Fundamental Decision Making Error

  • Your error is fundamental to the human psyche: you have allowed yourself to believe that others are mechanisms, static and solvable, whereas you are an agent. *

Writing about fictional politics isn’t trivial. First an author must build out the raw events of reaction and counteraction building the plot from an omniscient viewpoint. But in a second step, the author must don a veil of ignorance, and place themselves within the viewpoint of a character, with incomplete information, irrational behavior, and uncertainty. At a third level removed, any time a character wants to plan for the reaction of others, such uncertainty needs to be accounted for to feel real. Otherwise, character interactions turn into an single player chess game where every move is known, planned for and predicted to absurd levels.

If only Dickerson followed the advice that he keeps giving his protagonist: people are not mechanisms, static and solvable. Indeed, uncertainty and probabilistic thinking are the fog of war that makes politics more than an accounting exercise. Instead, Dickerson presents politics as the single player chess game with moves meticulously planned by shadowy figures and masterfully played by the accountant Baru Cormorant. Such plots stretch credulity (we instigated the rebellion to crush it!) (we let you escape only to catch you!) (we set you loose because we knew exactly what you would do three years later!).

It’s not all bad - any book that uses runaway inflation as a key plot point is worth a look. Baru’s struggle towards a utilitarian aim and the cost required to get there is heartbreaking. It resonates that that anything we want to accomplish must be done as part of a larger system, and in doing so we compromise some part of ourselves for that accomplishment.

  • I am a part of this, but I do not have to love it. I only have to play my role. Survive long enough to gather power. Gather enough power to make a difference. *

I’ll continue the series, but it’s more about watching the chess than discovering a world.

** 50th book of 2021 **