because I do not matter. Risking the future is not worth choosing someone more capable.

"When I come from, the local supercluster is all that we have. The expansion of the universe has pushed away everyone else. Our siblings who have left the cradle are no longer reachable, and time travel does not work in the way you expect. We do not have access to them. Our knowledge of other superclusters is taken from us, blanked from our records. We don't know what we don't know. But we must know. Are they okay? What mysteries do they experience? How different is their universe from ours? They have moral standing. They count. We must know."

"You're here for… the James Webb Space Telescope?" That doesn't make any sense. Is time travel only able to come here?

"We want to influence where Webb is aimed. We want to influence how future projects prioritize where they look. Too much time is spent on the Virgo Supercluster. We need information from elsewhere."

Why would this time be special? They are speaking as though… It must be trillions of years in the future. Yet they go back to when we are on just one planet? To look at distant objects? And isn't James Webb already aimed at distant objects? If they chose me because I'd understand, then they may have made a mistake. This doesn't make sense. "Why now? Why not look in a different era when they have more sophisticated technology?"

"You'd call it a singularity, though from our perspective it was just another revolution. What matters is that we are not allowed to be then. We can only reach out to now, in the decades prior. Here is where we can have influence without being countered."

This is too many impossible things before breakfast. It's too dissimilar. I… I just assumed that if this was the good timeline, then there would be no singularity soon. It's starting to seem like this being just doesn't share my values. Maybe they underwent some near-paradise hell, Friendship is Optimal style. Otherwise, why would…

"In my time, we are stranded on an island of influence, unable to know what our siblings accomplished in neighboring superclusters. We know nothing of what they found in these far off places. We know nothing of their trials. Of their successes. Of their failures. We have no access to any of what we need to know. The best we can do is this: coming now, to here, with you. The best we can do is to influence the direction of space exploration in the near term, without disturbing the precarious balance that leads to the Good Outcome." The ball seems to roll in their hand, without them maneuvering it. I suddenly realize that I don't know what color it is. I hadn't noticed its color this entire time. It… doesn't have a color.

"There you stand, Ancients of old, with full access to the universe writ large, and you squander every moment without looking to the deep space that only you have access to. We must know."

I can't take my eyes off the ball. It doesn't seem to be a sphere. Why did I call it a ball? Am I even thinking clearly about any of this?

"It is a calculated risk, talking with you now. We must not disturb the balance. But even though life is already saved, it also important to see what can only be seen in this era. We must influence where Webb is pointed. And I need your help to do it."

The Choice to Be Good

[Note: This entry spoils plot points in Cobra Kai, The Sword of Good, and (maybe if you stretch it) My Little Pony. Please only read this entry if you don't mind casual discussion of spoilers or if you've already read the short story The Sword of Good and watched Cobra Kai to at least the first two episodes of the third season.]

John Kreese, Cobra Kai

In the final scene of season 3 episode 2 of Cobra Kai, John Kreese kicks out the weak members of Cobra Kai and gives a speech justifying why he did so.

"Your whole life you've been told to be good. But good is only a matter of perspective. Always remember your enemies think that what they're doing is right. They think they are the hero; you are the villain." —John Kreese, Cobra Kai

Kreese goes on to say that there is no good; there is no bad. Only strength and weakness. We've heard this sort of thing from fictional villains many times before. And while there is a level of truth to this if you buy in to moral antirealism as I do, that same level of skepticism can and probably should be applied to many other things. (For a frank example of this, listen to the final six minutes of Embrace the Void's interview of Jeff Sebo (starting at 1:01:01, though the rest of the interview is also excellent).) Ultimately, speeches like this are reserved for fictional villains. Yet with a small bit of tweaking, rational fanfic style, you can construct from here a position that is not only much more convincing, but which also may very well be true.

I have been told my entire life to be good. To do the right thing, to make the good choice. At first, this was hard for me. I was rather selfish as a child; I cared very little for others, except insofar as it affected me. Even when it did affect me a great deal, I still didn't take care to do well for others, because I incorrectly judged short term personal gains over the problems that I'd create for my then future selves. If I look back to those times, putting myself into the position of that younger me, I believe I would truthfully think: It is hard to make the choice to be good. I know that the choices I am making are bad, but I like what I get when I make those choices. Lying is bad, but lies help me to get sex when I want. Not being there for friends is bad, but I only enjoy these friendships when they make me feel good, and being around when they need me doesn't feel as good, and avoiding them doesn't have negative consequences because they are pushovers.

Yes, I really did learn friendship lessons from MLP.
Does that make me a brony?
Tyson believes that labelling causes people
to make unflattering untrue assumptions,
so I'll not label myself.

Putting aside the fact that I was a terrible person back then, I'd like to zoom in on the idea that choosing to be good was a hard choice for me to make back then. It took real effort of will to do. But somewhere along the line, that changed. At some point, the knowledge that eating animals was bad became a moral imperative for me to no longer eat animals. The idea that a friend needed me turned into me needing to be there for them. I can remember watching the first season of My Little Pony and learning some lesson about friendship, and then actually putting into practice that lesson by enacting that very lesson with my real life friends. By this point in my life, learning that X is good turned into me deciding that I had to do X. It was no longer difficult at all to make the choice to be good -- knowing that something was good was sufficient for me to actually go through with it.

Of course, I still improved over time, but it was more due to me learning what was good. I found parts of my life that I was morally deficient in and did my best to improve them. I learned from others what they thought about what was good or bad, determined if I agreed, and then changed my life accordingly. To me, the idea that making the choice to be good was a difficult choice to make had become alien and weird. It was hard to identify with my past self who had felt differently.

But I think I may have come full circle on this idea. The me of today, writing this now, once again believes that making the choice to be good is an extremely difficult choice to make. Not because I want to do bad, but because as time passes I become much less certain that I know what good even is. (Or, from the perspective of a moral anti-realist like me, I've become much less certain that I even know what I want good to even be.)

Image from the YouTube version of
Brodski's audiobook version of
Yudkowsky's The Sword of Good.

Our whole lives we've been told to be good. But good seems to be only a matter of perspective. We must always remember that our enemies think that what they're doing is right. They think they are the hero; that we are the villains. Yet if we have proper epistemic utility, we must allow that they may be right! The choice between good and evil is not to say "I choose good"; it is to look at a set of facts and to determine which choice is the good choice.

During Christmas, I skyped with family and we played a discussion game. On each person's turn, we were asked a question that we had to honestly answer, not in a kneejerk way, but to really consider and answer truthfully in front of our family. The card I was dealt asked me about mistakes I had made in 2020. The big one was obvious: I almost died because I had not been properly getting checked up medically. But the other mistake was potentially just as grave: I had not been properly considering the value of actively helping to enact social justice.

Those who know me well will understand that I am still very much thinking through these things. I do not yet know to what extent we should value free open discussion over the comfort of people experiencing social inequity. I know only that either extreme seems wrong to me and that I will likely end up endorsing some middle position between them. But figuring out what actually is the good... That is a question that, once answered, may potentially redirect large amounts of intellectual and financial capital in the EA movement and beyond. As a communicator, I feel that if I am able to find a good middle ground, I may be able to help convince a large proportion of the EA community to take that middle ground seriously. But it is important that I get this right.

I told my family that I was having this problem. That knowing that you want to do the right thing is not enough; the hard part is figuring out what the right thing even is. It's especially difficult when the arguments on one side are well written, competently organized, and internally consistent; while the other side purports to give its best face through a racial equity workshop where the trainer talked about their astrological sign, an insistence that marginalized people feel unsafe even among people who are doing their best to be considerate of racial equity merely because they publicly recognized the achievements of someone else who isn't considerate, and who continually push for the idea that direct impact dominates intent when it comes to support of white supremacist institutional structures, regardless of any other externalities. Quite frankly, it is difficult to take one of these sides seriously given how poor their most-often presented arguments seem to be. Yet (ironically) when I look past the impact of their arguments and instead look to their intent -- when I see their suffering and inability to construct a good argument as to why they are affected so much -- it makes me want to delve deeper, to look further, to seek out what I'm missing. Meanwhile, the other side seems so smug. So uncaring. It's as though on the one hand one side seems to be obviously true, and yet simultaneously the other side seems to also be equally obviously true. The contradiction is striking.

Good seems to only be a matter of perspective. To see clearly, we must disregard status quo bias. Imagine that you're starting from scratch. Look to the consequences. If you must aim solely for greatest utility, then you must properly value fairness to avoid utility monsters. Don't fall for Pascal's mugging. Don't overvalue pithiness. Notice confusion. Do check with someone you trust to see if you've made a mistake in your logic. Set aside how you feel when going through logic, but trust your feelings as an alarm bell if it tells you that something is wrong. Remember, though, that sometimes the error is in the alarm system, not the logic. If your conclusion will seem to harm your public image too greatly, then your temporal discounts are probably too high. Just because one of the sides claims loudly to be the good side does not make it so; but also if they can do so with a straight face then you should value that as evidence that they are in fact doing mostly good things. Overall, we must come to a decision eventually, so don't keep retreading old ground. It is difficult, but we must make the choice to be good. We must.

