TimS comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 14, chapter 82 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: FAWS 04 April 2012 02:53AM

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Comment author: gwern 13 April 2012 05:06:17PM 4 points [-]

I think it's clear that MoR is not (merely) parody, but a literary work in its own right that happens to be derived from an existing work by someone else.

Something that could be said with equal justice of The Wind Done Gone.

Comment author: TimS 13 April 2012 05:19:00PM *  3 points [-]

But see Dr. Suess Enterprises v. Penguin Books.

In brief, someone used elements of Dr. Seuss to criticize the OJ verdict. Held: not parody fair use because the target of the parody was not the infringed work.

So, how reasonable is it to say that MoR is a parody of canon!Potterverse? I honestly don't know the answer, but I suspect it would be dispositive of the fair use analysis.

Comment author: gwern 13 April 2012 05:43:00PM *  2 points [-]

How reasonable? I think pretty reasonable; MoR directly criticizes canon on numerous occasions, from the exchange rate to Hermione being Sorted into Gryffindor to Harry using random curses on Slytherins and on and on. Reading through one link on that, I see nothing about the Seuss parody parodizing Seuss, and plenty that fits MoR, eg.:

Parody achieves its status as social commentary by disparaging the original work, however slightly, by "pointing out faults, revealing hidden affectations, emphasizing weaknesses, and diminishing strengths.^1^

or

The court concluded that the infringing work broadly mimicked Dr. Seuss' characteristic style, but it did not ridicule that style. 170 The court noted that Penguin's use of the Cat's stove-pipe hat, Dr. Juice as a narrator, and a title similar to the original's title were all means of drawing attention to the new work, perhaps "to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh."171

Finally, with regard to the purpose and character of use, the Ninth Circuit considered whether The Cat NOT in the Hat! merely superseded the Dr. Seuss originals or whether it "transformed" those works. 172 The court did not recognize any effort to create a transformative work. 173 As a result, under the first factor, the court concluded the scale tipped against fair use because the infringing work was neither a parody nor transformative. I74

...When considering a parodist's claim to fair use, a court must first determine if an infringer's work meets the threshold requirement for the defense: "whether a parodic character may reasonably be perceived. >7232 Courts have recognized parody as a work containing a discernible direct comment on the original. 233 Although the Ninth Circuit conceded Penguin's work did broadly mimic Dr. Seuss' style, it concluded that the work was not a parody because The Cat NOT in the Hat! did not target the "substance" of the original work.234

Comment author: TimS 13 April 2012 06:07:29PM *  4 points [-]

There's surely some kind of sliding scale. My HP fanfic:

Harry took the machine gun, and gunned down the Dursleys for being abusive parents. The End

is critical of something - but if it isn't the Potterverse, then it isn't parody. That doesn't mean that the work is not fair use (I think the third and fourth factors weigh heavily in my favor).

In short, I don't think that an interpretation of fair use (of which parody is the relevant type) that protects all fanfic is likely to be adopted, even if MoR was fair use of the Potterverse.

Comment author: gwern 13 April 2012 06:11:03PM 2 points [-]

In short, I don't think that an interpretation of fair use (of which parody is the relevant type) that protects all fanfic is unlikely to be adopted, even if MoR was fair use of the Potterverse.

Naturally, but we're discussing MoR here.

Comment author: TimS 13 April 2012 06:24:37PM 2 points [-]

As I was trying to say, it is hard to articulate a test that is both (1) sufficiently clear ex ante and (2) correctly divides works like MoR from the mass of fanfic. Specifically, I doubt that there is sufficient consensus on where the dividing line should be.

And in general, the major critique of fair use is how unpredictable it is in practice.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 April 2012 06:00:10PM 1 point [-]

Courts have recognized parody as a work containing a discernible direct comment on the original.

Thanks for the data, that's very helpful.

But imagine you had to defend MoR as parody. What would you say is MoR's discernable direct comment on the original? Would you say that this comment is leveled specifically at JKR's world? Is this comment the central aim of MoR?

Comment author: gwern 13 April 2012 06:07:54PM *  4 points [-]

What would you say is MoR's discernable direct comment on the original? Would you say that this comment is leveled specifically at JKR's world? Is this comment the central aim of MoR?

My thesis would be something like 'the world of JK's HP is ill-thought out, inconsistent, and bears a message with regards to death with characters & ideals that is morally repugnant'. This is easy to defend as Rowling has been kind enough to specifically state that the overall theme of her books is accepting death, and Eliezer has been kind enough to have Harry explicitly assail this theme.

