If you live in the same dimension as me, you may have noticed that nerds (or geeks, whichever you prefer) tend to like stories in the genre of sci-fi and/or fantasy. The logical question arises: Why?

Many people would like to automatically say that nerds feel isolated from society, so they immediately latch onto the genres which provide escape from their surroundings. Since geeks tend to be bullied and picked on, they want to leave this world for another one.

That’s one explanation I suppose. But with the rise of shows like Community, the Office, the increasing popularity of films and TV shows like Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, The Avengers, and other sci-fi and fantasy film adaptations, nerds have spoken out and become accepted into popular culture and general society. After all, how can you pick on someone for being obsessed with something you like too?

Also, Tolkien dealt with this exact question quite beautifully in his essay, “On Fairy Stories.” This world isn’t all good. If we try to escape the bad in it for good in another world (even if the world exists only in your mind), is that not a good escape? You’re not escaping good things like responsibilities but bad things like grief that you are prepared to move on from. You’re not replacing this world, you’re adding to it.

Anyway, so after that digression, you may be wondering what my particular theory is as to why nerds like science fiction and fantasy so much. Well, here you go: Nerds and geeks, in general, are smart in at least one area. Nerds and geeks would generally rather work out their mind than their body. What happens to a person who likes to work out his or her mind instead of his or her body? Well, they like to enjoy life with their mind as opposed to their body.

A nerd would appreciate a show or book which requires mental imagery and additional premises added to our laws of nature. That’s why we like magic. We’re not demon worshippers; we just like the idea of, “Hey, what if some more rules were added to the world which caused magic to be able to happen (outside of demonic powers)?”

We like to imagine where science could take us, even if we don’t have the complete information of the steps needed to get there. And sometimes we just make up a ton of scientific stuff that probably will never happen (that’s why I consider that type of “science fiction” to really be fantasy. But that’s another article I wrote)

So, perhaps the nerd who was bullied in school resorts to fantasy as an escape. But I say even if that’s a reason, it’s not half the reason the nerd likes fantasy. At the very least, in my experience, I’ve found that based off the experience of a nerd (me), I tend to like science fiction and fantasy because of the beauty which I experience in my mind while reading or watching it.

So if you've followed the Mischief Management blog, you've noticed that my ships of the week have stopped. Yes, they've officially stopped and have been replaced by board game battlezones. So if you liked them, sorry, but I ran out of ideas for ships and have found a great interest in nerdy board games.

But I would like to end the ships of the week officially with one final ship. And it's not going to be a fandom ship. No, it's going to be a ship of two philosophers. From the real world. No, they're not AU or steampunk either. Real world real people ship. 

Machiavelli and Ayn Rand. 

Let me explain. 

If you don't know Machiavelli, he's basically a guy who thought that rulers should do whatever they can do gain power and suffer the least consequences possible. He wrote a book called the Prince explaining how a prince would go about doing this. He dedicated the book to a big political person who didn't really like him in hopes that that feeling would change. It didn't, but many people liked his book. Napoleon was a fanboy of it.

Ayn Rand is at intensely sharp odds with liberals, religions, charitable organizations, and Soviet Russia. Oh, and most importantly, John Green. She also wrote a book. Well, many books actually. But the one she's most known for (and the only one of hers I've read) is called Atlas Shrugged. It's about how the government started up all these regulations that made business incredibly difficult, so all the businessmen just up and left, leaving the US (and probably a lot of the global economy) to suffer and die. Meanwhile, they lived nice lives hidden in the mountains.

Now, you may ask, "Why is he shipping these two meanies?"

The answer: They are both the two most logical authors I've ever come across.

"What are you talking about? They sound awful!"

Yeah, but think about it. They both determined what they wanted from life. Machiavelli wanted power and Ayn Rand wanted money. Are they the greatest desires? Probably not, but we all want what we want. Some people want different things, but the main thing is that we all want something. Some people want something that they think will inspire an emotion they want, but that emotion can come through a better means. And really, they want the emotion and not the thing that gets them the emotion. 

But both Ayn Rand and Machiavelli clearly recognized what they wanted or at least thought they wanted. Then they made sure to find the most efficient means to attain their desire. Pretty dang logical, most people will just go around saying they want to do "good," but really just want to feel good about themselves. Machiarand actually admitted to their own desires. 

