Takes place during and directly after the wasteland scene in the season five finale. Rather than Starlight taking them to her past, the map instead takes the three to one final future. In this future, Starlight Glimmer has won. All of Equestria has succumbed to her vision of equality. So why does she hate it so much?
Twilight, Spike and Starlight need to get back to their Equestria. To do so they must join forces to battle a new Starlight Glimmer. Starlight begins to see things another way, and realises that she may have been wrong all along.
Chapters (1)
This literally blows my mind.
It's a much more awesome telling of the season five finale.
I loved how the characters were portrayed in this story more, as it adds some missing character development that was well needed in the finally.
Starlight sacrificing herself was a good part, and I believe it would made an even bigger yet sadder impact if she didn't came, or at least did came back but fractured. (e.g. in a deep coma, damaged memories, amnesia.) Not saying that I hate her because that would be really petty to think so and I actually find Starlight to be an amazing character.
Anyways, loved the story and enjoyed reading it.
7363895 Thank you for the comment. I am very glad you enjoyed.
The issue with Starlight being damaged or not coming back is I was trying to keep it within Season 6's canon. This was just an add on. So since she came back in Season 6 she had to come back here. Plus I admit I prefer happy endings, though I do make my characters earn them usually
If I ever write a second chapter/sequel to this to give my take on the montage that happened at the end of the episode (I wasn't a huge fan of it but I do understand that they had to round of the episode in case disaster struck and Season 6 didn't happen) then I'll consider the idea. Nothing big or life altering but just a little constant reminder.
Okay before I start rambling. Once again, thank you for your comment. Very glad you enjoyed the story.
Quite a nice concept. It's a bit hard to read, though, mainly due to unobvious scene transitions and frequent lack of indication of who's talking.
Here's an example. Separating these with horizontal rules
like so (use [hr] for these) works well. I'd advise using them at the very least when you switch between points of view, and also whenever you have timeskips.
Talking in 'single' quotes is for when one character's quoting another. [i]Italics[/i] work much more nicely for thought.
Quoting the show in different contexts can make for good comedy or drama, but I don't recommend doing it when you're essentially retelling canon (with the exception of the opening line in point-of-divergence AUs). It sends the message to the reader that they already know what's going to happen and should just skim the next bit, and it's not like you want part of your fic to be ignored.
Also, all your dialogue is either standalone or "words words words," someone verbed. That tends to create a little awkwardness when you have to choose between looking for increasingly esoteric synonyms for said, being redundant, or not even indicating who talked. Ponies are super expressive and have a ton of conveniently mobile appendages for writing body language, so while it's not a rule, I recommend doing stuff like this instead:
Finally, there's just a lot of miscellaneous missing commas and quotation marks in general. Since that's purely mechanical rather than stylistic, there's not much advice I can give besides just paying attention to well-written and/or professionally edited works, and giving everything a good once-over for punctuation after you write it.
7742486 Thanks for the comment. This'll help a lot.
I've never really wanted to use the line transition personally. It just felt like cheating. Books don't use it. If it's necessary I'll start using them. Until then I'll try and think of other ways to make transitions more obvious.
The dialogue thing, yeah, I've noticed but never really been able to figure out in my own head how to work around it. Your suggestion should work well, so thanks.
The quoting the show thing. I fought with that a bit myself but I decided I wanted it just to keep it a bit closer to canon. This is supposed to slot in between the two scenes, with a little bit added. I can see what you mean but I didn't want to stray away from the scenes I wanted to keep just for the sake of straying away. I dunno if that makes sense or not.
Thanks for the comment, again. I'll use it to improve. Or at least I'll try too anyway.
Have a nice day.
(Edit. And I finished editing, so hopefully any future readers find that a little less awkward. Thanks for the help again. It means a lot.)
7743124 A lot of books actually do use some form of breaks for changes too small for a chapter break, but still significant. Sometimes it'll be three centered asterisks, it's not usually a flat line. But keep in mind that books have physical pages to work with, and the internet's just a different medium with different conventions. There's a lot of other stuff fanfiction can do that "real" books can't which is arguably more cheating, like running for three million words without worrying about the book being physically holdable, borrowing someone else's characters and setting, or being published before they're done.
