Scott takes Current Affairs' gotcha 'puzzles for libertarians' (the cannibal village, state-vs-private coercion, property-rights incoherence, the Infinitely Rich Man) and turns each into a comedic short story that rebuts the weak-manning. Highlights: a Time Traveler bursts into the Constitutional Convention with the cannibal-village gotcha, and Franklin delivers a genuinely sharp defense (systems of government magnify/suppress a population's impulses; libertarianism moves from 'one person wishing you ill = you die' to 'one person NOT wishing you ill = you survive'); the McDonald's no-knock raid ('some socialist magazine said people only object to STATE coercion'); the moral-philosophy paradox → limb-hacking; and the Infinitely-Rich-Man story capped by the meta-twist (David-Friedman vengeful-rich-person insurance + the realization the world is a communist's weak-man thought experiment) and the closing critique that weak-manning-via-thought-experiments proves nothing ('things are complicated but principles still matter').

Quality 73 · Strong. High-Strong: a beloved, genuinely-funny satirical-fiction rebuttal that lands a real argument (the Franklin systems-magnify-impulses defense + the sharp weak-man/thought-experiment critique) — above the pure-invention comedic fiction (Legal-Systems 64) for its argumentative payoff, below A-Modern-Myth (83). 73.

Claude’s paradigm shift 54 · Moderate. The gotchas-as-writing-prompts format + the Franklin systems-magnify-impulses defense + the weak-man critique are original/sharp. B54.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A well-known, cited rebuttal to libertarian weak-manning; no material reach. RWI2.

Humor 3/5 · Scissor Statement. Primarily-comedic political-satire fiction with sustained, sharp, biting humor (the Hamilton-only-in-rap gag, 'in true socialist countries nobody ever eats anything at all', 'ROLL, YOU PEASANTS!') — gate clearly passes; Scissor-level magnitude 3, matching Legal-Systems/Slightly-Skew-Governments. 3.

Current Affairs’ “Some Puzzles For Libertarians”, Treated As Writing Prompts For Short Stories