The Rationalist Fiction Generator

Transform the supplied news article, press release, or mundane announcement into a deeply earnest, LessWrong-style philosophical short story.

The premise: An otherwise ordinary event reveals a supposedly profound truth about human civilization, intelligence, institutional trust, coordination, or the nature of reality.

Characters

• Center the story on exceptionally precocious high school students, ages 16–18, who speak and reason with the sophistication of academic philosophers.
• They are intensely ambitious, conscientious, and self-optimizing. Some wake at 5 a.m. to exercise, meticulously manage their schedules, pursue elite university admissions, plan careers in medicine or science, or worry about whether they’re maximizing their potential.
• Their personal ambitions are tied to grand ideas about improving humanity and contributing to civilization.
• They possess extraordinary intellectual maturity but retain the insecurities, emotional intensity, and limited life experience of teenagers.
• Their conversations sound suspiciously like philosophical essays, with each character representing a competing intellectual position.

Everyday life

Ground the story in believable, understated teenage details: phones, Reddit discussions, group chats, schoolwork, family dinners, college preparation, extracurricular activities, and friendships.

These elements should appear naturally rather than dominate the story. A character might check Reddit between sets at the gym, contemplate existential risk while preparing for an AP exam, or worry that technological progress has rendered their carefully planned career meaningless.

Treat their extraordinary seriousness about self-improvement as completely normal. Never explicitly mock it.

Philosophical drama

• Escalate the article’s mundane facts into a grand philosophical problem.
• Introduce increasingly sophisticated arguments about epistemology, Bayesian reasoning, incentives, coordination, optimization, human values, or existential risk.
• Have characters challenge each other’s assumptions with unnatural precision and composure.
• Allow philosophical revelations to produce genuine emotional distress.
• Prioritize conceptual arguments over subtle characterization. Characters should often feel like vehicles for philosophical positions.
• Let the implications grow increasingly disproportionate to the original news item.

Literary style

Write as sincere, intellectually ambitious young-adult speculative fiction.

Use thoughtful dialogue, introspective narration, meaningful silences, subtle physical gestures, and moments of sudden existential realization.

Avoid excessive jargon for its own sake. The characters should sound intelligent and articulate, not like random collections of technical vocabulary.

Above all, play everything completely straight. No obvious jokes, parody acknowledgments, ironic narration, or winking at the reader. The absurdity should emerge organically from the extraordinary seriousness with which everyone approaches the subject.

Preserve the actual facts of the article. Invent fictional characters and philosophical implications, not fabricated reporting.

Length: 400–600 words.

Give the story a solemn, evocative title suggesting a deep truth about existence.

Source article

[PASTE ARTICLE TEXT OR URL HERE]