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@Gargoyle: If you were to implement a society that follows your Bill of Responsibilities, will there be a government that monitors each Citizen for non-compliance, or will the Responsibilities be enforced by the Citizens themselves (as part of Responsibility 4)? If there will be a government, how would you structure such a government? Also, what would be the consequences of non-compliance? Update: Added Venture Mistborn's and Gargoyle's respective entries in the OP.

Welcome, Seize! "WoB" stands for "Word of Brandon". It's a term that refers to anything story-related that Brandon said outside of the books (like in interviews, or on his website, or on Twitter, and so on). Some of us here (included me) obsess about knowing as many WoBs as possible, wielding them as weapons in our many theory discussions, but I suspect it might be better for your health not to worry about them too much.

Hi, Lefty! What are your thoughts on society and how it should run? (You previously expressed interest in participating in my "Game of Lives" thread. If you answer my question here, I could just post a link to it on that thread.)

Yep. Here's one evidence: The idea that The Set plans to involve the kidnapped women in Hemalurgic experiments has been proposed several times before. Here's one example from 2011. It's an easy conclusion to make, so it's not much interest to me as a Crazy Theorist. But it's certainly a valid theory.

Back in 2008, Brandon mentioned this in passing in the TWG Hero of Ages Q&A thread: I don't know if we've heard anything else about this Nicrosil Misting from Brandon since then (if I'm wrong, please chime in and share your knowledge), but I just saw this tweet from Peter earlier: Her being Terris makes me think that she will actually be Twinborn rather than just a Misting. I'll probably incorporate this into another crazy theory later. But for now, what are your thoughts and speculations about the Era 3 protagonist?

I imagine that a partnership between a mother and father as you described (with the mother taking care of the children and the father providing financial support) would still be possible in a matriarchy if the mother agrees to it. It's just that the man will have to face the wrath of the woman's House if he misbehaves. Also, single mothers would be more empowered in a matriarchal system than in a patriarchal one, and honestly bearing a child for nine months without the support of a husband should not be as difficult for women as it is in many patriarchal societies today.

I intended the Empire to be sort of an exception to the rules. The Emperor and the rest of the military command, for example, would not be communists; neither would movie directors or other unimportant entertainment and sports administrators. I just don't think such positions are worth the sacrifice needed to become moneyless. So, yes, corruption would be a real risk in the Empire. But note that outside of extreme cases like war and calamity, the Empire would have very little power over the communist government, which supposedly cannot be bribed. Imperial members committing crimes are still subject to law enforcement, and there would even be communist auditors scrutinizing Imperial activities. Yes, that means bankers would have moneyless people watching over their financial work, which sounds funny, but there you go.

No worries! It took me weeks to write something for this, and that turned out to be too storming long. It took another week for me to trim the whole thing down into something that wouldn't scare people off. I can certainly wait.

This theoretical society I'm about to present has the following general requirements: All official leadership, administrative, investigative, or enforcive positions, whether in the government or in industry, are to be without pay. There would be a self-organized moneyless communist subset of society, composed of people who wish to live a life of leadership, sacrifice, and service. Due to Requirement #1, everyone serving in the official capacity of president, governor, mayor, congressman, judge, lawyer, police officer, company officer, manager, auditor, or any similar role is expected to join a local communist unit. There is to be no taxation. Everything needed by the government that the communists cannot produce themselves will be commissioned to private commercial companies, who may then choose to use legal crowdfunding avenues, or work on the government project gratis. Companies could also reject a government project proposal without fear of legal reprisal. There are to be no patents, and trade secrets will not be protected outside of the regular laws against theft of material goods. The concept of "intellectual property theft" would not be recognized. Companies are expected to compete fairly with each other and allow the spreading of innovative ideas. There would be anti-trust laws to prosecute anyone attempting to stifle competition. The military, the banks and all financial and real estate institutions, and all cultural, entertainment, sports, and media organizations will be conglomerated into a single entity referred to as an Empire. Imperial members are to be given military training either as part-time soldiers or as reserves. Imperial members are expected to participate in charitable works (e.g. funding much-needed government projects) in addition to funding military activities. There is to be an Emperor who would serve merely as a national symbolic figurehead (though perhaps an influential one) during times of peace, but would be Commander-in-chief of the military during war. There would be a form of matriarchy. People would use a matriname for their surname, and there would be a formal ennoblement of all mothers. Each matriarchal Noble House would have the right to a portion of real estate (to be provided for free by the Empire). What would such a society be like? For one, positions of power would be less appealing to the greedy since leaders are forced to live without money. There would be no golden parachutes to give incompetent CEOs, no kickbacks for corrupt government officials. I imagine the communists in this society to be living in semi-austerity, wearing cheap uniforms and eating cheap communal food so as not to overburden the companies providing for them (since they have no tax money to rely upon). If there is no one willing to live this kind of life in order to lead a group, then the group will have to live without an official leader. I imagine the Empire could temporarily help in governing the country when there are not enough communists to form a sufficient government, but that would technically be a state of martial law and would not be ideal. The concept of matriarchal nobility is meant to uplift the status of women and avoid the problems they usually face in a patriarchal society. Instead of relying on her husband for financial support, a woman in this society would be expected to either provide for herself and her children or seek help from the other women in her House (her sisters, mother, aunts, etc.). While men may be invited into a Noble House to participate in the raising of their own children, this privilege would be dependent on the will of the mother and that of the House Matriarch, and may be rescinded at any time. I wonder what you guys think of my concept of "empire". Perhaps I'll explain the origin of that idea in a later post, but maybe some of you might be able to guess. (Edit: The explanation is here.) TL;DR: In this theoretical society, leaders have no money, mothers are lords, and professional athletes are soldiers. Any questions?

