Various Bits of Prose

I have written a number of things which I'm not actively seeking to publish through more traditional means, but for which I'm still eager to find a larger audience. This directory will ultimately contain what I hope will be a fairly representative sample of my written work (so far). This link leads to a discussion of the technical aspects of writing.

In addition to the files presented here, I am working on three novels, the completed Sunfall rules system and companion books, a few short stories, and I'm also hoping to develop (perhaps as a PhD topic) a Philosophy of Roleplaying.

Non-fiction

• Anselm's Ontological Argument -- This is a short paper I wrote for an undergraduate Philosophy of Religion class, with which I am still rather pleased. It was also the sample of written work on whose merits I got into graduate school, despite the rather unremarkable grades on my transcripts.
• Corporate Feudalism and "Time Theft" -- Here is a rather unpolished rant on the idea that our employment paradigm of selling time to our employers is identical with slavery. I argue that we should not speak this way of employment, for it is labour that is bought and sold, not time.
• The Role of Detection in Rule Enforcement -- This is my M.A. thesis, which concerns a principle of effective legislation that I stumbled upon while designing the Sunfall live roleplaying game system. I discuss several examples of the principle in action, both in the game and the "real" world, including such areas as prostitution, the war on drugs, and the exploitation of illegal immigrants. It's close to a hundred pages if you print it double-spaced, but I'm particularly eager to see this reach a wider audience, because I think we have a lot of laws that overlook this simple but important principle, and which suffer because of it.
• The Epistle of Thomas to the Creationists -- A critique of biblical literalists on moral/theological grounds, rather than the usual appeal to scientific evidence. I first posted this article on Usenet in talk.origins a few years ago, where it got all of two response, both of whom completely misunderstood what I had to say. I'm not sure if that's my fault or not; please read it and let me know what you think. It's not very long.
• The Sunfall Manifesto -- This is a very brief outline of the philosophical principles that I adhered to in designing Sunfall. It is intended primarily to help game organisers understand how best to write modifications to the rules for their own events.
• The Twins Paradox -- A short explanation of the famous Twins Paradox from Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. I argue that the reason one twin ages and the other does not has less to do with acceleration than with the biased choice of reference frame by which the one twin's trip is defined.
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