If you don't want to, though, it's fine. There's other ways to achieve the same effect.
The best advice I can give for getting the feel of action tag dialogue: imagine a talented artist reads your story, likes it, and wants to do some fanart of a scene. They're pretty good at imagining things, and will fill in all the blanks so it looks like a complete image. What you want to do is provide details they won't be able to come up with on their own, or at least would have to do some pretty intense guesswork for. Here's an example (from me, not copied from the story):
So what would an artist be able to tell about the two from that? Well, Queen Glimmer's probably standing on higher ground, she's enjoying herself, and she's looking at Starlight. Not bad, though it's hugely open how she's doing this: is she walking forward? Pointing a hoof? About to leave, looking over her shoulder? Or is she just standing there, doing nothing?
A good artist probably wouldn't pick the last one because it's boring, but you haven't ruled anything out, and the odds of the scene matching what you initially had in mind are pretty low. Never mind that there's no indication of what Starlight herself is looking like. Here's another way to write it:
What could an artist take from that, instead? Well, Queen Glimmer's pose is pretty clear. Ponies in the show do that from time to time, so it's easy to fill in the blanks: one hoof across her chest, the other's probably off to the side, gesturing. Judging by the fact that Starlight can get away with smiling, her eyes are probably closed too. Nothing's lost from the old versions- it's clear from their postures that Queen Glimmer is gloating (and above Starlight), while Starlight is trying to pull a fast one. In fact, the combination of knowing what Starlight's doing and how she feels about it (sly = optimistic) tells pretty much everything needed to extrapolate the rest of her features.
Basically, if you can use character expressions and postures to indicate what they're thinking, what they're doing will usually be more obvious. One warning, though: ears and tails are cute. Talking a bunch about them on a character who very much wants to be liked is massively endearing and pretty much always makes people like your story and/or cast more. Talking about them on a crime-committing villain or an insane protagonist is really unsettling. Use that wisely, and only when you want a threat to graduate from serious to creepy.
7743716 Yeah fair enough. I get what you're saying. I'll work on it. Thanks.
Good story. Wonder if Alex Warlon saw it.
7821983 Thanks for the comment. Dunno who that is, so I can't say if they saw it, but thanks for reading. Have a good day.
7821990
alexwarlon.deviantart.com Nice guy, though rather a fan of Starlight Glimmer.
Yeah…that ending was rushed. This is much less abrupt. I like it.
Whence I was linked.
Corrections offered without malice.
“Thanks, Spike,”
(Why all these commas on 'to whom one is speaking'? The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocative_case is set off by commas.)
pony's
“Yes, I
a millennium
You may want to add some sort of scene break (like [hr]) due to the update…oh, it looks like you didn't have one before, by the comments. 7743124
Some do.
At least some extra line breaks might be nice. A more common than a horizontal rule (what hr is short for) is a
[center][size=1.5em]* * *[/size][/center]* * *
as if she were
quiet. “I
Relishing the control (or, Reveling in the control)
plaything.
instead?
Mourn lost ones, but do not allow them to define you. Starlight Glimmer, it
map. Get
“If you're fast enough, I can. Just do it, will you?”
“We
quiet, will you!?”
rife
existence! That spell
it's time to finish our business, Princess.
(Princess is capitalized, as it is a title standing in for a name.)
potential, Starlight.
“Thanks, Spike.”
8234403 Yeah I'm starting to become a lot less stubborn about the whole *** thing to break up lines. I should probably go back and put them in this yeah. I'll make sure to do that, along with fixing the other errors you put up. Thanks for that by the way. :P
Huh. I had no idea that my story had even been mentioned there. That's a little...huh, not sure what to say about it. Welp, glad you liked it anyway. It wasn't intended as a fix fic per say it was just kind of another idea I had. My brain kind of latched onto the rushed redemption and I suppose I just wanted to stretch it out a little. As I didn't have the restriction of 44 minutes I could kind of go where I wanted and this came out. As it was I wanted the actual resolution to be similar, Starlight just had to work a little more for her second chance. Okay, a lot more but you get the idea. Thanks for the comment, have a nice day!
