wedrifid comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 17 March 2012 09:41AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 23 March 2012 04:05:25PM *  3 points [-]

Harry could destroy his own reputation in order to save Hermione, by (for example) threatening to forever abandon Wizarding Britain.

Shouldn't they take that for granted already? I mean obviously he's going to have absolutely no remaining loyalty to the state - or at least the power structure - that did that to him. They should all expect to die whenever Harry finds it convenient to overthrow them. Or is that just what I would do?

(Any sane politician who was planning to make that sort of move against a potential emergent power like Harry would also see to it that they were killed, crippled or framed as a matter of course. You don't go around recklessly making enemies and leaving them free to gather power.)

Comment author: gwern 23 March 2012 05:30:40PM 11 points [-]

"...Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."

--Machiavelli

Comment author: wedrifid 23 March 2012 05:42:10PM 0 points [-]

Exactly the philosophy I had in mind! Is this also present in rationality quotes somewhere? It certainly should be.

Comment author: gwern 23 March 2012 05:48:19PM 0 points [-]

I don't see it anywhere.

Comment author: DanArmak 23 March 2012 07:04:33PM 3 points [-]

Apart from Dumbledore and Lucius, none of them are likely to take an 11-yo child and his promises of enmity and revenge at all seriously. "Enough talk, he'll be late for his classes." And even if he might become a political counter of some significance in a decade, or a few decades, they wouldn't expect him to hold a grudge that long - normal children don't often do that.

Comment author: glumph 23 March 2012 05:47:06PM 0 points [-]

While Dumbledore and Lucius and other major figures might be sane, I'm not sure if we're supposed to take the majority of the Wizengamot to be anything other than, in Harry's words, "stupid, corrupt, and evil."

Comment author: DanArmak 23 March 2012 07:00:53PM 4 points [-]

On the same kind of criteria, you might expect the majority of all wizards and indeed all humans to be stupid, corrupt, and evil-when-given-great-power. It's a Quirrel kind of thought. Which doesn't make it untrue.

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