Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 22, chapter 93

daenerys

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 93. The previous thread has passed 300 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, 17,18,19,20.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

We're not playing Scrabble here; anyone Eliezer's pissed off with the last few chapters isn't going to suddenly feel retroactively fine about them

Of course not. But that doesn't mean they can correctly accuse Eliezer of doing what has been claimed. The moment someone pattern matches to "it's a fridging", confirmation bias is bound to take over, and it would be an exceptional person who could undo that matching after the fact.

Are there things Eliezer could've done (prior to Hermione's death) to draw a clearer connection to her arc? Yes, plenty, and I've posted an idea or two myself. But the connection is there, even if lots of us missed it on first reading.

Whether people feel it's a fridging, or functionally equivalent to one, isn't just relevant; it's the only thing that's relevant in this particular context.

It's not relevant to Eliezer, since he has not actually done what he was accused of doing: i.e., treating females in the story as if their main purpose is to provide motivation for the men.

If the accusation were reduced to "your story made me feel bad" (as you seem to be implying it should), then I doubt Eliezer would've bothered to respond. Just because somebody feels bad doesn't mean Eliezer is bad or has done a bad thing.

It's not relevant to Eliezer, since he has not actually done what he was accused of doing: i.e., treating females in the story as if their main purpose is to provide motivation for the men.

You are a writer. You've written a story which you believe instantiates concept P; you're aware of a related concept Q, which is considered harmful, but you believe you're avoiding it. On publication, an unexpectedly large group of people get upset over your plot because by their lights it's indeed an example of concept Q, despite your precautions. Isn't this evide... (read more)