Is it bad that they had those particular desires? Not really. I just think it's sad that they didn't have the full information. When they went about trying to attain their desires, they sparked some unintended consequences. Neither of them were theists (you can make the argument for Machiavelli, but I don't think he counts), so they didn't believe in any type of God. OK, maybe Machiavelli did, but that's a stretch and not in the way that most people think of God. Anyway, so they pictured that all there was to life was this world. And they tried to get what they wanted from this world in this world expecting consequences only in this world.

They're not really that great of people, but their philosophies were very similar.

Machiarand!

So the following was a paper I had to do for a writing scholarship and it is deep and heartfelt and all that good stuff. 

Also, it's a sort of intro for a new section on this site, called "My Stuff." My stuff is where I'll put all my creative writing, so if anyone's interested in that, go ahead and read it. 

And here's why I write:

Apparently when I was younger, I would ramble for hours about the latest Winnie-the-Pooh story I’d heard. I never could recall such instances of this accusation, but my parents had recorded my ramblings on tape so as to settle the verdict. My aunt especially, clearly remembers a time she attempted to escape my lengthy storytelling by excusing herself to the restroom. Patiently, I waited outside the door the whole time and picked up where I left off when she emerged.

Stories hold a special type of magic that can enchant a reader till he or she is practically bound to its fate. A book can literally open a world. Not a world of tangible matter, but a world of thought. After all, how do we experience matter but in our minds? Yes, our hands touch and our eyes see, but they simply relate what they touch and see to the brain, which processes everything in the end. In the world of a story, the brain immediately processes the world of thought without the intermediary hands and eyes.

It is for this reason that I especially hold a special place for works of fantasy, because I receive immense pleasure delving into the realm of impossible beauty through the medium of fantasy. In our world, there is much beauty to be seen, heard, felt, tasted, and smelled. But why must we be limited to that which is in this world when there is the possibility for beauty in an entirely different dimension?

Thus, I read to experience the juicy realities of thought that are present in every story. And after soaring through such splendor, I cannot help myself from creating worlds of my own. After knowing that impossible beauty can be conjured by means of thinking a bit and putting some letters together, how could I not attempt such a feat?

Apart from the aesthetics of storytelling, another reason for my writing is that it is a marvelous method of reflecting the workings of this world of matter. All the great authors have been honored because they have struck upon some type of Truth in their work. People long for truth wherever they can find it, and some great men have made it easily visible by means of story. I dearly hope to follow in their steps.

Now, however much I talk about high ideals such as beauty and truth, the primary reason for my writing can be grasped by a five-year-old. In fact, I had grasped it then when I was rambling about Winnie-the-Pooh. I love writing because it’s just too much fun. Each of us human beings experiences pleasure in a different way, and writing, although it can be aggravating at times, makes me feel whole and good.

I still have that big Winnie-the-Pooh book that sparked my obsession with writing. From that old thing, I learned as a Kindergartener the awesome joys of beauty, truth, and plain old fun that are reading and writing.

Ever since mid-ninth grade, I have chosen to look at the world in a purely logical way. Now, this is not to say that I disregard things such as love and happiness. To the contrary, I logically deduce that I desire such things as love and happiness. Therefore, I determine what path I must tread in order to reach whatever destination my desires take me. I disregard those paths which cause me displeasure and proceed to choose one to fulfill my goals.

So, back in ninth grade with this frame of mind, I decided that I could best find happiness by knowing Truth. Understanding that there were several philosophies practically begging for me to adopt them, I took what I now hope to be a critical view of them all.

Being a logician, I weeded out philosophies by using solely what I knew for certain. For instance, I knew I had a conscience. Where did this annoying voice in my head come from? Perhaps some god put it there, or perhaps we evolved it. However, after thinking about it, I concluded that it was most likely not evolved, since my conscience told me to do such things as help the poor and weak, which does not benefit the biological evolution of a species.

So I needed to find a logical conception for morality. Based off such arguments as the Resurrection and fulfilled prophecies, I determined Christianity to be the most reasonable explanation. I admit, there may be some parental influence upon that decision, and I by no means assert that I have all data in this controversial matter. However, if there is a God who has my best interests in mind, then surely by the standards of the conscience he has inlaid in my mind, he will not punish me for being honest with myself after seeking out and analyzing truth. (And if there is either no god or a god who does not cares not for me, then any plan I make would be either fruitless or yield random, unpredictable results, which eliminate the purpose of a plan in the first place)

Therefore, as a Christian, I understand from the Bible that God wants me to obey that conscience and follow his teaching even if it is not pleasurable, because by sacrificing temporary displeasure, I will gain infinite pleasure in heaven. Thus, I deemed it prudent to receive happiness now and in the afterlife, but if I must choose, I choose the afterlife.