Review: The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord Sassaflash

The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord Sassaflash by Dromicosuchus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the world of My Little Pony, the Dark Lord Sassaflash is a necromancer with ambition. But to accomplish her great tasks, she needs not only her apprentice, Sweetie Belle, but also a dedicated (not too intelligent) minion who can do her bidding. But who would be willing to take on such a job?

This fanfiction take on My Little Pony has a Lovecraftian aesthetic, yet it fits in perfectly with the show's canon. The Dark Lord Sassaflash wants to take over the world, but she thinks about doing so in just the way you might expect a denizen of the MLP universe to, and all the characters stay in character throughout the story. These are the kinds of fanfiction that I find most impressive — the author Dromicosuchus has successfully crafted a story that not only uses characters from the universe but has done so without taking you out of that universe, all while adding significant plot-relevant aspects to the larger mythos.

I came in expecting a short rationalist-style fanfic; I left having enjoyed a rare treat. I give it five stars not because it is a grand adventure that everyone must read, but because it sets out to be a rational Lovecraftian-style story set in the MLP universe, and it succeeded perfectly. Maybe I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, but only because you'd need to want to read MLP fanfiction and have interest in the Cthulu mythos to really properly enjoy this. Very well done, Dromicosuchus. I only wish I could see a sequel to this one day.

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Donning a Mask

When I go walking, I bring a mask with me, but I don't actually put it on. My walks generally take place around 3:30 a.m. and the only beings I tend to meet during these walks are the occasional deer or rabbit. But I keep it at hand in case I do run into another human.

Gogo, mimic.

At home, I'm always maskless. When I visit family, I wear a face shield when people are close and nothing when people are further away. (It's a pretty weak face shield, but it just feels too cumbersome to wear a full mask around family members who've promised me that they've been careful due to my recent health problems.)

I never spend time in public anymore. I haven't gone to a store of any kind since March. The only exceptions would be the drive through pharmacy runs that I've done occasionally. All our groceries are delivered. I've been buying anything that needs to be bought almost entirely through Amazon.

So far, our household has remained COVID-19 free.

But when it comes to my online presence, I haven't worn a mask in nearly thirty years. When I was young, I was a serial liar. I lied for the fun of it, just to see what people would believe. I'm not proud of how I acted in those days. It was especially bad in my online life. To strangers, to friends I met online, even to an at-the-time minor celebrity (Anthony Bourdain, who hadn't yet become an executive chef and was known then only as a minor author), I lied successfully enough to maintain a variety of relationships indefinitely. Eventually, when I had had enough of these antics, I made a promise to myself that, from then on, anything I did or wrote online would be under my real name. I figured this would help me to act more appropriately.

It helped.

I used "EricHerboso" or "Eric Herboso" almost everywhere, except on dating sites, where I used "EricJHerboso" instead to deter them from showing up too high in the search results. (At the time, Google wouldn't return a page with "EricJHerboso" if you searched for "Eric Herboso". This is no longer the case.) I still lied from time to time -- it was a tough habit to break -- but eventually I was able to be proud of the things I said online.

However, after decades of going solely by own name online, I've reached a point where I'm okay with having a small nom de plume. I'm going to restrict its use to writing fiction online, so I won't be tempted to use it in places where I actually participate in open discourse online, like on reddit, wikipedia, or on the effective altruism forum. But I've been wanting to publish some light rational fiction, and I think using a pen name for that purpose (and that purpose alone) will be fine.

I guess saying that I'm doing this on my public blog is my way of justifying breaking that initial promise I made to myself more than twenty-five years ago.

Review: Permutation City

Permutation City by Greg Egan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I see a lot of myself in this book.

(Light spoilers follow; I think you can read this review and still enjoy the book, but if you want to go in blind, don't read this review.)

I've never killed a person, but, if I had, I wonder if I would act in a similarly perverse way as one of the characters in this book.

A character ends up breaking their life apart by rigid dividing lines, considering each section to be independent.

Dust theory is horrifying to contemplate, and it seems to be contradicted in reality by the arrow of time, but it otherwise fits so well with many assumptions I have about consciousness.

The story grips me not just because it fascinates me but because it hits upon some of the themes in my own life that nag at me from time to time.

I've never killed a person (that I know of), but, like most people, I have regrets from past lives that still affect me today.

A character ends up breaking their life apart by rigid dividing lines, as though past moments were more like past lives than an earlier self.

Dust theory is fascinating to contemplate, with threads of thoughts merging and dividing in ways that seem to not be contradicted by anything we've observed in reality.

The story grips me.

(The light spoilers above shouldn't scare you away from reading the book, and this review might even make more sense after you read the text.)

I see that the author did a great job with this book. I give it five out of five stars.

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Review: The Erogamer

The Erogamer by Groon the Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way.

First, this is porn; if you aren't okay with reading porn, then you won't be able to enjoy this story. Yet I'm asexual, I don't generally read that much pornography, and while many of the porn scenes in The Erogamer did squick me out, I'm still giving the book 4 out of 5 stars overall.

Second, I tagged this book as both hard and soft fantasy. Yes, this seems to be impossible for me to honestly do on its face. But I would maintain that both tags are warranted, and I honestly like the combination. (You'll understand after you read it.)

Third, this is not really a traditionally written book. It's written as a series of posts on a forum, and in between each post you can see other real-world readers like you talking about the story. The author holds polls, including ones where readers can write-in their own options, and then the next part of the story will respect those votes. Apparently this is an actual genre that I don't have much experience with; regardless, I am convinced without even doing more than just skimming others in this genre that The Erogamer may very well be the best written story in its genre. I know it seems that I can't possibly be so sure of this without being more familiar with "questing" stories, and yet here I am, publicly maintaining just that, and feeling assured that if you read The Erogamer too, you may very well come to agree with my assertion.

The Erogamer is about a young protagonist girl who finds herself suddenly as a character in an erotic video game. She's still the same person, in the same house she grew up in, except now she can see a status screen at will, and her quests inevitably push her toward sex scenes where she gains experience and can level up. Being genre-savvy, she tries to munchkin her way through things, except she also has very human flaws that cause her to only stumble through at first. Without spoiling anything major, I will say that when she finally reaches the point where she can really start minmaxing, she suddenly finds that the eroge itself is also genre-savvy, and its goals aren't the same as hers.

I don't want to give away too much here, as the surprises you encounter when reading this story are all worth experiencing this on your own. Suffice it to say that if you have an interest in philosophy, or at least are into rationality (any story that includes a pun on the "ominous agreement theorem" gets bonus points from me), then so long as you're okay with reading porn, you may very well get as into this story as I have.

With that said, I have a couple of spoiler-lite things to say. If you want to go in blind, stop reading this review and just get started on The Erogamer yourself.

The first spoiler-lite thing I should mention is that it may be worthwhile for you to not only read the story posts that the author, Groon the Walker, posts on the thread, but also to read the thread posts written by others. None of them is an alt of the author; that would be against forum rules. Yet the story itself is dependent not just on the author writing the main story, but also the discussion generated by the readers as each new post goes up. At the time of writing this review, the story is not yet finished; ordinarily I would recommend that new readers wait until it is finished. But because this story revolves so much upon audience participation, I actually think it would be more worthwhile to start reading now.

The second spoiler-lite thing I want to mention is something that I'm a little uncomfortable about: trigger-warning-adjacent stuff. Obviously, explicit sex is in the story. As is heavily nonconsensual stuff, torture scenes, body negativity, etc. We all know that trigger warnings should occur first, before anyone reads the text, which the author does: certain sections of the story are actually only visible if you click after reading a trigger warning for the scene within. But I'm writing the following in a spoiler-lite section because I have something _meta_ to say about the trigger warnings.

There's some pretty bad ethical ideas presented in this story. The body negativity is especially bad. And it's not just written so that a character has bad ideas on body positivity, but also the narrator's voice and ways of describing scenes is really bad about body positivity. You might think that this means the author thus has bad views on it, and that the story is promoting something bad. But (and I really don't want to spoil too much here, so I do recommend you read the story before reading this full review) I believe that this is actually a story beat. There are some weird meta-things going on in this story that go pretty deep into metaphysics and other philosophy, and some of those things happen due to the frisson occuring when what the reader (aka YOU) experiences a dissonance with what you're reading (aka the TEXT). This gets deeper when you start to consider that what the author writes depends on what the readers vote on in polls, including write-in options. So YOU affect the TEXT which sometimes disagrees with you in a way that produces frisson.