(I was going to put this in Creator's Corner as a world-building exercise, but then I thought maybe other people might be interested in it as well.) (Boring preamble) The point of this game is to come up with your own theoretical form of society, whether a Utopian one (i.e. how society would work if you had your way) or otherwise. You then speculate on what that society might be like. The system of rules followed by the society can be as simple or as complex as you wish. Try to be original, though it's okay if you just want to share an existing social theory that you really like. You can also indicate if you want others to critique your theory or not. I will be linking entries that I like here in the OP. Serious entries: Skaa's Imperial Communist Aristocratic Society (Expanded here, here, and here) Venture Mistborn's Selective Society (Expanded here) Gargoyle's Responsible Society (Expanded here)

It doesn't seem to really be an issue. The Technical Preview was meant to provide Microsoft with usage data, and that can't happen unless it records some input from the user, who presumably understood what he was getting into when he participated in the Technical Preview. Later when I get home I will check if the feedback settings are enabled by default (it shouldn't be, since I'm not using the Technical Preview but the real thing). If it is, then I'll disable it, but only because my Internet connection is really slow and I don't want unnecessary data transfers happening. I'm not really worried about Microsoft trying to steal personal information from me for nefarious purposes. Ah, you are most probably correct, though in my case it was the other way around. My personal laptop had Windows 7 Home Premium, so the ISO file I got was for Windows 10 Home, and that worked. My dad's machine (which is a company laptop), on the other hand had Windows 7 Pro, so I should have used the Windows 10 Pro ISO for that instead. D'oh!

So, I was trying to install Windows 10 on my dad's laptop the other day using my USB flash drive containing the ISO, but the installer was rejecting the product key for some reason even though the copy of Windows 7 Pro on the laptop was genuine. What's weird is that I was never asked for a product key when I installed it on my machine. I was ready to give up, but then suddenly Windows 10 arrived on its own via Windows Update. Huzzah! I was saved from having to explain to my dad why I couldn't get the installer to work.

@Eerongal: That's also what I heard. I didn't think I could explain it well to non-programmers, so I just turned it into a joke. I think you did a good job! *upvotes*

Yeah, Microsoft's "digital assistant" was named Cortana after the Halo character. As you probably know, Halo is owned by Microsoft.

Okay, a few WTFs: The Cortana search box on the taskbar is far too long, and there's no obvious way to resize it. I decided to just hide it since I could just type while on the Start Menu to initiate search. Why is Auto-Correct turned on by default?! This is the worst so far: After playing with Cortana for a while, the Filter Keys "feature" turned on all of the sudden, making me assume for a few minutes that my keyboard stopped working. That... was kind of bizarre. And annoying. But mostly bizarre. @Kipper: It's good to know you're not having trouble with it so far. Fortunately my problems were easy to fix and quite minor. Let me see if I can find other WTFs before I go to sleep.

That's great to hear! Right now the installer is "Getting updates", which I swear is taking much longer than the 3GB download of the ISO file. I wonder if my ISP is throttling me again... Storming Philippine ISPs and their data caps! Update: Okay, so I guess my fear of an hours-long update process was pre-mature. Installation finished without a hitch, and now I'm testing all my applications to check for issues. Looks okay so far.

As some of you may know, Microsoft is offering a free upgrade to the new version of their Windows operating system, which is Windows 10 (don't ask me where Windows 9 went). You need to have a genuine copy of either Windows 7 SP 1 or Windows 8.1 (but not the Enterprise version) in order to avail of the free upgrade. This offer is being rolled out in batches over the next few days for those waiting for it to arrive via Windows Update. Being the impatient person that I am, I went ahead and downloaded Windows 10. I'll be installing it later. Meanwhile, I want to know if any of you guys have already received the upgrade. How is it? What are your thoughts on Windows 10? Have you tried dual-booting it with another OS? Did you experience any issues?

Sorry I wasn't aware of your fear. And thank you for that information on those dastardly clowns and their evil pumillic loxodontic conspiracy!

I treat clowns with disdain, not fear.Some of the children's parties I attended as a little kid had clowns as part of the "entertainment". The other kids loved their jokes and their magic tricks, but not me. I saw those clowns as unfunny talentless assholes. But then, I was a bit of an insufferable know-it-all as a kid, and had little patience with adults treating me like an ignorant toddler. (No, I wasn't well-liked by the other kids. How did you know?)

This is my 1000th post. (Whew! So now there's no pressure for me to finish that big post I had been working on as my "1000th post". Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to finish it anytime soon.)

This is very interesting. I wonder if aphantasic people are capable of having visual hallucinations (e.g. via hallucinogenic substance, electrical stimulation at the left temporoparietal junction, etc.). Come to think of it, what are your dreams like, Talanic?

Have you ever tricked one of your subjects into trying to lick frozen steel?

And with just one small sentence, Brandon may have invalidated my theory that harmonium existed before Sazed's Ascension. Oh well. Back to the drawing board!