8234425
Well, the comment did say this was a fixfic that did work. I kinda don't think it's really a fixfic per se, as it doesn't truly change the plot…just adding another, oh, episode's worth of arc to Starlight's choice.
And hey, with the new site update, the
comes with its own three stars.
8234446 Huh. Oh, I just did the three stars thing. :P It really did need at least a few. Maybe it could do with some more but I was sorta conservative.
Yeah, that makes sense. It's not a fixfic so much as it is a "What could the writers have done if they had more time?" kind of thing. I liked what was there I just wanted to add a bit more. Still, if people think it works I'm glad. That's kinda why I wrote it, hehe.
I loved everything about this story! It had amazing writing, interesting plot, great, accurate characters, nice plot twists, and anything else you could think of! my only gripes are that I didn't read this sooner and that there isn't more. Incredible job, this is going into my Super Favourites!
Indeed was a very nice story and flowed well. Thr shole tKs on a power craved starlight was creepy. And the erased from existence never seen thafcbefre. Or at least no yet .
Cute story!
The only problem I see is that Queen Starlight is supposed to be evil here, but we are never shown how exactly is she bad, quite the opposite actually: she successfully dealt with Nightmare Moon while being a regular unicorn, she defeated Sombra outperforming Celestia, she even outperformed Twilight with other villains --- her Equestria is safer (the only possible drawback is not having Discord as ally). She treated three weird guys who openly intended to erase her timeline rather nicely offering them an ok life in her community if they hand down their power. She likely even weren't going to kill anyone up until the point where they almost won and it was either her or original Starlight. The only things against her is that she monologues evilly and life in her country seems a bit boring at first glance.
8629761
She isn't evil per se, which is the point. She's too far gone. Like Starlight before Season 6, she doesn't take no for an answer. It's her way or no way. Yes, she's protecting Equestria but if she loses then her Equestria is done. If Celestia and Luna lose, then Twilight and co step in. If they can't do it then Starlight, Discord or someone else will.
There's no doubt the trio could have handled this better, but Queen Glimmy was immediately on the offensive. She was taking their marks the moment they arrived, whether they were just passing through or not. Plus, Twilight and Spike had been going through horrible future after horrible future, while Starlight was still in six minds about everything. They were not equipped to talk her down and deal with her, they just had to run. She made it personal when her ambition to protect overrode all sense and she threatened their world as well.
Thanks for the comment. I enjoy when readers challenge bits of my story. It's fun. Feel free to comment again. Have a nice day!
8629776
I probably shouldn't have used word "evil" --- it's a too vague notion. "Wrong" it better, I think. And she isn't wrong on these two points:
She is (if not lying) consistently wining where all of these guys lost and had to rely on villain's unwillingness to kill or seriously harm and deus ex machina. De-facto she is an improvement in safety.
Which is actually responsible thing to do for a ruler: powerful guys popped out of nowhere are potential threat and Twilight's mark is a very useful tool to protect her subjects --- she is rather nice to them here leaving possibility to renegotiate later. And just after that she finds out that they are probably an existential threat to her universe. To not use avada kedavra with all she's got at this point is suicidally nice (the only potentially good reason I see is to want information from them).
It's a middle of the night here
8629899
Fair enough. I see your point, though I would call it cocky over nice. Maybe a little nice, she does think of herself as benevolent.
True she's is effective but there is still no fallback. She is Equestria now in a sense. There are no great minds like Sunburst and Twilight, there are no great warriors who can protect ponies if she is otherwise engaged. It would not have to be a villain, it could be a dispute or famine that she was unable to rectify in time.
She is I feel a pony they can try and talk to under less stressful circumstances later. They would just need a lot of backup because she would not show them the same mercy again.
Hehe it's night here too. I shall amend my statement to say I hope you had a good day and also have a good night.