Thus, everything I do, I do to receive maximum happiness. Finding immense pleasure in reading and writing various works, especially fantasy, I attempt to find happiness through fantasy and other genres of story. I read to receive pleasure while simultaneously expanding my range of ideas. When writing, I attempt to create true themes in my work, so as to better organize my own thinking and maybe even that of my readers.

Many people separate pleasure from work. To me, that is fruitless.  I choose to enjoy life and sacrifice small pleasures for greater future pleasures. Although some may call this philosophy hedonistic, I approach it with intent to remain holy, for that will cause me future infinite happiness. 

The following is a letter J. R. R. Tolkien wrote to his son, Christopher Tolkien, when he was called to go to the Royal Air Force. I thought I'd put it up because I'm a semi-libertarian and I like it that my favorite author also mistrusted putting too much power in the hands of fallen humans. I mean, that's what the Ring was all about. Too much power in the hands of imperfect people. Anyway, here's the letter.

My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the an and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to ‘King George’s council, Winston and his gang’, it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy. Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. And at least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The mediævals were only too right in taking nolo efiscopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line. But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that – after all only the fatal weakness of all good natural things in a bad corrupt unnatural world – is that it works and has worked only when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way. The quarrelsome, conceited Greeks managed to pull it off against Xerxes; but the abominable chemists and engineers have put such a power into Xerxes’ hands, and all ant-communities, that decent folk don’t seem to have a chance. We are all trying to do the Alexander-touch – and, as history teaches, that orientalized Alexander and all his generals. The poor boob fancied (or liked people to fancy) he was the son of Dionysus, and died of drink. The Greece that was worth saving from Persia perished anyway; and became a kind of Vichy-Hellas, or Fighting-Hellas (which did not fight), talking about Hellenic honour and culture and thriving on the sale of the early equivalent of dirty postcards. But the special horror of the present world is that the whole damned thing is in one bag. There is nowhere to fly to. Even the unlucky little Samoyedes, I suspect, have tinned food and the village loudspeaker telling Stalin’s bed-time stories about Democracy and the wicked Fascists who eat babies and steal sledge-dogs. There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.

Well, cheers and all that to you dearest son. We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water. Also we have still small swords to use. ‘I will not bow before the Iron Crown, nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.’ Have at the Ores, with winged words, hildenǣddran (war-adders), biting darts – but make sure of the mark, before shooting.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Source: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien [pdf], p. 74

If you want more about Tolkien and politics, here's an interesting podcast. The guy's voice is boring, but he talks about interesting stuff. Except for like the whole middle when he talks about the life of this one guy who he only brought up for a quote. Anyway, I'm making it sound bad, but it's not that much, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qnlz088fgw

I’ve said that here on LITA (Living Inside the Asylum), things would get controversial. Well, I haven’t really done that yet, but this’ll be a mild introduction to some controversy that may follow.

Often, fandoms will generate around sci-fi or fantasy stories. What’s the difference between the two?

Many would say that sci-fi deals with space and fantasy deals with magic. Very well. But what if there were a story about magicians in space? Or spaceships that crashed into a magical planet? What then?

There needs to be a better definition, because, even if something took place only in space with no magic, I might still classify it as fantasy. Let me give my definitions:

Fantasy- A genre of story whose premise is not in accordance with the scientific laws of nature.

Sci-fi- A genre of story whose premise does not reject the scientific laws of nature but explores every possibility of what could happen in the natural world of our universe(s)

So, I’m saying that if it could happen (more realistically, if the author and/or some of fandom believe it to be a legitimate, if remote, possibility), then it’s sci-fi. If there’s no way any rational person could accept that what is being presented could theoretically occur, then it’s fantasy.

With this frame of mind, LOTR, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, etc. would all be considered fantasy. On the other hand, Star Trek, Ender’s Game, Dune, Battlestar Galactica, etc. would all be considered sci-fi. (I’m currently debating BSG and Princess Bride (you could make the argument that Princess Bride could realistically happen))

You may be asking: Why this definition? What’s up with this crazy definition that makes Star Wars and Doctor Who fantasy?

Fantasy is all about smelling the roses in life. But it’s more than just that. Fantasy is about smelling roses that don’t exist! We get to make up whatever beauty we want in fantasy and say: THAT’S AWESOME!

