Will_Newsome comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 16, chapter 85 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: FAWS 18 April 2012 02:30AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 18 April 2012 05:18:59AM 6 points [-]

This would seem to indicate Harry over-estimated the magnitude of his inference in the early chapters about the implication of so few Muggleborns at Hogwarts, but immediately raises the question of what do those lands do with their Muggleborns.

Burn them.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 18 April 2012 06:23:46AM *  7 points [-]

If you knew that a woman in your village was communing via socially unapproved rituals with a transhuman intelligence of unknown nature and preferences, would you convince your village to burn her to death? Ideally you'd just use the Object Class: Roko Containment Protocol, but then her own soul remains at risk—burning her alive at least gives her strong incentive to repent.

Comment author: pedanterrific 18 April 2012 06:43:02AM 14 points [-]

Object Class: Roko Containment Protocol

But where would we get that many D-class personnel?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 18 April 2012 08:00:54AM *  6 points [-]

Object Class: Roko Containment Protocol

For the record, I don't think that was a good idea under any of the plausible scenarios.

Edit: do the people upvoting this have any clue what I'm referring to?

Comment author: linkhyrule5 19 April 2012 04:34:32AM 0 points [-]

I know I don't. What are you referring to?

Comment author: wgd 19 April 2012 05:19:37AM 3 points [-]

As far as I can tell from my limited research, it appears to be a combination of the SCP Foundation's "Object Classes" with a hypothetical new object class "Roko" which I believe to be named for an LW user who appears to no longer exist, but made a post at some point (the best I can establish is that it had to be prior to December 2010), presenting some idea which later came to be called a "basilisk", because the very knowledge of it was judged by some to be potentially harmful and unsettling. The post was deleted, although it appears to be possible to find copies of it or at least the basic idea if one cares enough.

So presumably the containment protocol for Object Class: Roko is simply to destroy the offending information and maybe take steps to prevent a recurrence? I'm mostly guessing, anyone who actually knows this context firsthand want to comment on whether my guess is close?

Comment author: wedrifid 19 April 2012 09:08:15AM 2 points [-]

As far as I can tell from my limited research, it appears to be a combination of the SCP Foundation's "Object Classes" with a hypothetical new object class "Roko" which I believe to be named for an LW user who appears to no longer exist

This seems likely. The user in question was a top contributor and made a lot of creative and speculative posts along similar lines.

but made a post at some point (the best I can establish is that it had to be prior to December 2010), presenting some idea which later came to be called a "basilisk", because the very knowledge of it was judged by some to be potentially harmful and unsettling.

More precisely he made a post presenting a different clever game-theoretic solution which could, among other things, be used to counter the thing that became called a "basilisk".

Comment author: Vaniver 18 April 2012 04:23:31PM 3 points [-]

If you knew that a woman in your village was communing via socially unapproved rituals with a transhuman intelligence of unknown nature and preferences, would you convince your village to burn her to death?

It was a question of expectation, not preference.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 19 April 2012 12:18:58AM 1 point [-]

Right, but I'm curious about your preference.

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