Edit: In my mind, Starlight still thinks her equality doctrine has some merit, especially here. She just sees her old methods and also Queen Glimmer's as far too extreme. At first, ponies came to them because they wanted to, eventually learning something in the process. When they started using force, and when they started exempting themselves from their own doctrine, that's when Starlight finally felt the line had been crossed.
8629921
I don't see how they would get around "hey, my stuff works better than your stuff, like in real life" counterargument. I'd read it
You mean actual Starlight from the show? Hard to say, the show never stated what she thought explicitly. Using indirect derivation I would say that she didn't think so even at the time of her revenge because:
A. if you have important social changes to bring you wouldn't spend time toying with angry powerful alicorns in time loop, and
B. she never said that her town was a good idea during the fight, only that she was happy there.
Although the show usually is not bothering itself with portraying very consistent behaviour.
The problems with "Our Town" were unhappiness and lesser life quality in comparison to the rest of Equestria with no compensating benefits. And those were present even before Starlight lied or used force
derpicdn.net/img/2015/12/20/1048426/large.png
8639792
Well, you can have a lot of discussions when you aren't trying to kill each other. Maybe they'd be able to reach a compromise. Definitely, something I'm going to have to think of doing. Queen Glimmer is fun. How mad can a mad pony get when far too much goes their way?
They never bring it up really but I don't think she would fight for it so hard if she didn't think it was a good idea. They really should have had an episode where she struggled with her past beliefs bleeding over into her reformed life. They did not, which sucks but that's what fanfiction is for. Starlight is a very driven pony. She believed in her town, though her planning definitely could have used work. Nothing was going to threaten it. She is also, very impulsive. When something threatens her life's work, that becomes her point of fixation. Twilight was a pony she had to get out of her way before she could bring herself to try again. At least, that's my view on it. Show doesn't give a whole lot sadly but my brain is far too eager to improvise
The problems were present, yeah but Starlight didn't see them. She only saw them, in this story at least, when Twilight showed her how badly her revenge plot was going. That shook her to the core, and then when she met Double Diamond and company they treated her like royalty, rather than a friend. She was always the leader of the town but she at least tried to mingle with them. So I kind of imagine that present Starlight is still in the naive stage where she wants to change Equestria through equality and choice. Queen Glimmer is at the stage where she realised that wasn't working so she basically blasted everything out of her way and became the defacto protector. Basically, Starlight is still naive and impulsive, Queen Glimmer became cold and calculating in a world that was far harsher thanks to the lack of Elements. She took charge because no one else would. Starlight did not have to until she was already reformed and ready.
Also, thanks for the follow, and the discussion. This is fun.
8639842
Yeah, extrapolating from the show can be fun
I honestly don't see Starlight thinking like:
instead of something like:
Pretty specifically tailored and kinda complicated assumptions are needed to generate full observation set. The simplest I come up with:
In this context Starlight's actions make surprisingly a lot of sense.
Really sad picture actually
8644268
Not sure she ever wanted to hurt Twilight physically. Well, not much anyway. She was content to crystalise her and make her watch. The fact that Twilight was dragged to futures more terrible than anything Starlight could dream up was unintended. When I say "get out of her way" I meant it more psychologically and metaphorically than literally and physically. Starlight needed to beat Twilight, prove that her way was better. Twilight threw down the gauntlet in a way when she dismantled Starlight's town and Starlight picked it up with gusto. It was the challenge, and the relevance of the revenge that was important, not the eventual win. Also, Starlight's plans tend to suck...she just has enough oomph to make them function to a point. She has a hard time seeing past the initial point, or she just misses it entirely. It's sorta adorable as long as she isn't trying to actively stop you. Compare her Molwurth plan, or the one in Every Little Thing She Does, to Queen Chrysalis. Both actual plans she took even a little time to think up failed miserably. The defeat of Chrysalis worked because it was something she managed to put together on the fly. She put two and two together rather than trying to put one, two, three, four and five into a giant blender to get two back.
