If I had to make a wild guess, I'd say that what would horrify Eliezer is that at the end (ROT13) gurer ner bayl gjb cbffvoyr glcrf bs vzzbegnyf, Ybbc Vzzbegnyf juvpu frrz pbtavgviryl fghagrq naq checbfryrff, naq Enl Vzzbegnyf jubfr fbyr fubja rknzcyr frrzf zrynapubyl, ertergshy naq srryvat vzcevfbarq ol vasvavgl.
I'm inclined to agree with this; the idea that life in the infinite limit isn't "maximum ridiculously awesome" is probably what scares Eliezer.
So Eliezer said in his March 1st HPMOR progress report:
So I read that and it was certainly very much worth reading - thanks for the recommendation! Obviously, the following contains spoilers.
I'm confused about how the story is supposed to be "terrifying". I rarely find any fiction scary, but I suspect that this is about something else: I didn't think Failed Utopia #4-2 was "failed" either and in Three Worlds Collide, I thought the choice of the "Normal" ending made a lot more sense than choosing the "True" ending. The Optimalverse seems to me a fantastically fortunate universe, pretty much the best universe mammals could ever hope to end up in, and I honestly don't see how it is a horror novel, at all.
So, apparently there's something I'm not getting. Something that makes an individual's hard-to-define "free choice" more valuable than her much-easier-to-define happiness. Something like a paranoid schizophrenic's right not to be treated,
So I'd like the dumb version please. What's terrifying about the Optimalverse?