[nemo]

I am very sure you could value rationality and still hate the writing. Terms like 'valuing rationality' or believing in the primacy of truth (I think that's what you meant) don't have universally accepted definitions.

A rational person might readily find the novel to an Eliezer Yudkowsky's propaganda-novel along the lines of an Ayn Rand novel, and not find it a well written or enjoyable story. The number of parallels between Rand and Yudkowsky are really fascinating to me, Rand and Yudkowsky really seem to be birds of a feather.

[kbenson]

Nobody has said that if you do value truth and rationality you will like it, so I'm not really sure who you are arguing here.

[nemo]

OP stated that a person person who did not value reason would hate the writing.

I just stated the converse, that person who valued reason might easily hate the writing too.

[kbenson]

The converse of the original statement is that if you hate the writing, you don't value rationality and truth. You didn't state the converse, you seem to have taken it as a starting point and disproved it. But nobody was arguing the converse was true, which was my point.

[nemo]

You are right, I stated the alternate case of those who value rationality and truth as opposed to those who do not, rather than the converse. Sorry, I was being too loose with my language there.

As to what the other was arguing, I was chiming in, not posing a critique, so your point is peripheral. In discussions one is permitted to add thoughts that are related without it being some kind of intellectual sparring. If I were sparring I'd have debated the claim that those who don't value rationality and truth would dislike the book (which is a hard claim to justify), but that would have been a pointless exercise since I don't really care. I did care to point out that rational, truth-seeking people could find that the book was unbearable, since that was my experience and something I thought was worth noting. If you disagree, then please feel free to explain, I'd be interested to learn how rational people must agree that it was a well written piece of fan fiction.

[kbenson]

I don't disagree. I just thought your comment, when taken as an individual statement, was obvious enough that it didn't need to be said (at least not again). I chose to interpret it as a refutation, which was my mistake.