Both she and Queen Glimmer immediately went on the offensive as soon as they felt threatened. There was no real discussion, no diplomacy. Neither Twilight nor her friends were leaving with their cutie marks, that much was made abundantly clear very early on. In Cutie Map they started meddling, here they just wanted to leave. It did not matter in the end, neither Starlight was willing to take no for an answer. That's ultimately what makes them wrong. Queen Glimmer protecting everyone is a good thing, but they've lost everything in the process. They have free will...to a point but life under the equal sign isn't really a good one. The ponies were immediately happier the moment they got them back. Whatever made them want to give them up in the first place was long gone.
I'm sorta answering several different discussion points at once here. Neither of them is evil, or particularly malicious. They're easily slighted, at least season 5 Starlight is, and quick to throw everything at a half-baked solution. It didn't work for Starlight because the world was a lot more stable. She needed to adapt to it before things started to go her way. Queen Glimmer lived in a far harsher Equestria, with no real defence mechanism. The Elements were never found, Celestia was starting to crumble, Luna was still Nightmare Moon and Cadance had far less guidance. She stepped up initially, which was awesome. Unfortunately, ambition began to cloud her initial goal of equality in all things to a sort of misguided "I need to protect everything." She protects Equestria because it cannot defend itself, which is partially her fault. No one was in a position to deal with and talk things through. Twilight was tired, Starlight was peeved off and Queen Glimmer had too little doubt in her own abilities. Actually, she had none... so they had no leeway to grasp. Like I said, maybe next time will be different, maybe it won't. I still have to write it so only time will tell.
8649069
Sorry for a tiny bit delayed reply: I kinda got distracted and then I forgot
I've engaged in a similar discussion today and remembered
Yes, this is just a description of what happened in the episode, and it is true. The question is why it's true, because it looks very weird: supposedly Starlight just needs to travel back in time and tell her past self to paint her butt with water insoluble paint, for example, --- problem solved.
More likely because of deus ex machina
I don't know what is "free will", but the question was about rational choice and who's a bad guy. Let's denote normal state of Equestria as N, state where everyone is dead as D and state where Equestria is one big Starlight's town as S. Normally your preferences would be:
Let's pull out Von Neumann–Morgenstern axiom 3 and notice that there exists a number
0 < p < 1, that:(with means that situation, where probability of N is p and probability of D is (1 - p), is equally as preferable as S). Then if Celestia's chance of success is less then p we should rationally prefer Starlight's stuff. And there are no reason in the story to assume that Celestia's (or even Celestia + Twilight's) chance is better then p: who is the bad guy here is an open ethical question.
One, nice to include Starlight trying again and again to remove her own cutie mark, that actually fits her character, along with her calling it a 'parasite.'
And we see a Starlight Glimmer with four cutie marks, in short, having become everything she hates.
Nice to have Starlight NOT just march in and take it all by force, THIS IS FAR MORE INTERESTING!!!
“It's just... it goes against everything I've ever heard of...”
-_- How? It's how Twilight became a Princess to begin with.
All of our special talents are what makes Equestria special. We don't need to be the same to be friends.
But can you say a pony with a cutie mark for garbage disposal, and a pony with a cutie mark for quantum physics are equal?
All because of me!”
A phrase I imagine Starlight despises.
The only four words more destructive than 'for the greater good' are 'Me! Me! Me! Me!'
Starlight wanted a word devoid of superiors and inferiors, of masters and servants, can yo say that's wrong?
8771604
The fact that this whole mess could be avoided with water-insoluble butt paint is actually really funny to think about.
Good guy bad guy it's all a little bit vague. This is a case where everyone sort of thinks that they are right, at least until they're tested. The only one who was tested in this story really was Starlight. Her viewpoint was tested and when she saw what she had the potential to come, she shied away and sided with Twilight. Whether that was a good choice considering that Queen Glimmer is able to protect Equestria, at least to a considerable degree, is debatable. Is it better to be all of yourself but under constant danger, or to be completely reliant on an overlord who is benevolent but inexperienced, young and could ultimately fail? If Queen Glimmer falls, the cutie marks won't just magically go back to everyone so that the mane 6 or the entirety of Equestria can rise up to save the day, they'll still be trapped in the vault. Not absolutely unreachable but not desirable either.