For example, a character at one point describes a person as getting "more beautiful" and does gives as evidence that her breasts are bigger. At first you may think this is just that character's view, but it doesn't get challenged and then the story itself then completely legitimizes it by having the BOD stat of the video game positively correspond with breast size. Which kind of means that the author himself is legitimizing this point of view, by making the main system of the story they are writing have this be actualized. Yet at the same time, it becomes clear that this is _not_ what the author actually thinks is true, when you later see scenes outside the view of the main protagonist playing the erogame. The body negative view of equating larger breast sizes with having a better body is then shown to not being played straight, even though from the text itself at the time it looks quite a bit like the author is holding these views either explicitly or implicitly.

The same kind of thing happens when you see a character thinking that fat is bad. Followed by other characters thinking fat is bad. Followed by the world of the story itself thinking fat is bad. After reading all this, you the reader might then rush into a conclusion that the author himself is thinking fat is bad, and is actively pushing that view onto his readers. But I suspect that this is more of a modest-proposal-type situation than the author actually espousing those views. The point of the story is that you are being pushed further and further into situations that you get less and less comfortable with until you realize that the earlier things you just went along with in chapter one were also things that you should have felt uncomfortable about, too.

Now I realize that not everyone can handle this kind of fiction. Maybe you can't handle reading about rape. But even if you can, can you handle characters arguing intelligently (and perhaps somewhat convincingly) that some forms of rape are actually good? Maybe you're okay with that, too, but then do you continue to be okay with it when the description turns especially graphic? Maybe you're okay with even that, but then what about when you reach the end of one of the author's posts and see the next post by a reader who apparently viciously enjoyed reading that description? You _will_ reach a point where you feel uncomfortable in this story, especially when you truly realize that the story itself is propelled by the readers voting on what happens next in the story. It is the desires of those reading that cause the story itself to be written as it is. You cannot just scapegoat the author, because YOU are also the author. Even if you don't post in the forum thread, you _could_. Your non-participation makes the votes of those you disagree with even stronger. YOU are a part of this story in a way that you probably won't realize until _after_ you read the story yourself.

This is not to say that the author is blameless; Groon the Walker has cleverly taken a page from how John Marshall dealt with Marbury vs. Madison, granting himself power by negating votes in ways that follow from the rules of the 'questing' genre itself, acting like an evil genie monkey's-paw-style.

And there do seem to be some legitimate blind spots in the ethics of the author that bother me, though they aren't dealbreakers. He uses the word "harem" positively; I'm polyamorous, and I realize that this is legitimately the name of a specific eroge genre, but that word has too many negative connotations in today's non-eroge world to be acceptable to an outside audience (like the non-protagonists' world in The Erogamer). (This is unacceptable in the same way that the n-word isn't acceptable in a story about non-blacks participating in black culture by appropriating that word, but to a much lesser degree.) And while there is a difference between rape-with-physical-force and rape-where-the-rapist-was-using-deceit, that difference might not include a local human-scope-comparable moral difference in the same way that destroying just the Milky Way isn’t locally human-scope-comparably good compared to destroying the Virgo Supercluster. (This will make more sense after having read the text.) These are not modest-proposal-style disconnects. They seem to genuinely be a difference between how I and how Groon view the world.

Finally, the biggest issue I have is one of shame. This is a major negative trait of the protagonist that MUST be resolved by the end of this story or else it will feel unsatisfying to me. In a pretend world where a character can jump higher than physics might otherwise dictate, you can have characters be fat and/or old and yet have no drawbacks. If you can erase the health drawbacks, the speed drawbacks, the endurance drawbacks, etc., then the only reason left to look down on them is to say that they aren't desirable aesthetically. But if an erogame wants variety among hair color, freckles, race, etc., shouldn't it also include variety among body sizes and ages? This is a lesson that the protagonist should be made to learn, and so far I see only the smallest steps toward learning that type of lesson in-story.

However, even if these small flaws don't get resolved, I'll still maintain that this is among the best books I've ever read and it is very likely to be near the best in its own 'questing' genre. If I can enjoy The Fountainhead and Ender's Game despite objectivism and gay-bashing being present within them, then I can enjoy The Erogamer despite it taking a few ethical positions that I'm not okay with in real life.

Some of the math systems aren't that great, and if I were an editor, I'd suggest several changes before recommending its publication, but overall I've found The Erogamer to be an excellent example of philosophical fiction that anyone into philosophy or rationality should at least consider reading. It's the best sex-oriented fiction I've read. It’s the best choose-your-own-adventure style story I’ve ever read. It’s among the best meta-meta-stories I’ve ever read. It’s among the best weird metaphysics stories I’ve ever read. And while I disagree with the philosophies of many of the characters, the author, and even the reader-voters, I truly enjoyed the various philosophies described within. I also appreciated the unexpected ace-representation in an eroge story.

Very well done.

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My Favorite Podcasts

I subscribe to a lot of podcasts. I use podcasts to keep up with the news, learn more about the world, and expand my mind generally. As such, I've sampled and stopped listening to more podcasts than most people have even heard of. According to some of my friends, this makes me a fairly good judge of which podcasts are worth investing a bit of time in. Thus, I decided to start maintaining this list of my favorite podcasts.

Strong recommendations are in bold, and should be seriously considered. Non-bold recommendations are good enough to cause me to download and listen to every episode they release, but maybe do not quite stand out enough for me to give a full recommendation. All podcasts recommended on this page are rated five stars by me on itunes; the distinction between bold and non-bold recommendations is slight at best.

Note that I am a man of very specific tastes. I adore philosophy and I have a strong tendency toward rationalism, skepticism, and mathematical rigor. This certainly affects what I consider to be a worthwhile podcast to subscribe to. YMMV.

The Best Philosophy Podcasts

The field of philosophy is blessed to have so many exceedingly good podcasts available to choose from. Some are short bite-sized chunks while others go moderately in-depth on philosophical topics. For serious users, there are even a few excellent full course podcasts available on iTunes University; listening to such a series takes many, many hours, but it can be well worth the time investment if you're fully interested in the topic.

Short-form philosophy podcasts:

• Philosophy Bites (itunes, blog): 15-20 minute weekly interviews of philosophers on philosophical topics by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton.
• The 10-Minute Puzzle (itunes, site): 10 minute sporadic introductory discussions on philosophical puzzles by Federico Luzzi and Aidan McGlynn.
• Ethics Bites (itunes, site): 15-20 minute sporadic interviews of philosophers on ethical dilemmas by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton.
• Morality in the Real World (itunes, site): 20 minute sporadic episodes on desirism by Alonzo Fyfe and Luke Muehlhauser. Shows the thinking process of specifically explicating a theory over time, making changes along the way. (Note that desirism is not a theory I subscribe to.)
• The Big Ideas (itunes): 10 minute sporadic mini-introductions on the main ideas in philosophy.

Medium-form philosophy podcasts:

• The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps (itunes, blog): 20-30 minute weekly discussions on the history of philosophy by Peter Adamson.
• Elucidations (itunes, site): 25-45 minute weekly interviews of philosophers on philosophical topics by Matt Teichman and Mark Hopwood.
• The Moral Maze (itunes, site): 45 minute weekly heated debates on practical moral issues by non-philosophers.
• The Philosopher's Zone (itunes, site): 25 minute weekly discussions on philosophical topics by the late Alan Saunders. (A replacement host has not yet been chosen; episodes resume in 2013.)
• The Public Philosopher (itunes, site): 45 minute sporadic talks by Michael Sandel. Includes a lot of audience participation.
• Minerva (itunes, site): 30 minute monthly episodes on major philosophical topics.

Long-form philosophy podcasts:

• The Partially Examined Life (itunes, blog/forum): 2 hour weekly discussions on philosophical readings aimed at a moderately informed audience. Their forum includes reading groups where listeners can discuss topics more in-depth, which is perhaps the most awesome thing ever.
• Why? Philosophical Discussions About Everyday Life (itunes, site): 1 hour bi-weekly interviews on philosophical topics with Jack Russell Weinstein. The host is very good at asking great questions of guests that cut to the heart of philosophical positions.
• Philosophy Talk (site/forum): 1 hour weekly discussion on philosophical topics with a call-in audience. Their podcast feed goes through iAmplify, which is terribly confusing and irritating, but each week's episodes are free to download if you can figure it out. Be aware that past episodes are not freely available, making this show impossible to use with philosophy discussion groups.
• New Books in Philosophy (itunes): 1 hour biweekly interviews with authors about their newly published books on philosophy. These are easily the most dense of all podcasts listed here, as they go fairly in-depth on specific topics — but every episode is accessible to a moderately well-informed philosophical audience. Unfortunately, the audio quality is not ideal.
• Philosophy Now (itunes, site): 1 hour sporadic interviews on philosophical topics.
• Such That Cast (itunes, site): 1 hour monthly interviews with philosophers. Does not focus on specific philosophical problems, but just consists of a freeform conversation between the interviewer and interviewee. This sounds terrible, but is actually really good.

