A Slow Circle

Why write a blog with no readers? Originally the answer to this question was memory failure, boredom and a dash of spite. I conceived of the blog as a way to archive my intellectual progress, to help consolidate and remember what I was thinking and when. It was the summer of 2020 and COVID, so I had the time and I wanted to prove an asshole wrong - an asshole who correctly pointed out that I hadn't added anything substantive to online conversation surrounding RPGs.  I'm still doubtful about contributing meaningfully to any sort of gaming or rationalist discourse (I would need readers and content first). Also, there are moments when I can feel the resounding irrelevance of ruminating over ideas too esoteric and already chewed. Funny thing is most of the time I enjoy writing here. Recently I read Scott Alexander's post entitled  Epistemic Minor Leagues and realized I'm just doing the same thing as everyone else and probably have the same worries. That post was a response...

This year I read both Dune and the Red Rising trilogy, enjoying both. There was something that nagged at the back of my mind as I read them. Paul and Darrow both border on the uncanny, not in terms of raw ability or even Chosen One powers, but more in terms of  agency . Both protagonists share an almost superhuman ability to wreak their will upon the world around them. I don't simply mean that they have an iron will in the face of difficulty, but that they are able to assert their will and nothing other than another agent might stop them. It's not just that they are protagonists, other characters act as Extreme Agents in these stories and many others like them. Extreme Agents are named characters. In these universes, all important events happen because one of a select few individuals made them happen. Extreme Agents are hyper-competent, unaffected by types of common failures that doom many of life's endeavors. They don't fail due to lack of tools, organization or cooper...

WEIRD Worldbuilding   The Ebstorf Map This post is refers to the book The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Heinrich, which I have reviewed here . The WEIRDest People in the World isn't specifically about tabletop RPGs or worldbuilding. It is about cultural evolution and how certain packages of cultural norms, institutions and psychology emerged and developed over time into Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies today. The book does spend a lot of time discussing the kinds of features that affect societies' collective psychology, institutions and ability to scale to larger populations. A big concept is the idea that different kinds of institutions are necessary to bond society together. In this post I will try to lay out what I have gleaned and how it can be used by prospective worldbuilders.  Laying out the building blocks: Clans & Family The vast majority of human societies historically have been based on kinship (familial) ties. There is a...