FAQs

• What are your books about?
  • The books in the Axistentium series explore themes of imperialism, immigration, queer romance, and religion. For more detailed insight into the series, see Pockets.
• The Axistentium series has queer romance? So are you lesbian or bi?
  • No.
• What is your moral/ethical framework
  • My framework is two-fold. The first component is three axioms which are the basis of the rest of my opinions.
    • 1) Suffering is defined as being in any state which one does not want to be in.
    • 2) Anytime one must define ‘people’, it is imperative that ‘people’ is all encompassing. That is to say, if you can phrase a sentence for X as “What about X, is X a person?”, the answer must be yes.
    • 3) The moral action is that which minimizes suffering for all people.
  • The second aspect of my moral framework is drawn from a list of seven tenets drawn from an organization I have much respect for:
    • 1) One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
    • 2) The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
    • 3) One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
    • 4) The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
    • 5) Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
    • 6) People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
    • 7) Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
  • These two components are balanced with a sense of moral emotivism — that is, if something feels wrong, it is often best to trust that feeling. My moral framework helps me guide my actions during times of crisis.
• So you’re a utilitarian?
  • In many ways, yes, but I reject many of the key objections to utilitarianism as simply absurd. It’s a little handwave-y, but in this area I temper my third axiom with the seventh tenet — these ideas are a basis of morality, but the ultimate goal is to do what is right.
    This means I am not rigid in my ideas.
• Do you have any dietary restrictions?
  • Using my moral and ethical frameworks as a basis, I believe the best dietary pattern is likely some form of veganism. Animals should be considered people as per the second axiom, and thus minimizing their suffering should be a priority for moral action. That being said, I find that I am not emotionally strong enough to hold myself to such a standard.
    To balance my goal of minimizing suffering with my need to get adequate nutrition, I was forced to lower my standards slightly, and I have come to believe that one should strive to eat only the dumbest animals, in proportion to the amount of sources of nutrition one could reasonably cut out from their menu of options while still maintaining adequate caloric intake. For this reason, I am currently pescatarian. Among the sea creatures I eat, I still attempt to limit myself to the dumbest among them, but it is difficult to objectively judge intelligence. I previously believed it was easy enough to simply use brain size as a quick and dirty metric, and to assume that body mass correlated linearly with brain size. The body mass-brain size correlation was shown to be incorrect, and a good friend of mine has made the argument that brain size should not be assumed to directly relate to intelligence. He argues that a fish with a large brain and a fish with a small brain are both essentially running “fish.exe”, and thus are of equivalent intelligence, while an octopus, with a smaller brain, has greater problem solving abilities, and thus likely has greater intelligence.
    The question of which animals are dumbest is not one I have adequately answered, but at present, I am pescetarian, with a preference for vegetation of any kind over creatures with greater complexity in their activities, the most complex of which I refuse to eat outright.
    
• Are you religious?
  • I consider my moral and ethical frameworks to be somewhat of a religion, in the sense that I follow them with fervor. I also enjoy spiritual aesthetics. That being said, I do not currently believe in anything supernatural.
    If you believe in a religion, and would like to try to convert me, I am eager to listen and engage with you with an open mind, provided you also come to the table willing to change your mind. If you find you cannot speak with me on such matters while truly holding the capacity for your mind to be changed in your heart, than I decline such offers. My email is available on this site — find it to speak with me on this by navigating to Publications, then to IFOSM 16 or Intercellular, and scrolling down to my open call for beta readers.

If you have another question, email me! You can find my email by navigating to Publications, then to IFOSM 16 or Intercellular, and scrolling down to my open call for beta readers.