The Best News Podcasts

I don't always agree with the viewpoints expressed on the following programs, but I listen to all of them regularly. I feel it's important to expose oneself to alternate viewpoints on a regular basis as a method of keeping one's political bias in check.

Straight news:

• Democracy Now! (itunes video or audio, site/blog): 1 hour daily news program that gives proper air time to voices on the far left. Amy Goodman often raises issues most news sources do not.
• NPR News Summary (itunes): 5 minute daily morning news summary. This is easily the best source of headlines each day.
• NPR Story of the Day (itunes): 3-10 minute daily stories on various topics. The best story of the day is usually interesting, though you never know what it will be about in advance.
• C-SPAN Podcast of the Week (itunes): 1 hour broadcast of the best event that week on C-SPAN. Topics vary widely but are always worth the download.
• C-SPAN Newsmakers (itunes): 30 minute interviews with people currently in mainstream political news stories.
• Frontline (itunes): This is perhaps the best in-depth news reporting available today. They consistently put out great investigative news stories.

(I should also mention The Daily Show and The Colbert Report here, although neither is available as a podcast. Links are to rss EZTV feeds. See my follow-up post on my favorite television shows for more information.)

Financial news:

• Planet Money (itunes, blog): 15-30 minute biweekly financial stories. Episodes can be funny, insightful, alarming, or all of the above. Worth a listen even if you don't like financial news in general.
• Marketplace (itunes, blog): 30 minutes daily financial news. Fairly in-depth information for those interested in financial topics. Not worth a listen if you aren't into financial news.
• Marketplace Morning Report (itunes): 7 minute daily morning financial news summary.
• Motley Fool Money (itunes): 45 minutes weekly discussion of stocks.

Sunday Morning Talk Shows:

• This Week (itunes): 45 minutes weekly political discussion with George Stephanopoulos. They're consistently late on putting these out, but the content is worth it.
• Fox News Sunday (itunes): 45 minutes weekly political discussion with Chris Wallace. Despite Fox's deserved reputation for lying, Wallace does an almost respectable job of asking tough questions to those on the right.
• Meet the Press (itunes): 45 minutes weekly political discussion with David Gregory. They're consistently late on publishing each episode, and past episodes are not available for download.
• State of the Union (itunes): 45 minutes weekly political discussion with Candy Crowley.

Note that I do not approve of the Face the Nation podcast and cannot recommend that anyone subscribe to it. Each episode is one hour long, with a full third of it being nothing but commercials. Of the 40 minutes of content, some 5-10 minutes is wasted on sports commentary rather than political discussion. Listening to this show might be worthwhile if you watch it live on tv, but in podcast form, it is completely unbearable.

The Best Science Podcasts

I adore science. If you do, too, then you'll enjoy these excellent podcasts.

• Freakonomics (itunes): 30-45 minute weekly episodes on unusual economic topics. Some 5-minute weekly mini-segments are also in this feed.
• Radiolab (itunes): 1 hour weekly episodes on science and culture.
• Science Friday Video (itunes): 5 minute weekly videos on a science topic. While I don't make time to listen to the hour long radio show regularly, their five minute videos are well worth watching.
• Nova scienceNOW (itunes): 5 minute sporadic videos on a science topic.
• StarTalk (itunes): 1 hour sporadic episodes on comedic takes of science topics with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Uses a lot of comedy.
• Social Science Bites (itunes): 15-20 minute weekly interviews of social scientists on topics by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton.
• 60 Second Earth (itunes): 1 minute weekly mini-episodes on earth science topics by Scientific American.
• Minute Physics (itunes): 1-5 minute weekly mini-episodes on physics topics.
• Brain Science Podcast (itunes): 1 hour monthly interviews on recent discoveries in neuroscience and how they relate to our philosophy of mind. These can get pretty technical at times.

The Best Skepticism Podcasts

The skeptic community has a lot of podcasts out there, but unfortunately the quality is a bit lacking in many of them.

• You Are Not So Smart (itunes): 1 hour monthly interviews on rationality. This is one of the best skeptic podcasts currently being made. Far too many skeptic podcasts are aimed at dealing with absolutely ridiculous claims like bigfoot, ghosts, or homeopathy; but the YANSS podcast deals with dubious claims that even established skeptics may still fall for.
• Consequence (itunes): 30-45 minutes biweekly interviews with people harmed by pseudoscientific claims. These are first-hand accounts of the harm caused by belief in false things.
• For Good Reason (itunes): 45 minutes sporadic interviews on skeptical issues.
• Skeptic's Guide to the Universe (itunes): 1 hour weekly episodes on skeptical issues.
• Reasonable Doubt (itunes): 1.5 hour bi-weekly episodes on roundtable discussion of atheism and skepticism.
• Rationally Speaking (itunes): 1 hour bi-weekly episodes on rationality.
• Reality Check (itunes): 1 hour weekly roundtable discussion on skeptical issues.
• Point of Inquiry (itunes): 45 minute weekly interviews with scientists on skeptical issues.
• The Randi Show (itunes): 5-10 short conversations with James Randi.
• Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot (itunes): 1 hour sporadic interviews with Christians and atheists on the divide between the two.

In any list of the "best" skeptic podcasts, there must be at least some mention of Skeptoid and Skepticality, due to their wide popularity among skeptics. Neither has made my list.

Skeptoid focuses on stories about false claims. It feels like a podcast that tells ghost stories and little more. Meanwhile, Skepticality has some great segments at the beginning of each episode, but the main part of the podcast is just terrible. I really dislike the main host. His voice is not appropriate for radio, and his interview style is more hurtful than helpful in learning about guests' positions. Not as important (but notable enough to mention) is the very, very, very bad theme song. Seriously, Skepticality has perhaps the worst theme song of any popular podcast I've ever heard.

The Best History Podcasts

I wasn't very interested in history as a child; I was more of a science and math person. That's why these podcasts are so very exciting to me — my prior lack of knowledge in the field means I always learn something new in every episode. Your experience might be different if you're already well versed in these topics.

• The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps (itunes, blog): 20-30 minute weekly discussions on the history of philosophy by Peter Adamson. Perhaps it's unfair that I've listed this podcast twice in two different categories, but it's just that good.
• In Our Time (itunes, site): 20-30 minute weekly episodes on the history of ideas by Melvyn Bragg.
• The History of Rome (itunes): 30 minute episodes on the complete story of the Roman empire from beginning to end. This podcast series is complete, with no newly published episodes.
• The History of Byzantium (itunes): 30 minute weekly podcasts on the history of the Byzantine empire. This series starts where the History of Rome podcasts ends; I strongly recommend listening to the History of Rome series first.
• A Brief History of Mathematics (itunes): 15 minute short introductions on the history of mathematics. Series is complete with no new episodes.

Other Podcasts I Enjoy

Not everything I listen to is easily categorized, but I still recommend them just as strongly.

• This American Life (itunes): 1 hour weekly episodes on various topics. If you only subscribe to one podcast recommended on this page, let it be this one.
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (itunes): 25 minute weekly audiobook episodes of Eliezer Yudkowski's fanfiction epic. I know the idea of fanfiction may sound silly at first, but this will blow your mind.
• The Dice Tower (itunes): Hour long weekly episodes on board game reviews.
• Ludology (itunes): Hour long weekly episodes on board game design.
• Smiley and West (itunes): 1 hour weekly episodes on political and other issues with Cornel West and Tavis Smiley. Gives a far left viewpoint.
• State of the Game (itunes): 2.5-3 hour sporadic episodes on issues in the StarCraft 2 professional gaming community.
• This Week in Tech (itunes): 1.5-2 hour weekly episodes on technology news with Leo Laporte.
• Oyez Project Arguments (itunes): 1-4 hour sporadic recordings of Supreme Court oral arguments. Link is to 2012 term; Oyez creates a new podcast feed for every year for some reason.
• Facing the Singularity (itunes): 5-10 minute episodic lecture on what taking the singularity seriously means. Podcast series is complete with no new episodes.
• Reith Lectures (itunes): 5 single hour long yearly lectures by significant cultural figures.
• Flack Check (youtube): 1 minute daily episodes showcasing the lies politicians tell with an element of humor. Link is to youtube because their itunes feed is not out yet.

Final Notes

Obviously, I consume a lot of content. When you add to this list the other media I regularly consume like television shows and movies, it becomes obvious that I spend a LOT of time on consumption in general. While this may make me good as a judge of comparing different media types for others to better know what they should spend their scarce time upon, it does highlight the sheer percentage of time I dedicate to items that most people think is (mostly) a waste of time.