But sci-fi sticks to literal truth. It’s a beauty in and of itself that says, look where we can go. We can do that- that can happen! Sci-fi gives us something to strive for while presenting a message in a type of beauty we can attain. Fantasy gives us something completely new to wonder at while presenting a message in a type of unattainable beauty.

This doesn’t answer the question of which is better. But it does leave me with a more clear answer as to what I, in my own subjective opinion, think is better. I adore fantasy.

You may like to think about what could be. Sure, go ahead if you’re one of those people. But I like to simply sit back and enjoy the infinite potential that fantasy offers. It teaches us that lessons learned in a world totally different than ours can still be applicable in our own, even if the science isn’t.

So there you go. Fairy stories rock!

Have you ever pondered the great question (not Doctor Who?) – What makes things funny? Have you ever really thought about it?

I find the question intriguing because I’ve found no answer. Some things make you laugh, without much logical explanation. I mean, consider the funniest joke you’ve ever heard (the one that comes to mind currently are the words of Wash from Firefly: “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” I would give backstory, but I will instead move on. If you haven’t watched Firefly, watch it). All right, now think, is there any logical reason why that’s funny?

NO!

After going through everything that’s ever made me laugh, I can’t think of a good reason why it makes sense that I laugh about it. Arrested Development has made excellent use of puns, but what makes a play on words funny? It’s simply using a word or phrase that sounds similar to another word to mean two things. Oh wow, so profound. I won’t even get into jokes about stupid people, because why are we laughing about the stupidity of others? That should be cause for depression and cynicism for humanity.

Are we really reduced to outbursts of strange noises from our throats by certain words put together which usually have no correspondence with actual truth, and if they do, it is a trivial correspondence which does not matter in the great scheme of things? I understand that there are health benefits to laughter, but I’m looking for the cause of the laughter.

Maybe some scientist out there has found some chemical in our brains that for some reason reacts with certain types of words put together. But I’m not a scientist, I’m a logician. I try to figure out things logically, which means that every effect must have a cause. It’s called the Law of Causality, and I can’t find a rational cause for laughter.

Now, does this mean we should not laugh? Certainly not. Logic dictates that we can choose between varying degrees of happiness or sadness. Sometimes we do not choose the happiest option because it will cause a sadder option later on, but usually we’ll pick the option that has the highest Cost/Benefit ratio between happiness and consequences. With laughter, there are hardly any consequences (unless laughing would hurt someone’s feelings or your throat feels like a gigantic parasite has hibernated in it). So, because laughter increases happiness levels without causing any consequences, I’m all for laughing.

The problem lies not in the laughter itself, but in deducing the cause of this laughter. Now, I usually like to come to some sort of conclusion at the end of these articles, but although I try hard, I don’t know everything. And this is something that has bugged me for a while, and I’d like to express my angst over being unable to determine the cause for laughter and humor. If anyone out there believes to have gotten around the horns of my dilemma, please tell me.

 “The wise speak only of what they know, Gríma son of Gálmód. A witless worm have you become. Therefore be silent, and keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a serving-man till the lightning falls.”

So spoke the Wise Gandalf. Isn’t that just awesome? Maybe I’m just overly obsessed with LOTR (then again, I consider obsession to be a good thing. I’ll write about that later on), but I think that was just stupendous. The wise speak only of what they know. Think about it.

Have you spoken an opinion about something that you don’t have all the info about and then someone who knows more about the topic comes along and throws your opinion out of the window so many times that you lost count? Maybe it’s just me again in my crazy world, but I’ve done that. Not a good feeling.

Or maybe it wasn’t an opinion. Maybe you definitely knew without a shadow of a doubt that you knew how to do something. So, you want to show everyone how it’s done, you get up to do it, and you fail miserably.  You obviously didn’t know what you were doing.

So, I would say that Gandalf was on to something here. The wise speak only of what they know. Maybe next time you’re going to voice an opinion or attempt some feat, make sure you know what you’re talking about, otherwise, you’ll look like a fool.

Now, do we completely know everything about even one thing? Well, maybe 2+2=4 and some other simple obvious things, but it's hard to be completely sure about any one thing. Does that mean we just remain silent all day? NO! On the whole, as long as you’ve judged that you’ve significantly covered a sufficient amount of knowledge on a topic, go ahead and talk about it.

And if you know you’re by no means an expert on a topic, but you still think your opinion is valid, well then, make sure everyone knows that this is the thought of a non-expert. Unless you’re as smart as Sherlock (and even then), there’s no need to get haughty about what you think you know. In other words, don’t get cocky, kid.