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pedanterrific comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 - Less Wrong
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Comments (718)
Wizards are ignorant, but not really stupid. I think the vice-headmistress is quite effective with her warnings.
Here's a thought: Hogwarts is described as being the only magical school with a zero percent fatality rate, and it's implied that the last time a student died was Myrtle, fifty years ago. Except all students are taught within the first week enough about Transfiguration to know how to kill someone with it. I can believe the murder rate is that low, but what about the suicide rate? Not one teenager in fifty years?
These two things are incompatible with each other. Perhaps Hogwarts is lying about the former.
Or, you know, they were talking about averages over the last few decades, not FOREVER.
That doesn't make much sense; Myrtle was described as the first fatality in a long time, which is why it was so shocking and nearly closed down Hogwarts completely - the consequence which caused Tom Riddle to back off and seal off the basilisk again. 5 decades is quite long enough for this to be a somewhat bizarrely low rate.
On the other hand, wizards are described as having very long lives on average, which is not very consistent with a high accident or suicide or homicide rate overall, and Hogwarts is a pretty small school, as the estimates go. Add in the claims of extraordinary Wizarding physical resilience (book 1, IIRC), and maybe that's enough to give the very low death rate.
Myrtle was a murder from an unknown assailant who could evade the protective wards of the school, and probably murder at will again -- "there's an uncaught murderer among your children" is a much more scary thing than an accidental fatality of the sort that I assume are still occasionally happening in other magical schools through negligence/etc.
When there's an accidental poisoning because some kid tried to brew an anti-acme potion, parents can just advise their children not to ever try anything as foolish as that -- and they even have the accidental death of the other kid as a warning for such foolishness...
I forget my Chamber of Secrets exactly, but wasn't Hagrid made the scapegoat for a fatal 'accident' and that was how Myrtle's death was explained away publicly?
Chapter 49:
In canon, Hagrid had brought the giant-spider Aragog at around the same time -- and it was thought to have accidentally escaped his watch and murdered Myrtle. (so it was accident/criminal negligence on the part of Hagrid, murder on the part of Aragog)
We don't know the exact details in the HPMOR-verse, ofcourse.
Ehh... that seems kind of hard to cover up. Myrtle's death caused a panic and nearly resulted in closing the school. Technically, "0% fatality rate" could mean four out of every thousand students die.
If I remember right, it's implied that botched Transfiguration is a painful way to go -- it's compared to a severe illness. If its consequences are sufficiently well-known and unpleasant, it could be that it's not attractive as a suicide method.
On the other hand, Transfiguring your brain into aspic or something like that sounds pretty quick and reliable to me. Perhaps that's difficult for technical reasons.
Most likely Transfiguring only your brain or a single organ would fall under partial Transfiguration, which presents the obvious challenge.
Chapter 15:
According to a random Google first-page result, the annual suicide rate amongst teens is about 0.01%. While HPMOR's Hogwarts has a higher population, in canon (Word of God, really) the population was around 100 students per year, which suggests we'd see a teen suicide at Hogwarts about every century.
Rough figures say 20% of teens attempting suicide end up killing themselves; assuming all Hogwarts attempted suicides are successful, you'd still only have one every 20 years. And I'd suspect teens would be less suicidal at Hogwarts, and despite warnings would not try effective things like transfiguration very often.
Except that students stay at Hogwarts for 7 years, not one, which would put the suicide rate at Hogwarts at one per 14 years, not one per century (if wizards commit suicide at the same rate as muggles). If you assumed that Wizarding suicide attempts were 5 times as likely to be successful, that would put the rate at one suicide every 3 years.
Of course, it's entirely possible that the wizarding resilience to illness and injury also makes them more resilient to mental illness, and that's why suicide rates are lower.
If I'm not mistaken, that rate was based on the number of people who live to teenage years and then kill themselves during their teenage years, not the number of teenagers who kill themselves per year.
Interesting idea.
No, it's an annual rate. You quote it as an annual rate, and it matches the annual rate I found by repeating your search. So you need to multiply by seven to get the rate of people committing suicide during the years they would, if a Hogwarts student, be attending Hogwarts.
Hmm... it looks like you're correct.
Interestingly this site seems to say that the US suicide rate for teenagers is .01%, and the US suicide rate is also .01%. Curioser and curioser.
I don't understand why you think that. Having increasingly comfortable lives hasn't reduced the suicide rate in the developed world (as far as I know), and the Hogwarts school/prison system doesn't seem very different from our own.
Not sure about that one. Though comparing gdp to suicide rate (via Wikipedia) seems to suggest nothing in particular.
As much as humans have the ability to become blase about anything (thus double-witches), I would think having magical powers (or at least access to the cheering charm) would tend to decrease depression and such.
Also, Magical Britain went through a period of civil war / domestic terrorism in the sixties and seventies intense enough that ten years later, most children have lost one or both parents. One would expect this to have an effect.
Sorry, run that one by me again. Assuming 20% of teens attempt suicide, and that in Hogwarts all attempted suicides are successful. Wouldn't that mean a 20% fatality rate, not one every twenty years?
And you know, I just looked up some of the research myself, and I'm wondering where my impression of a high suicide rate came from, exactly.
From what I've seen, suicide rates for teens are generally higher than for older or younger people.
Wow, epic fail writing that sentence. Editing. Thanks.