+-----
+
+Alexander ends his post by citing, as a charming example of the power of kindness the case of [Joshua Norton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton), a man who proclaimed himself Emperor Norton I of the United States and Protector of Mexico, whose claims to power were widely humored by local citizens.
+
+Norton's story is certainly _entertaining to read about_ a hundred and forty years after the fact. But before endorsing it as a model of humane behavior, I think it's worth dwelling on what it would be like to live through, not just read about as a historical curiosity.
+
+What if one of your friends had a psychotic break and decided that they were Emperor of the United States? Would it be kind, just, respectful to them for you to play along, and _keep_ playing along for the rest of your lives? To defer to their imperial majesty to their face, and then go on with your non-imperial life when they're not around?
+
+What if it were _you_?
+
+It was me, once. I had a couple [psychotic](/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/) [episodes](/2017/Jun/memoirs-of-my-recent-madness-part-i-the-unanswerable-words/) last year, including some delusions of grandeur. At various points, I thought that I had been appointed Gender Czar of this equivalence class of instances of Earth across the multiverse, that I was objectively one of the seven most important people in the world with a key role to play in the [intelligence explosion](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Intelligence_explosion).
+
+[...]
+
+I want you to imagine yourself as a resident of 1870s San Francisco, someone who Emperor Norton trusts as one of his chief imperial advisors.
+
+[...]
+
+"The categories were made for man, not man for the categories, Your Highness," you say. "An alternative categorization system is not an error, and category boundaries are drawn in specific ways to to capture trade-offs that we care about, not something that can be objectively _true_ or _false_. If we care about your identification as the Emperor—"
+
+"_What?_" he exclaims. He looks at you like you're crazy. And in that moment, caught in the old man's earnest, pleading gaze, you realize that you don't believe your own bullshit.
+
+"No, you're right," you say. "You're not actually Emperor. People around here have just been humoring you for the last decade because we thought it was funny. Um, sorry."
+
+He buries his head in his arms and begins to cry. He emits long, shuddering sobs for his lost empire. Worse that lost, an empire that never existed, except in the charitable facade of people who valued him as a local in-joke, but not as a man.
+
+You wait many minutes for him to calm down.
+
+"It's not wrong, is it?" he eventually says. "To want to rule, to _want_ to be Emperor?"
+
+"No," you say, "it's not wrong to want it."
+
+"And there are men who have actually ruled empires. If that's not true of me _now_—it could _become_ true, right? We could _make_ it true."
+
+"In principle, yes—although given the practical difficulties presented by the task of conquering a country, it's worth exploring other, less-expensive interventions that might partially satisfy the underlying psychological drives that make you want to be Emperor."