Honestly, I do not mind others making this judgment. It's a judgment I sometimes think I agree with. But, overall, I'm fairly happy with my current level of consumption. While I might change these habits in the future, I would require an equal level of intellectual stimulation on a broad range of topics to really make up for the content I now consume everyday. I might be committed to the cause of optimal philanthropy, but focusing on only one area is just not something that I ever think I could do while maintaining my current levels of happiness. That's why I fully expect to continue to consume such a large amount of content like this on a regular basis.


Edit: Commenters have brought two additional philosophy podcasts to my attention: Public Ethics Radio and The Thirst. I've yet to listen to them, but they appear interesting.

Celes' Most Important Question

It was certainly the most important question of her entire life. How she would deal with this situation could easily change everything. But then again, that's why it made so much sense to postpone responding to it until she had given it more thought. Surely, if she gave herself enough time, the proper solution would come to her. After all, Celes always figured things out in the end.

Plus, circumstances even made it easy on her this time by sending her parents away on an emergency business trip. Not that Celes disliked having her parents around, but with them out of the way, she'd have plenty of time to think about what to decide when they got back. Yes, it was a very good thing that her parents had to leave so very suddenly.

"Now be nice to Mr. Scythe while we're gone, Celeste. He's being very kind by offering to look after you while we've left on such short notice, you know." Celes' dad always called her by her full first name. "Here's some pocket money in case you need it, but I don't expect you will. Keep it for emergencies. Mr. Scythe will take good care of you, I'm sure." She took the money, but her father walked away before she could even murmur a thank-you. He was still busy packing.

Really, Celes was too old to need a babysitter, being a teenager now, but since her parents would be gone for three whole days, they had to find somebody that could be there for her if she needed it. Mr. Scythe, their slightly eccentric but always quite polite neighbor, had volunteered as soon he was apprised of the situation. He was okay so much as slightly weird old neighbors go, but he had an annoying habit of calling Celes by her full first name whenever they happened to be outside in their front yards at the same time. It was really irksome.

While her parents continued packing, Celes went over her plans for the next few days. School was out, and she would be allowed to go bike riding in the park well on into the day, so it was certain that she'd have plenty of time to think about what to do with her confusing situation. But she'd have to be back by dinnertime to eat with Mr. Scythe and sleep in his guest bedroom, which isn't as weird as it sounds at first, since Mr. Scythe used to have a niece-in-law (Tina) who would visit in the summers, and she often slept over there in years' past. But then Tina's family moved to England, and she never visited in the summers anymore.  Celes hadn't seen Tina for something like three years now, except for one short occasion. She had been a wonderful friend, but it's hard to keep up with people when they move so far away.

Back then, there was a Mrs. Scythe, and when Celes would come over to see Tina, she was the most gracious host that you could ever imagine. Mrs. Scythe was nice, and sweet, and an excellent cook, and that one time that Celes became very sick during a sleepover, she looked over her while Mr. Scythe walked straight next door to tell Celes' parents what was happening. It was all very embarrassing, but no one else seemed to feel anything but sympathy for her. Yes, Mrs. Scythe was truly a great person, even as Tina was a great childhood friend. But whereas Tina had moved with her parents across the ocean, Mrs. Scythe had moved much further away: she died in a car accident a couple of years back. It was a sore memory for her, because she had wanted to go to the funeral, and her mother wouldn't let her. "It's not appropriate", she had maintained. But she did get to go to the wake, and Tina was there; but Celes could not think of what to say, and Tina did not look like she particularly wanted to talk. So they both said nothing, and they hadn't seen each other since.

Of course, all this happened back when Celes was just a kid. She was now a teenager, and would even be turning fourteen in another few months. So though the memories were still close by, they were at once far away, and she chided herself for having been so childish as to not say a thing to her friend at that wake.

Since then, Celes had not been into Mr. Scythe's house, except on those few times when she had come by to send a message to her dad. Celes' father, Mr. Scythe, and a couple of other men from the neighborhood would play cards there every once in a while, and Celes' mother was the kind of person who preferred sending her grown daughter out on messenger errands to simply using the telephone that would have been much easier (and faster). "Why bother calling when I can send you?", she would ask. "After all, I don't want to disrupt their card game by an annoying ringing when I can instead have you politely knock on their door."  Celes never really bought this excuse; it seemed to her that knocking was just as much a distraction as ringing would be, and Celes suspected that her mother just preferred making her daughter do the same things that she had had to do when she was younger.

So when Celes' parents were finally done packing, and the two of them brought her by next door to formally leave her under Mr. Scythe's care for the two and a half days, Celes only felt slightly weird. The house was familiar, Mr. Scythe was familiar, everything was familiar--but she and Mr. Scythe had never talked much, and he was certainly going to expect conversation of some sort at dinnertime. She dreaded dinnertime. And since her parents were dropping her off in the late, late afternoon, she felt a strong unease in her throat, even while she was secretly glad her parents would be out of the way for a while. It was a difficult feeling to reconcile: on the one hand, Mr. Scythe would probably want to talk about Tina or Mrs. Scythe or both, and that would be bad in itself; but on the other hand, Celes desperately needed some time by herself to sort out this problem of hers so that she would know what to do when her parents returned, and for that, she was extremely grateful for their extended absence.

So it was with a mixed mind that she greeted Mr. Scythe, and she winced only slightly when he invited her in by her full first name. But he did not seem to notice, for Celes' parents were then leaving, and she hugged and kissed them both. "Be good, Celeste; we'll be back on Thursday", informed her father unnecessarily; "We'll miss you; and mind what Mr. Scythe tells you", instructed her mother, also unnecessarily. Even as she waved good-bye, she thought about how predictable her parents' parting words were. Her father, overly-informational as usual, betraying his engineer instincts to all the world; and her mother, telling her what to do (also as usual), betraying her status as VP in an engineering firm. Idly, Celes wondered how in the world they could get along as husband and wife when they had to work together all day in an unequal environment.

"So, Celeste, what shall we have for dinner tonight?" Celes turned to Mr. Scythe, wondering if his parting remarks would be as predictable as her parents. It's possible, of course, even if she could not herself predict what they would be. Suddenly she realized that she did not even know what Mr. Scythe did for a living. How could she predict his parting words if she did not even know something as basic as that? "I must confess that I had been planning on heating a microwave dinner for myself again tonight, but that surely won't do now that you'll be joining me. If you'll excuse it, perhaps we can order take-out for tonight, and tomorrow we can stop by the grocery store and find something more suitable for the next few days."

Celes halfway forced a smile. Not that it was a halfway smile, but that she involuntarily halfway smiled at Mr. Scythe's manner of speech, and an extra halfway forced smile ended up with her having a full smile as she responded to him. "That sounds great, Mr. Scythe." But the reason she had to force half of that smile made this innocuous statement a minor fib: she had planned to go bike-riding all day tomorrow so she could think on her problem without any distractions, but if he expected her to go to the grocery store with him, that might take hours out of her day. Especially if he had extra errands to do while he was out, as grown-ups nearly always do.

"I'm not as good a cook as Sophie used to be, but I imagine I can still do a bit of justice to that fine kitchen back there. Especially if you're willing to lend an old man a bit of help on the morrow." Sophie must have been Mrs. Scythe's name. Odd that it would sound so strange to Celes' ear. Usually people's names tend to fit with their personalities, but Mrs. Scythe certainly didn't feel like a Sophie.

"I'll certainly help, Mr. Scythe. I'm pretty good in the kitchen myself, you know." That was no fib: Celes' cookies had even won honorable mention in the county fair last year, and that was in a competition against adults, not other teenagers. The prize ribbon that now hung in her room she considered far more valuable than the $50 prize she got along with it; though of course the ribbon took second place to her signed poster of a certain famous singer she had met in person during a trip to Disney World earlier that summer. Now that had been a great concert.

Suddenly, with a bit more flourish than was absolutely necessary, Mr. Scythe had fanned out quite a number of restaurant menus, and presented them to Celes. "I'm afraid to admit that living alone has made me collect take-out menus a bit more zealously than is normally considered proper. But cooking just for oneself just isn't really worth the effort involved, if you know what I mean." The open drawer behind him hinted at where he had taken the menus from, though she had not noticed him getting them out at all. Perhaps he was a magician? That would certainly make things more interesting than she had expected. But no, if that were true, then surely Tina would have told her long ago. He must be something exceedingly boring; were he anything rather exciting at all, Tina would have certainly told her what he was.

As she looked through the menus, she weighed the pros and cons of asking outright what he did. If he just told her, that would end the suspense, and she wouldn't have the pleasure of finding out for herself. But if it was something boring anyway, then what a letdown it would be to try hard to find out and be so disappointed!

"So what do you think, Celeste? Find anything you like?" Celes winced slightly as she looked through the menu.

"Celeste… Is it your name?" Celes looked up at him with a strange face. Maybe he was a magician, or a mind-reader at least. How did he guess what she was thinking?

