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thomblake comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong
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Quite the opposite. I was tempted to respond to the review but had been left without an appropriate forum.
I had to go back and figure out where you thought the Omelas reference was. Harry's observation just seemed obvious to me.
Personally, I don't even see anything to explain. Billions of people are suffering, and at least billions are going to die, and most people are observably doing nothing about it. Harry seems to have good reason to think he's the only one that can do anything, if only because he's the only one (or one of just a few) who noticed and/or cares.
Harry is right to take responsibility for the universe's troubles, as we all should.
I think Harry was just using Azkaban as an example, and there will turn out to be more of a general solution to the world's problems unless Harry finds himself dealing directly with Azkaban.
Harry's problem seems to be not that he has decided to do something about it but that he takes pride in feeling guilt over the suffering of everyone (even obscenely evil people). It is on thing to prefer to take over the universe and allow the evil people to live freely in a way that can't hurt others, but it is quite another to be all emo about it. That achieves nothing except allow harry to feel self righteous.
IMO he's not all emo about it. He is also aware of his feeling guilty about it and agrees with Neville when he says he's silly. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall him feeling proud of it.