NihilCredo comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 5 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: NihilCredo 02 November 2010 06:57PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 November 2010 09:46:14PM *  3 points [-]

On a related note,

If you think your own life is valuable enough that you're not willing to take on an eighty percent probability of dying in order to protect all the prisoners in Azkaban, his Slytherin side observed, there's no way you can justify taking a twenty percent risk to your life to save Bellatrix and Professor Quirrell. The math doesn't add up, you can't be assigning consistent utilities over outcomes here.

The logical side of him noted that Slytherin had just won the argument.

It seems the author is flat-out telling us that Harry is deliberately acting irrational, and commends him for it. Curious.

Comment author: NihilCredo 08 November 2010 12:41:35AM 2 points [-]

Are you sure? In this fic, Slytherin isn't always bad.