Is it the central aim? I don't know. (I think it is, but I could be wrong.) Depends on where MoR goes. If it ends with a world transformed and enriched by use of, say, Elixir of Life and all Dementors destroyed, well, the argument practically makes itself.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 April 2012 06:36:07PM 3 points [-]

That does sound plausible, thanks. My sense is that MoR is written with the aim of demonstrating rationalist principles and cognitive biases. Many (maybe all?) of the chapters are titled so as to indicate the principle or biases they discuss. I see your point about death, but I guess I get the impression that the structure of the work is centered around educating people in a certain philosophy. That said, one of the fair use categories is 'educational'.

Comment author: gwern 13 April 2012 06:46:25PM 2 points [-]

It can do both - it's not just asserting that 'death is bad, mmkay?', but explaining/demonstrating the facts & reasoning which lead to that conclusion so you understand why death is bad.

(Somewhat like how canon sort of tries to justify death: fearing death makes you do bad things and yields a fate worse than death, to state it baldly.)

Comment author: [deleted] 13 April 2012 07:29:16PM *  1 point [-]

It can do both - it's not just asserting that 'death is bad, mmkay?', but explaining/demonstrating the facts & reasoning which lead to that conclusion so you understand why death is bad.

I know it's a pain, but could you point me to a chapter in which the badness of death is argued for? I thought to look in 'pretending to be wise', but the badness of death was very much assumed there. There's a diagnosis of Dumbledore's view on death as being a reaction to fear, but that's obviously not a valid argument against his position, or a valid argument in support of the view that death is bad.

Also, what does the topic of death have to do with the stanford prison experiments, the fundamental attribution error, the scientific method, the efficient market hypothesis, delayed gratification, Bayes theorem, Dominance hierarchies, locating the hypothesis, etc.? These chapters, for the most part, just don't discuss death at all.

ETA:

(Somewhat like how canon sort of tries to justify death: fearing death makes you do bad things and yields a fate worse than death, to state it baldly.)

Hmm, should I be worried that I think this is right? It seems straightforward to me, if there's any such thing as courage: to be courageous is ultimately to value some good over your own life. If this valuation is rational, than fear of death can make you choose your life over the good thing, and that's bad. And it can lead to a fate worse than death: namely, your being alive and the good thing not being achieved.

Comment author: gwern 13 April 2012 07:39:45PM *  1 point [-]

I don't think you're trying very hard here.

locating the hypothesis

Privileging the hypothesis of a meaningful afterlife rather than Occam's razor that it doesn't exist or it is the same as ghosts and photographs. (This is one argument against death being good: the wizarding world is in a vastly epistemically superior position to Muggles as far as evidence for life after death goes, but Harry pokes holes in it anyway.)

stanford prison experiments...Dominance hierarchies

The mechanisms by which religion and other sadistic beliefs can spread.

the scientific method...Bayes theorem

Do I really need to explain this one?

delayed gratification

Useful for having the patient to investigate and hold off on conclusions (which lead to confirmation bias & backfire effects - you missed those).

the efficient market hypothesis

That one's just criticizing canon's worldbuilding. (I think. Imaginative suggestions about how that could be related are welcome - perhaps an argument from silence that if the afterlife existed the market would be exploiting it somehow?)

Comment author: [deleted] 13 April 2012 07:51:08PM 1 point [-]

Privileging the hypothesis of a meaningful afterlife rather than Occam's razor that it doesn't exist or it is the same as ghosts and photographs.

Okay, against an opponent who says that death is good because there is a good afterlife, I can see how this one would work. That's not an argument that death is bad, of course, or clearly an argument against 'accepting death' (whatever JKR meant by that), but it's progress. The chapter itself doesn't mention death at all though.

The mechanisms by which religion and other sadistic beliefs can spread.

And your thought is that it's 'sadistic beliefs' that teach that death is not bad? Why does explaining these mechanisms show that death is bad? I'm afraid this seems very indirect to me.

the scientific method...Bayes theorem

Do I really need to explain this one?

Yes, that one especially, if you have the time and inclination. I recognize that I'm imposing on you here.

Useful for having the patient to investigate and hold off on conclusions (which lead to confirmation bias & backfire effects - you missed those).

The question was, 'how does this relate to the thesis that death is bad'? I mean, if we think death is bad, then in some sense we could take any good epistemic principle as relating to that thesis, insofar as good epistemic principles relate to true beliefs. Is this as direct as we can get?

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