Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89

Vaniver

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 88-89. The previous thread has passed 500 comments.

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. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)

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: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.

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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

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:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

The vast majority of Less Wrong users are NPCs. They claim to have learned and internalized all of the ~rationality skills~ discussed here, but none of them have anything to protect, and for some reason a large number of uplifted humans all care exclusively about the goals of the celebrities here. Less Wrong is a horrible community filled with middle-class white men who hate women.

But occasionally, someone posts something useful. You seem like you have a goal, or at least a thing to protect; don't let sub-human scum like that keep you from that, in any way.

Using an RSS reader helps; you can see the main post without seeing the comments, and you can pass over the circlejerking that takes up most of the space.

Thank you for the sympathetic perspective. But I do what to clarify that am not the crusader. I am one who sees the crusade coming and gets out of the way.

I have been defending a decision I made, here. It hasn't been my convictions about good and evil or right and wrong, but rather about prudence and discretion.

I will admit that I let it get personal, but all I've been defending is myself.

4Viliam_Bur13y

Thank you for providing the subhuman masses an example of warmth and love. I am truly touched by your radiating compassion.