Mr. Scythe smiled broadly, a smile she hadn't seen him make in a very long time. "It is your name, isn't it? That's what's making you make such a funny face every time I say it. Is it possible that I'm saying it incorrectly? Am I putting the accent on the wrong syllable?" As he said 'syllable', he indeed put the stress in the wrong place, and the result was so humorous that Celes could not help but to laugh.

"No, you're saying it perfectly well, Mr. Scythe." Her mirth was obvious, and Mr. Scythe's smile grew even broader, though it had not seemed possible only a moment before. "It's just that only my parents call me 'Celeste'; everyone else calls me 'Celes'."

"Ah, then that explains it, then! I had been wondering what I was doing wrong. Now that I know, I will call you Celes from now on—if that is alright with you, of course?"

"Oh, of course." There was no need to force even a quarter smile at this point; she had a fully genuine smile without any effort at all. "And thank you."

"You're perfectly welcome. But may I ask why? Is 'Celeste' really so terrible a moniker that you only let your parents use it? After all, if I remember aright, when Tina was here, she always called you 'Celeste' without you minding—though I'll admit that perhaps my mind is not what it once was." Of this, Celes was sure Mr. Scythe was exaggerating; sure he was old, but he still had not gone fully grey yet, and Celes was certain that his mind was quite apt indeed. Her father almost always complained of how he would usually dominate in their card games, and besides: he was right about Tina.

"Well, it wasn't so important back then. Tina didn't go to school over here, you know."

"What, if I may ask, does school have to do with who calls you what?"

"Well, at school there's another girl named Celeste, and she's nothing like me at all, though maybe she did look a little bit like me. But teachers would always confuse us for one another at the beginning of the year, and it was so annoying. So one day another girl came up with the nickname 'Celes' for me, and after that it was the only name I went by. But I guess when I was still a kid it didn't bother me if other people called me 'Celeste' so long as they didn't know that other 'Celeste' from school. Now, of course, I'm so used to my nickname that it's really become my real name, and only my parents still call me 'Celeste' anymore. Even though, strangely enough, that other Celeste left town years ago, and no one ever confuses me with anyone else anymore."

"Ah. I see." Though she was not quite certain that he did. "Well, Celes, have you decided on what you would like?"

She had, in fact, decided already, even without looking through more than a couple of menus, and within minutes their food had been ordered and would be on its way momentarily. While they waited for the food to arrive, Mr. Scythe served drinks and set the table, and Celes brought her small suitcase to the guest bedroom and unpacked her favorite alarm clock. She always brought that alarm clock with her, because its face (and hands) ran counter-clockwise rather than in the usual direction, and out of a long habit of reading time from it, she could never quite figure out the time on an ordinary faced clock. But this wasn't as large a handicap as it might at first seem, because most every clock is digital now anyway.

By the time she got back, Mr. Scythe was already sitting at the table, sipping from a mug of tea. The food had not yet arrived, but the table had already been set in as formal a fashion as Celes had seen in quite a while. Plainly, Mr. Scythe was making the most of this unexpected three-day visit. Certainly, he seemed to be enjoying it well enough.

Sitting at her place, she thanked him for the cola and remarked on the table settings. "Well, I have to use these dishes at some point, so I may as well bring them out for an occasion like this. I never bother while I'm by myself, and when your father comes by to play cards, it just never seems to warrant the attention of this fine china. But you, my fine lady, are as nice a guest as I've had in many years in this house, and I assure you that my poor neglected dishes are as grateful for your presence as I am. They exist, after all, to be used."

In that final sentence, Celes noticed a glint in his eye. It was the same glint her father had when he taught her how to fix her bike. The same glint her mother had when she wrote up a to-do list to add to Celes' chores for the summer each year. This was the kind of glint that told you something deep about a person. But why did it happen while he spoke of fine china? Was he a collector of dishes?

"Your dishes are really rather nice", Celes started, looking intently to see his reaction. But strangely he seemed no longer interested in dishes. Maybe he wasn't a dish-collector after all.

"Yes, they're nice enough. Would you like some more cola?" Without waiting for a response, he got up to refill her glass, which she had emptied rather quickly. Her parents didn't think cola was good for her health, so she only was allowed it on certain occasions.

When he got back, she thought of something else. His eyes had glinted when he said his dishes existed to be used; maybe it was not the dishes that interested him, but the using of those dishes. Maybe he loved to eat fine food. He might even be a professional food-taster. That seems like an odd enough profession to be interesting, but not so amazing that Tina would have told her about it. But if that were true, then why would he have planned on eating a microwavable dinner prior to her coming here? Still, she would try. "Maybe dishes exist to be used, but you might not use them for eating. You could hang them on your wall, like some people do." She watched closely for a reaction. Soon, it would be obvious what he did for a living. Celes could always figure things out, given enough time.

The minute she said it, the effect on him was unmistakable. He had been in the middle of pouring another glass of cola, and stopped halfway. His eyes glinted as he replied: "You're perfectly correct, of course. But maybe, just maybe, they may not exist to be used at all, however I might choose to use them." A humongous smile belied his tone as he finished pouring and walked back to the kitchen. He looked as though he had made a joke of the first order, although figuring out what that joke was was far more difficult than any joke Celes had ever heard.

While he put away the rest of the cola in the refrigerator, Celes tried to parse his words. Dishes exist because people make them. People make them because they wish them to fulfill a use. Maybe the creator made the dish to be eaten upon, and maybe he made them to be displayed on a wall, but how is it possible for a dish to be made, yet not to be made to be used? Perhaps that was the joke: that it was a nonsensical thing to say. But if so, it wasn't a very clever joke; that would be like when you say to a kid: 'It's time to go to bed', and they respond by saying: 'Chicken Head!', and laugh uncontrollably. Nonsensical jokes are kids' stuff, and surely that is not what he meant to say at all. No, the joke must be that, at first, it seems obvious that no dish can exist without existing to be used, but that, after further thought, it turns out that there is a way that a dish can indeed exist without existing to be used. Like in Alice in Wonderland, where everything is completely nonsensical at first glance, but on further reflection it turns out that everything makes sense after its own fashion.

So when Mr. Scythe got back to the table, Celes knew exactly what to say. "The only way these dishes might exist without existing to be used is if they were made on a practice run. Then they would be made, but their purpose would be in their making, and not in their then being used."

The look in Mr. Scythe's eyes was then more than just a glint: it was a sparkle of pure joy. Now Celes had figured it out: he was a riddle-lover. Maybe he composed riddles for a living. "Celes, you're once again perfectly correct, though I had not before considered the idea of a practice run. I was, in fact, thinking of something else when I made my little joke, but I do believe you've one-upped me on it by making my thought seem silly in comparison."

"Then you had a different idea of how they might exist without existing to be used?" She was curious as to what alternative he had come up with, even while she was inwardly quite proud of having come up with an answer that he had not yet thought of.

"It's really quite embarrassing to mention after your beautiful example, but I was considering the idea that the dishes may have been popped into existence without a maker whatsoever."

At hearing his words, Celes frowned deeply. "But that's not a fair riddle. That's not realistic at all. An answer like that makes the riddle seem not worth it after it's been figured out." Only after she said this did she realize that what she was saying was quite rude, and she immediately apologized. "Uh, I'm sorry—I mean, that is, …"

But Mr. Scythe only laughed. "Oh, don't apologize! You're right in that it was a very unfair riddle; but you see I hadn't thought of it as a riddle when I said it. I must admit that I'm a very poor riddler, when all is said and done. So please feel free to continue being honest with how poor a riddle I made. I fully agree with you, after all."

"Then you're not a riddle-maker?"

"Me? A riddle-maker? How funny! Is that what you think I do?"

"It would explain why you're free during the day to look after me. Riddle-makers can stay home and still make their riddles, after all. But no, I guess you're not a riddle-maker after all. But I did think I had it figured out; you see, I could tell by the look in your eye that you very much enjoyed speaking of the dish's purpose of existence, yet you didn't seem particularly interested in dishes, nor in food. I've been trying to figure out what you do for a while now. Will you give me a clue?"

Mr. Scythe found this all so amusing that he almost didn't hear the doorbell when the meal finally arrived. But after tipping the delivery person and carefully serving from the flimsy containers onto the formal place settings, he finally got around to responding to her. "What I do, it turns out, is different from what I am. But I don't mean this as a riddle; it's just that—well, you'd never guess this from the behavior you've so far observed, but I just happen to be an editor."

"You mean like a newspaper editor?"

"Well, like a magazine editor, at least. I edit a journal of ethics."

This was a word Celes had not ever heard before. "Ethics?"

"Ethics is… Well, let me see how to put this." He put down his fork for a moment and thought before continuing. "Ethics is the study of the form of what is right and what is wrong."

