+In a free Society, everyone should have the right to express themselves, to modify their body and social presentation however they see fit. But having your best to present your true self, you can't—not even _shouldn't_, but _can't_—exert detailed control how other people perceive you.
+
+All you can do is incentivize them to lie.
+
+And when the laudable instinct to be kind gets corrupted into [universal socially-mandatory lies](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/)—when a man can wear a sticker that says "SHE" and say, "Who are you going to believe, my sticker, or your lying eyes? There's no rule of rationality saying that you shouldn't believe the sticker, and there are plenty of rules of human decency saying that you should" and the _finest minds of my generation_ can permit themselves no other response than, "She's absolutely correct; the categories were made for man, not man for the categories."
+
+This is not rationality. This isn't even kindness. We're _smarter_ than this.
+
+-----
+
+Alexander ends his post by citing, as "one of the most heartwarming episodes in the history of one of my favorite places in the world," the case of 19th century San Francisco resident [Joshua Norton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton), who proclaimed himself Emperor Norton I of the United States and Protector of Mexico and whose claims to power were widely humored by local citizens. Restaurants accepted currency issued in his name, the city's Board of Supervisors bought him a uniform.
+
+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 mental 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 solemnly defer to their imperial majesty to their face, and then gush about how heartwarmingly episodic it is 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 thought that powerful transgender activists might be plotting to murder me (in retaliation for this blog) at a fandom convention that I had [broadcast](/2017/Apr/surprise-reader-meetup/) [that](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2017/04/an-algorithmic-lucidity-surprise-reader-meetup/) [I](https://www.facebook.com/zmdavis/posts/10154978969040199) would be at, but that maybe they could be bargained with, or that I might escape if they were to mistakenly kill someone else who erroneously believed that they were me. I thought that you could reward or punish people by writing simple computer programs praising or condemning them, thereby leveraging the acausal economy to affect the distribution of [superintelligences simulating them](https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html)—and so on.
+
+I got better after a few nights of good sleep—but also with the help of friends who cared not just about my immediate happiness, but also my sanity, who didn't automatically dismiss everything I said as wrong, but who also _told me_ when I wasn't making sense.
+
+If the delusions had persisted—if I had _gone on_ thinking in terms of simulation hijinks and the literal transgender mafia, we could imagine my having friends who eventually decided to play along, hailing me as Gender Czar of our simulation. Maybe it would be fun for them or for me. Maybe it would be fascinating to read about.[ref]Psychotic-me's worldview makes _great_ science fiction.[/ref] But I don't think it would be _helping_ me. Because ultimately, I live in the real world. Anything else [isn't there to be lived](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Gendlin).
+
+I want you to imagine yourself as a resident of 1870s San Francisco, someone who Norton trusts as one of his chief imperial advisors. One day, you encounter him at his favorite café looking very distressed.
+
+"What's wrong, Your Highness?" you inquire, pulling up a chair to his table.
+
+"Ah, my trusted—advisor. I've been noticing—things that don't seem to add up. Most of my subjects here in the city seem to treat me with proper respect. But the newspapers still talk about Congress and the President, even though I abolished those years ago. That seems like something I would _expect not to see_ if my reign were as secure if everyone tells me it is. What if, what if—" his voice drops to a terrified whisper, "what if I've been mad? What if I'm not actually Emperor, and people have just been playing along?"
+
+"The categories were made for man, not man for the categories, Your Highness," you say. "An alternative categorization system is not an error. Category boundaries are drawn in specific ways to to capture trade-offs that we care about; they're not something that can be objectively _true_ or _false_. So if we value your identification as the Emperor—"
+
+"_What?_" he exclaims. He looks at you like you're crazy—and with a hint of desperation, as if to communicate that he's trusting you to be sane, and doesn't know where he could turn should that trust be betrayed.
+
+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 cute and it seemed to make you happy."
+
+A beat.
+
+"Um, sorry," you say.
+
+He buries his head in his arms and begins to cry—long, shuddering sobs for his lost empire. Worse than 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 also worth exploring other, less-expensive interventions that might partially satisfy the underlying psychological drives that make you want to be Emperor."
+
+He frowns, not understanding. "Will you help me?" he says. "Help me figure out what to do now—now that I know? If not as my subject—at least not yet—then as my friend?"
+
+"Well," you say, sighing, "let's see what we can do." You pull out your notebook, ready to jot down ideas, strategies—battle plans?