Steroid use does not make good soldiers. Soldier-fit is different than gym-fit in appearance and function. Bulk does not provide performance increases in soldier duties and does cost more calories to maintain.
This is largely nonsense. AA-Steroids are not just toys that are used to make muscles pump up at look pretty. They are performance enhancers. There is a reason they are banned and heavily controlled for in all top level sports. They work. They allow athletes to be faster, stronger and train more heavily. The usefulness of these traits to soldiers is obvious. To the extent that elite soldiers wish to be fast, strong and heavily conditioned without just ending up overtrained, steroids will be useful.
Judicious use of stimulants, on the other hand, makes very good soldiers and may be started and stopped almost at will.
Stimulants are great. But if you were really concerned about testosterone based aggression you probably shouldn't pump the meat heads full of amphetamines either.
(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: