(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. There haven't been any chapters recently, but it looks like there are a bunch in the pipeline and the old thread is nearing 700 comments. The latest chapter as of 7th March 2012 is Ch. 77.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes.
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:
You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).
If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it's fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that "Eliezer said X is true" unless you use rot13.
This thread is a little silly, even by local standards. First of all, the fact that a potion can be no stronger than its ingredients doesn't imply that a potion will always be as strong as its ingredients -- there are probably all kinds of other restrictions on what can be effectively brewed. By way of analogy, most Volvo engines don't run at Carnot efficiencies and most split pea soups don't run at more than 0.01 efficiency.
Second, all of the canon/fanon magical ingredients are non-copiable...a feather or a squished animal is not like a CD or a video game or a piece of parchment. Perhaps you could use the original of a piece of parchment if you didn't keep a spare copy, but EV drops lots of clues -- potion conservation was apparently designed by someone who thought the universe was fair, potion brewing is a substitute for a small, safe sacrifice, etc. -- everyone who's trying to figure out how to make a potion out of costless intellectual property is playing a different game than the one Harry's playing.
Third, advanced electronics tend to malfunction in proximity to strong magical auras -- so far the most advanced Muggle artifact that's been successfully used to interact with wizards are a car battery and a solid-fuel rocket -- both of which basically just discharged their stored energy, without any controls more subtle than an "on" button.
Fourth, would it really be fun if Harry put Science into a cauldron and took out a flask full of Win? A major theme in the fanon so far is the importance of working together in teams and coalitions. Harry already has enough power to singlehandedly overcome most casual bands of students. He destroys Dementors, outwits Headmasters, is fabulously wealthy, incredibly famous, has above-average magical strength, bloody single-minded discipline & determination, and of course an excellent background in basic cognitive science. If he suddenly became an expert programmer, researcher, etc. and broke Merlin's Interdict, he'd have enough power to singlehandedly overwhelm adult powerhouses like Lucius or Flitwick...I don't buy it. I predict that Harry will be prompted to learn how to play politics on a national scale, just as Harry has recently learned how to lead teams on a school-wide scale.
Wait, someone's calculated this?