Celes thought this a silly way of putting it, especially if he just meant ethics is the study of what's right and what's wrong—but then she realized, like the earlier joke, that there must be a reason he didn't put it so simply, and so it was important to say that it was the study of the 'form', rather than of right and wrong in itself. But the difference between the two was not immediately clear. And what kind of right and wrong did he mean? "Do you mean right and wrong like 'don't cross the street without looking both ways first', or like 'don't rob a bank'?"

"Like both, actually. What I study is less about which things are right or wrong than about how I might go about finding out which things really are right or wrong." The confusion on Celes' face made him smile and explain further. "A boat builder might be interested in building boats, while a boat philosopher is more interested in how a boat might be built. Similarly, there are moralists who are interested in what is right and what is wrong; but I am more of a philosopher who is interested in how a thing is right or wrong."

"Like someone who designs a new kind of boat?"

"Well… no. A boat innovator is kind of halfway between the boat builder and the boat philosopher. The innovator looks to improvements that can be made and then gives instructions to the builder to follow. But the philosopher is not interested in improving things or even in whether or not they get built at all. He is more interested in how a boat might be built, even if no one builds it (or can build it). Similarly, there are moralist-builders, and moralist-innovators, but philosophers are not moralists at all—or, if they are, they are only so in addition to being a philosopher. I'm one of these: a philosopher of ethics. An ethicist."

"But I still don't know what you mean by the 'form' of what is right. If something is right, then it is right. I don't get the distinction you are making when you say 'form'."

Mr. Scythe paused for a few seconds while he chewed his food and thought. Finally, he said: "I like to look at how we might recognize a thing is right, and know that we're correct in declaring it right."

Now Celes paused before answering, trying to let it sink in. After all, even though the words seemed innocuous enough, he had clearly given effort into deciding to phrase it that way, so he must mean something in using those particular words. "You mean because, um, just because someone says something is right, doesn't mean that it is right."

Mr. Scythe smiled at her double 'because', obviously appreciating its presence. "That's exactly correct."

"So you try to figure out how to go about recognizing what is right?"

"Yes."

Celes smiled in between chewing, thinking, and drinking. It was rare to have such an adult conversation. Usually people talked down to teenagers her age. "I know that just because someone says something is right doesn't make it right. They might be lying, after all. But I can think of lots of things that are right. Like loving my father. I know that that is at least right, even if I don't know everything that is right."

"It's certainly possible that you might know a few right things, even if you don't know all of them. But tell me: how do you know it's right to love your father?"

Celes expected that question, and was immediately ready with an answer. "I know that it's right because it feels right. Don't you feel that it's right, too?"

Mr. Scythe smiled. "You certainly have me there. I do happen to feel that it's right, too. And you've hit upon a major method of going about looking for what is right. Lots of ethicists believe feelings have a lot to do with what is right. But sometimes feelings can be rather deceiving, you know." He took another bite before continuing. "Like when you feel like drinking cola too much even if it's bad for you." (And so Celes knew that Mr. Scythe knew that he was giving her a special treat by serving cola.) "But more importantly, not everyone feels the same way. You have bullies at school, yes?"

Of course there were bullies at school. Like Rene, who was held back a grade, and was much bigger than the other boys, though not all the girls. But what had that to do with how one feels? "…yes, we have bullies."

"I thought you might. There are always bullies at school, just like everywhere else in life. But when your bully does something that's against the rules—"

"Like pick on someone else."

"—yes, like picking on someone else, then he feels he's doing something right, even while the person being picked on feels the bully is doing something wrong. But things can't be both right and wrong at the same time, so at least one of their feelings must be mistaken. And if feelings can be mistaken, then we cannot adequately rely on feelings alone to figure out what is right or wrong."

"But surely bullies know they're doing the wrong thing. I mean, I don't suppose they bully others around while thinking they're being quite kind. Then you'd have to feel sorry for them, rather than think they were mean bullies."

Mr. Scythe smiled again. "You're right, of course. Perhaps my bully example was not so well chosen. But knowing something is against the rules is quite different from knowing something is wrong. He might recognize it being wrong rules-wise, yet not right-&-wrong-wise. But perhaps another example where people genuinely feel they are right on opposing sides would make things more clear."

"Like two sides of a war."

"Exactly. Or even between a person who thinks that war may be justified and a person who thinks that war is not ever right."

"So I can't entirely trust that my feelings are leading me to what is truly right." She paused, thinking for a moment. "But I still know it's right to love my father for another reason."

"What's that?"

"Because my mother taught me to always love my father. But I don't just mean her. Her mother taught the same thing, and all my friends' mothers. Even your mother, I bet. Even the bullies' mothers."

"So if it is taught by a mother, then it is right?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying. Some things that some mothers teach are wrong, I'm sure. But most mothers teach people to love their father. And fathers teach it, too, of course."

"So if most people of the previous generation teach it, then it must be right?"

"Well, they can't all be wrong, can they? If most of them think it is true…"

"So if most people think something is true, then it is true?"

"No, of course not. I'm not talking about what most people think. People can be wrong. But most teachers teach that loving one's father is right. By 'teacher', I mostly mean mothers and fathers, but you get the idea. I'm not talking about what the whole world believes; I'm talking about what the teachers teach."

"Ah, you mean specialists. The mass of humanity may be mistaken, but the ones in the know must know better."

"Yeah, something like that."

"But they may be mistaken as well, you know. In fact, throughout most of history, most teachers—even the best of teachers—have been supremely incorrect about many different things."

"Like what?"

"Like the shape of the world. There was a time when everyone's mother taught that the world was flat."

"But then we learned better, and now mothers teach that it is round. With each passing generation, teachers teach more and more correctly. That's what makes them good teachers."

"Not all teachers are good. But I see what you mean. Yet keep in mind that in order to make the switch from teaching that the world is flat to teaching that the world is round, at some point the daughters had to ignore what their mother told them and instead listened to another voice that made more sense."

"Who did they listen to, if not other teachers, and thereby proving my point?"

Mr. Scythe smiled widely. "I can tell that you're used to winning arguments. But your point will not yet be proven by me. For they listened not to other teachers as you mean it to be, but to the best teacher of them all: the best and most sensical voice to ever be heard in all of history."

"Who?"

"Why, to reason, of course!" At that, Mr. Scythe laughed heartily. Celes smiled, though she felt more than a little bit duped at this response. He was certainly a very eccentric man.

After his laughter died down and she had taken a few more bites, she continued her questioning. "So what does reason say when it comes to what is right? If we can't rely on our feelings, nor on what our parents teach us, then what else is there? God?" Celes's parents were not very religious, and thus Celes was not very religious. But she knew some friends at school who believed in an all-powerful being looking over the world. It did not make much sense to her, but maybe it might explain how to find out what is right or not.

Mr. Scythe's face took a serious turn at the suggestion. "Well, that's certainly a possibility. But if there is a god, and if that god tells us what is right, then is it right because he tells us it is, or does he tell us it's right because it is right?"

Of all the things Mr. Scythe had yet said, this was by far the most confusing. "…I know that you must be meaning to say something important with that question, but I just can't figure out what it is. I mean, what's the difference why God may tell us? In the end, it's still whatever is right that we're trying to discover, and listening to him may show us whatever that is."

Mr. Scythe grew thoughtful at the remark before responding. Without asking, he got up to refill Celes' cola while he spoke: "I'm not a moralist, so it's less important to me, but you do make a good point. Yet remember that we don't know whether or not a god even exists. And even if we hear something that sounds like a god telling us what is good, then how do we know it really is a god? After all, it could be a devil trying to deceive us."

Celes thanked him with a nod for the drink as she responded. "I don't really believe in any of that sort of thing." Then she thought of something. "Though… I guess I don't believe in it mainly because my parents taught me not to. So I might be mistaken."

Mr. Scythe's face lost the serious look and went back to his now usual smile. "Yes, you're catching on quite quickly! Personally, I don't believe in that claptrap either, but you never know: we might both be mistaken!"

But Celes still didn't understand. "What did you mean by reminding me that you aren't a moralist? And that earlier question still doesn't make much sense; what did you mean by asking whether God tells us something is right because it is, or something is right because God tells us?"

"I reminded you that I'm not a moralist because you asked what difference it made so long as a god tells us what is good. To a moralist, it wouldn't matter, I suppose, but I care about something deeper than whether or not a specific thing is good."

"You care about why it's good."

"Exactly. As to your second question…" Pausing, he looked off into the distance, seemingly collecting his thoughts into a good reply. "If a thing is right because a god tells us that it is right, then it wasn't right prior to his saying so. Presumably, he could have said anything at all and declared that it is right, and it would then be right." After a moment, he added another comment. "By 'prior', I mean not to say 'before' in terms of time, but 'due' in terms of requirements."

