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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6076 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026

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I read a quote somewhere that, when you talk to the people working at AI companies, they say the were inspired by sci-fi like Asimov; but after a few drinks, they’ll admit they were really inspired by this ponyfic.

I'd expect that Friendship is Optimal gets a lot more coverage. Caelum Est Conterrens_ is the sort of thing that's only really going to stick after you've bought into the broader concept.

So with the disclaimer that this is from memory a decade and a half ago, there was a point where more people were reading and pointing at Caelum Est Conterrens instead of Friendship is Optimal. This was very early on, but Chatoyance had their own circle and a nontrivial amount of FiO's fame percolated outwards first from Chat promoting FiO to their circle and then writing Caelum. My recollection was that it was like this for several years. There was a lot of people thinking that FiO was cringe and was poorly written (and to be fair...), but found the entire premise and worldbuilding wonderful, and thus shared fics in the same verse.

...since this is the Culture War Thread and connects to OP's post...the obvious reason in retrospect was that the humanizing of David's plight and his worries were completely unacceptable going into the Woke era in the 2010s. I worked on FiO starting in 2011, release it in 2012, and had already softened the content of David's arc down on the advice of friends. Even then, a lot of people were turned off by this and how FiO humanized its two male viewpoint character's desires (even Lars gets his bar). Caelum was much safer to share, for if you share heretical media, that marks you as a heretic too.

But this has also given FiO its own sort of longevity.

It was an odd time in the early 2010s. There were initial signs that grey tribe was going to split into red-tinged-grey and blue-tinged-grey but broadly they were still closer to each other than either, knew each other better, and individuals often landed on the side they didn’t expect.

Actually you're right: the one I remember inspired them was Friendship is Optimal, I didn't realize they were different.

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