8825177
Yep, that was something I really wanted to do. I was always sold on her vendetta against cutie marks. I can see how it could be interpreted differently but I bought it. She's lashing out with only a vague idea of what she's lashing out at since she's essentially locked in the mentality of the filly that watched her best friend be torn away. It isn't well thought out and comes out of nowhere logical because that's just how kids work sometimes./
Yup. Though it's more the status that Queen Glimmer has laid upon herself, rather than the presence of cutie marks, that infuriates Starlight.
One thing having 4 cutie marks did to Queen Glimmer was give her something of an ego, as you see when she starts to unhinge. Though, in a way, she's already unhinged. Having 4 cutie marks, 4 destinies essentially, pulling on her, was what started all this. As soon as she planted Nightmare's cutie mark on herself and didn't remove it, she essentially screwed up her entire being. Adding more and more cutie marks to herself, especially powerful alicorn ones, is only pulling her in more directions and adding more and more responsibilities that she won't be able to handle.
Twilight saw cutie marks swapped around and time was altered in some way to do so.Or at least the perception of time was. There were massive negative effects and the ponies involved were unable to actually utilise the talents they were gifted with. This is something different. This is a pony who ripped off a cutie mark and then transplanted it onto themselves in such a way that allowed full use of its magical potential. With side effects admittedly. Essentially, swapping cutie marks is a very bad thing that has never worked out for Twilight in the past. She also saw Apple Bloom afflicted with cutie pox and saw the damage that almost caused. A pony just strutting around with 4, no matter how unhinged, is just baffling to her by the book nature.
Eh, friends can crop up between the most unlikely of people. You can be equal in many ways that don't necessarily mean that what you do is of equal importance. To some, a party planner is a waste of time... but sometimes a pony like Pinkie Pie is exactly what you need in the world.
Starlight herself was developing a bit of that in the season 5 opener, talking about all the real friendships she gave ponies.I think the difference is that doing so did not make her more important than them, it just made her more trustworthy(in her eyes) than a bunch of weird ponies who were trying to ruin everything. Starlight does have a lot of pride, even if her defeat shattered a lot of it, the pride is creeping back. Though, what's fun about her is that you sometimes wonder how much she's trying to convince herself rather than other ponies.
I can't know. But I can say that going about in such a drastic way, removing the special talents of every single pony in Equestria is a step too far. Eiter way, thanks for the comment. I enjoyed replying to it a lot and you gave me some things to think about further. Have a nice day!
8771604
This is illustration why AI would make a bad ruler. Making limited chance comparison with inifinite amount of factors it unable to quantify. Or simplily with unknown event in future. Some new event in future may result that S-Equestria would be destroyed because it also got a flaw. A reliance on single person.
Quite a number if people would say that D ~ S.
There was a novel where AI murdered 10 billions of Earth population for better chance of survuval of ten tousands, decision made with no account of moral or fact that research was made, that could solve problem. Unproven theory wasn't an actual fact for AI.
Another example of such errors made by both opposing sides, AI vs AI, was provided in Message in the Bottle by Starscribe.
Note: living being designed around that it operates in set of unknown factors. Main imperative of life is "get better at it". So erasing that imperative puts chance of survival to zero in long run. Stanislav Lem, Ruturn from the Stars.
8967556
What kind of AI you have in mind here? AI possible design space is pretty huge (with living brains being teeny-tiny speck inside).
That was what original discussion started from: actual evidence presented in the story suggests that she is consistently doing better then original guys even without deux ex jewellery.
I kinda doubt that it's really their preference: for most part of human history significant part of population was in worse situation than ponies in Starlight's village (although their life wasn't particularly fun, at least they had good enough homes, had no guys wanting to kill them, were healthy and were not starving), but still consistently preferred to live.
Better at what? Inclusive fitness under current environment?
8967632
Only _existing_ in reality form of AI is based on variants working around the same principle you described. If you mean AI as artifical personality, I didn't mean that. AI is an optimization device.
Living brain isn't a deterministic machine, having its body and factors affecting as "input device". So it can't serve that function 100% but it have a non-zero chance to act properly outside designed limits. Expert system would only fail , probably would designed to fail safe. But fail safe canbe really bad. AI in "Message" murdered hundred of billions due to fail safe policy.