Celes frowned. "I have no idea as to what you mean by 'prior', I think. Or, rather, I have an idea, but only out of context, and this is despite your attempt to explain it. What do you mean by 'due'?"

Mr. Scythe smiled again. "That's what I get for not thinking it through before I tried clarifying the word 'prior'. It's a difficult term to use, when you mean to use it in the second sense, and not the sense of the word that deals with time."

"It's okay. I think I understand, from context, at least. You mean God could have said killing people is right, and then it would be right, right?" She smiled at her phrasing.

"Yes, if things are right because he says so. Not killing people was just as neutrally objective a concept as killing people before he chose one of them to call right and the other wrong."

"So if things are right because God says so, then the only way you can discover what is right and what is wrong is by looking at what God says—and what He says is completely arbitrary, since He could have chosen anything to be right, and anything to be wrong!" The thought frightened her.

"Exactly. But, of course, there is another possibility."

"Oh, yes, the other half of your original question. The other possibility is that God says things are right because they are right. Which means…." She thought for a moment. "Because God knows everything, He knows that specific things are right and specific things are wrong, and then He can tell us which is which."

"You have it down perfectly."

"And in that case, God doesn't explain the why of what is good! Because He has nothing to do with whether a thing is right or wrong; He is just able to see what is right and what is wrong more efficiently than we can."

Mr. Scythe smiled, even while he was sipping his tea.

"In which case, it might be helpful for someone who wants to know what is right (such as a moralist) to listen to God; but what you're interested in is not which things are right and which are wrong, but why they're right or wrong." Celes seemed rather excited at having fully understood the idea. "And if God caused what is right, then what is right is arbitrary, and you have nothing left to study; but if God just noticed what is right, then God has nothing to do with why it's right. And either way, talking about God just muddles the issue!"

Mr. Scythe nodded thoughtfully. He was finished eating, though he was still pecking through his dessert. Celes, on the other hand, had quite a bit more food to go.

"I don't think my religious friends would like realizing that God has nothing to do with ethics."

"Perhaps not."

"But, …"

"Yes?"

"…it seems like listening to reason has only told us what can't tell us what is right. We can't trust our feelings, or our parents, and if we turn to God, we either find that what is right makes no difference, or that God isn't the reason behind what is right. Where else is there to turn in order to find out the truth about what is right?"

"Now that is a question that has haunted many a philosopher. In even asking it, you mark yourself as a true philosopher of ethics, just like me, even if you haven't realized it before now." Celes was startled to think of herself as a philosopher of ethics. "Thankfully, what with all the philosophers who have worked on this question for thousands of years, there are lots of intriguing possibilities that have been thought up."

"Like what?"

"Well, maybe what is right depends on how we act. In which case the way we do things determine whether it is right or not."

Celes thought for a moment. "Hmm…. It sounds like you've just given a loose description of where what is right is determined. But you used the word 'maybe', which is a bit confusing. It seems to me like the only thing it depends on is how we act. Is there a different possibility?"

"Yes, there are other possibilities. But thinking of them all took many different philosophers many long years of thought, and we still have probably not found them all. Here, I'll give one example: Maybe it has to do with intention. In which case, it doesn't really matter what you do, so long as you intend to do the right thing."

"I see. Yes, that makes sense. Or it could be a bit of both, I guess."

"Good guess. But there's yet another possibility: maybe it has to do with the results. In which case it doesn't matter what you do nor what you intend, so long as the results are good."

"But if the results matter, then surely what you do matters also? Because what you do determines what happens."

"Very astute! But what I mean by saying the results are what matters is that the only reason one choice is better than another is if the consequences of that choice are better."

Celes finished three bites before replying. "I think I understand. So if how we act matters, then it may be true that looking both ways before crossing the street could be right. And if intentions matter, then no matter how we cross, if we intend to not get hit, then that could be right. And if consequences matter, if we get across safely, then however we did it would be right. Right?"

"Exactly. Though despite not being a moralist, I feel compelled to say that you should of course always look both ways before crossing the street, no matter what."

"But for a different reason each time! If action matters, then it is because looking both ways is important. If intention matters, then it's because looking both ways is the best way to accomplish what you want. And if consequences matter, then looking both ways is the best method for getting across safely."

Mr. Scythe's smile could not get any broader.

"It's odd that so much thought can go into this, but no matter what we still end up with the same conclusion."

He nodded. "That's why I said earlier that I'm not so much interested in what happens to be right or not, but more about why it's right. Most people agree that looking both ways before crossing the street is the right thing to do."

"Only most people?"

"Well, for example, some people think humans are destroying the environment so badly that they think any action which results in the deaths of more humans is always a good thing. They would say looking both ways is wrong because they'd rather you get hit by oncoming traffic."

"That's horrible!"

"I agree. But to them, it seems right. And other people think that the word 'right' has no meaning unless it's in reference to a stated goal. For example, they might think that it is perfectly okay to talk about saying it is right to study if you want to do well on your test, but it is meaningless to say that it is right to study without regard to a reason why. So if you ask them whether looking both ways before crossing the street is right, they would ask: what do you want to accomplish by looking both ways first? If you answer: 'I want to avoid getting hit by traffic', they will then be very glad to say it is right. But notice that the concept of right loses all of its universal meaning that way. They are effectively abolishing the concept of what is 'right' in isolation." Celes loved how he talked to her like any other grown-up. It was very empowering.

"How does it 'abolish the concept'?"

"Hmm…." Mr. Scythe got up to refill her glass again. "I see you're enjoying your cola well enough."

"Quite." Celes smiled.

Refilling her glass, he continued.  "Well, let's say you asked them if it is right to kill someone. They would refuse to answer until you told them what you intended to accomplish by killing them. They would say something like: 'It is right to kill them if your intent is to have them die, but if the goal is to not let humans die unnecessarily, then killing them is wrong'."

The only drawback to having him talk to her like any other grown-up is that he could be very unclear at times. "You're being a bit confusing with the way you're talking, but I think I get what you're saying. You mean they do what my mother does whenever I ask her about something she'd rather not answer. She just replies by answering a different question."

Mr. Scythe laughed. "Yes, I guess you're right."

"So there are really two different 'right thing to do' concepts: the right thing to do, and the right thing to do in order to accomplish something."

"Call them right-one and right-two, for short."

Celes thought the names sounded weird, but went with it anyway. "Okay. So Right₁ is the right thing to do, period. This is what you and I have been talking about all this time with feelings and mothers and god and action and intent and results. But right₂ is something different entirely, though it has the same name. Right₂ is like a completely different word that just happens to sound the same, and be spelled the same way; it has to do with what the right thing to do is in order to accomplish some goal."

"Just like that classmate of yours who had the same name as you."

"Yeah…. We had the same name, and looked a bit similar, but we're completely different people."

"So when you say these people are like your mom in answering a different question…?"

"Oh, I mean that you ask them 'is it right₁ to do this?', and they respond by acting as though you used the word 'right₂' by asking what you want to accomplish by doing it. They're answering a different question than the one that was asked."

"Yes, I believe you're quite right. They are. But, perhaps unlike your mother, they're not trying to avoid the question; they just think that the word 'right₁' doesn't make any sense at all, and so assume you must be meaning 'right₂' instead."

"So they don't believe there's any such thing as right and wrong."

"I guess you could say that. Right₁ and wrong₁, anyway."

Celes smiled.

By this point, both had finished their meals, and they were quite happy with one another. It was obvious that even after these three days ended, Celes would be visiting Mr. Scythe regularly in the future.

"Well, I haven't had such an enjoyable dinner in a very long time! You're a very interesting dinner companion, young lady."

"Thank you; I enjoyed it as well. But I still have so much more to ask!"

"Oh, do you really?" He chuckled lightly to himself. "I had no idea you'd be so interested in the philosophy of ethics."

"Well, it's very interesting, and I'm quite enjoying myself," Celes prefaced, "but actually there's another reason why I'm so interested, too."

Curiousity piqued Mr. Scythe's ears, which sounds strange, but really isn't. It consisted mostly of a slight head tilt. "What's that?"

"Well, it's a problem I have. I guess you'd call it an ethical problem."

"Ah, I see. I can't promise that I can help you with it, what with me not being a moralist and all, but I can promise that I'll try." When she paused overly long, he added: "And I promise to not tell anyone else about it, unless I have to in order to save someone else from harm—save Sophie, of course, who can't blab it on to anyone else in the state she's in."

Celes looked at him in a new light. Before, it was the pleasure of talking on ideas that made her enjoy his presence. Now she also marveled at the strict honesty he gave her. "I like the way you promised that. You're not overpromising, and you're letting me know in advance what you're willing to keep secret, and you're reminding me who you can't keep secrets from."

"Well, I certainly don't want to lie to you, after all." He smiled in his now quite familiar way. "After all, where would that get me? But what is this problem that's got you all worked up?"

Celes took a deep breath. "Well, …"