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ShardPhoenix comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 8 - Less Wrong
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In recent chapters I've been agreeing more with Dumbledore overall than with Harry. Not on everything (Dumbledore probably should do more to prevent bullying), but Harry's general attitude seems pretty foolish. It might work out ok for him - he's got the author on his side and lives in a world with extraordinary quantities of low-hanging fruit. But I'm not sure if he's a good role model for those of us stuck in the real world.
I say the opposite. The spiraling negative consequences for standing up to petty bullying are utterly absurd in scope and even in direction. And either Dumbledore is totally miscalibrated regarding the importance of house points or the world is even more artificially hostile. A civil war because an 11 year old girl didn't lose fifty house points as well as the detention she got as punishment for being attacked by 44 students? When, mind you, Lucious's son had been backing Hermione himself? That's just absolutely absurd.
I don't necessarily agree with Harry's eagerness to start targetting powerful non-Hogwarts adults with schemes but the "ask teacher to stop girls being severely beaten" was a no-brainer.
Smartest thing said in the entire chapter:
Note the implications of the obvious analogy for EY, although not everything an author sets up his characters to say has to be an allegory.
I didn't notice that one at all but now that you point it out it's all too true!
I tried to say this before, but apparently it got lost in my bad expression: civil war and other bad outcomes seem vastly more credible if they happen to serve Quirrell's goals. And some of them would.
Harry's mistake doesn't lie in going against Dumbledore, I think. It lies in failing to update the probability of Quirrell indirectly killing someone to manipulate Harry, based on Azkaban.
He's Quirrell. Quirrell doesn't even need to snap his fingers to make that sort of thing happen. No doubt from me.
He does seem to trust Quirrell an awful lot.
I don't think Harry is used to having friends
The wizarding community in Magical Britain is pretty close to civil war in general. The community is small so small scale results can have larger impact, and Hogwarts is the only magic school in Britain so people pay more attention. Moreover, the wizarding world has a lot of values based on medieval ideas. In Roman times people fought wars over chariot team winners. In modern times that's translated into wars about football.
The idea that discipline issues could be a significant enough dispute to push them over the brink is not implausible.
"utterly absurd" except that someone was plotting behind the scenes. It was spiraling out control only because somebody kept pushing it around in a circle.
I guess the question is "who". We know that Snape was involved in this scheme somehow, so he'd be the parsimonious choice, but it doesn't seem to fit his goal system.
The recent conversations Harry has with Dumbledore seem to imply that Harry is becoming what tvtropes calls a Knight Templar: a zealot who is willing to burn villages in order to save them. Such a person will very easily commit great evils in the name of "The Greater Good" (whatever that may be). I agree with Dumbledore on this. Harry has no brakes; he is willing to escalate his counterattacks without limit, collateral damage be damned. This may not technically count as "Dark" according to the dichotomy set up in the narrative, but it's still a completely evil way to act.
Or a Totalitarian Utilitarian.
Dumbledore's depiction reminds the confessor in three worlds collide. He mentions that there are very few humans who need help to be more optimistic, and his experience leads him to see all the ways that things can go wrong, so makes him suited for being rational. Similarly with Dumbledore, his experiences have made him highly risk averse, often to good, but it does result in him being unwilling to change things. (As a contrast to the more reckless/innovative Harry).