Imperative of live is "get better at it". At being life and continuing so, of course! At infinite limit of time any static system _will_ be destroyed.
8967667
What principles? You mean von Neumann-Morgenstern axioms? That's very general statement that's every mind better to follow, or it would be punished by Dutch book bet.
Yes. Evolution, water heater controller, human brain and AIXI are AIs. Hence my question what class of AIs exactly have you meant.
No idea what you mean here. Tossing a coin has non-zero chance to act properly,
Non-sapient life doesn't care about continuing, just about ratio of it's genes copies in next generation (inclusive fitness adjusted to be precise).
8967731
Von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theorem, actually.
In reality works on known and finite set of data. Following it strictly, without divergence, may lead to life form extinction.
Real life example. In early era of collectivisation there was idea of abolishing family and optimizing community on hive principle. Keep kids together, every child is everyone's child, share community excess resources evenly. Effective? Yes. Uniform fostering and education? To a degree... no. Biologically all kids were different in their capabilities. Further in timelime onset of collective nevroses and depression among young. To the level that they felt alone while being in a room full of people: a typical depression? Reason? Unknown and denied ideologically aspect of human biology - our hormonal system react on limiting count of different pheromones. Humans aren't hive animals, we have pheromonal regulator that reduces our density. More, we have mechanism of negative imprinting, meant to avoid inbreeding, which we must follow or our body punish mind by debilitating it. Too many kids together are registered as siblings. It's normal to "reject" a sibling.
Result: hundreds , if not thousands ruined lives and there are theories that resulting disorders are passed over in generation, based on observation of group animals. Imagine that such "logical" mind went S-Stralight and did that "experiment" in scale of whole country, not just few small towns. Extinction danger.
What is typical of such clever minds is that they always able to prove their theory by inventing explanations why it is right and why proofs of otherwise iare wrong. It's not stupidity, it's a design. AI would be able to do so as well, it's kind of input brackets.
Who said that ponies would not suffer some immunity deficite sindrome from loosing their magic in magic world? It's an unresearched area.
I mentioned Stanislav Lem's book. If to compress plot into few words, it's about astronauts returning to Earth after several hundred years of journey. They found out post-scarcety society and found out that recently humans invented some kind of immunisation against risk and emotions. Essentially they all starte to operate like VNM machines. Result? No inventions, humans stopped to research, to explore, reduced themselves to loners hiding in their comfortable homes, reduced their industry to bare minimum to live so. No space colonisation, their tech level is constant for a hundred years. Nearly stopped to procreate or develop anything. Dead end of civilisation. I know that there are people who adore this idea, considering stop of development as a blessing.
I think, you meant non-sentient life. Higher forms of life that are still considered non-sapient are more complex in bahaviour than that. But sapient lifeforms, as I illustrated, follow basic imperatives as well.
Oh, by the way. Genes aren't copied. Mechanism includes so many of coin tossing that there is no exact copy from generation to generation. There are signature checks that ensure fitness and viability of content but mutation is inherent feature. What is copied that is an "operation system", a part of cell that "runs" the code. More of, procariots have mechanism to pass code across generations without copying, even to swap code: plasmids.
8967997
It claims that if rational agent's preferences satisfy 5 VNM axioms, then there exist function u from outcomes to real numbers such that agent behaves as if it maximises expected value of u. Where utility functions were mentioned?
It's a theorem.
Were there any evidence present that it was a good idea? (good for children I mean, if you want to evaluate what happened on this metric)
Um, you've just described any single human being. And, yes, it's by design: ability to argue any bullshit persuasively is epic evolutionary advantage in ancestral environment, ability to arrive to correct conclusion via 10 inference steps --- meh.
Who said they would? It's an unresearched area.
Unless you're explicitly tracing your conclusion from observed evidence, prior probabilities for any two claims of same complexity wouldn't be different.
There's no such thing as "VNM machine", there is "VNM machine with these preferences".
It's actually all life --- humans currently are still biological. I've kinda given credit to humans (and possible sapient aliens) in advance