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Kawoomba comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 23, chapter 94 - Less Wrong
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Why didn't Harry acquire a working Time Turner / make someone else use a Time Turner as soon as he found out Hermione was missing? Why did Dumbledore make sure it was actually Hermione who died, making the use of Time Turners to alter events that much harder?
If this story wasn't constrained by any story telling concerns, Time Turners would just dominate everything. "How do I use my Time Turner to cheat?" would be the first and last thought of a rationally empowered Harry whenever he has an inkling of something bad happening, and not something he could ever miss.
The story says "This [Time Turner] could've saved Hermione, if I'd been able to use it.", but really, how hard would it be to acquire one of the other Time Turners he relied upon for sending the messages? Even if those students weren't present in the Great Hall at the time, as soon as his own Time Turner was locked down in the first place, acquiring access to another one would have been the highest priority by far, and surely within his means (given that other Time Turners are only controlled by fellow students).
The more I think about it, the more an even more rational version of a HP-fanfic should be called "Harry Potter and the Time Turners". Probably less entertaining, but that's the downside when you take your characters' intellect seriously ...
Edit: I also missed this: "if I'd looked for a student with a Time-Turner to send a message back in time before I found out about anything happening to her, instead of ending up with an outcome that can't be altered". That's one remark that is just wholly incompatible with any half-competent Harry. It's just inconceivable, on the order of someone giving you a genie and endless wishes, and you just not thinking of it in a situation of great need.
Eliezer has said somewhere that if Harry were written as a perfect rationalist, he would be too ridiculously super-powerful for an interesting story in that universe to be possible. Harry is simply at the level he is, and it is not really a fault in him or the story that he is not further advanced along the path than he is.
For it is a sad rule that whenever you are most in need of your art as a rationalist, that is when you are most likely to forget it.
In the military, it is standard wisdom that in combat, you will not rise to your best, but sink to the level of your training.
That's the incongruity, for me. Time turners don't just seem like the solution to the troll problem, or any particular problem, which you'd have to come up with as the problem arises. They seem like the solution to practically all problems. The particular way they're presented, they'd require you to use them as soon as you identify the probable casus belli, but before you learn of too many specifics.
So, not something you'd have to think of ad hoc, but an optimal problem solver you'd always keep close at hand (replacing your wand, even) for whenever your spidey sense tingles. Sorry for invoking such an unrealistic concept.
Probably something that should've been left out of HPMOR entirely, just because of its lack of balanceability.
There is other evidence in favor of hypyothesis: harry's mind got tampered with. Namely, the Weasley twins had their minds tampered with regarding the map, and harry went through ~30 minutes without realizing hermione was missing.
~30 minutes? How do you come to that conclusion?
someone counted up all the "ticks" that happened and gave the assumption of one minute/tick. I assign way more confidence to the second assumption than to the exact number of ticks, as I didn't count them up myself.
I certainly didn't get the impression reading the chapter that each tick indicated a minute of time. I'd be more inclined to associate each tick with the second hand moving forward, and only really expressed when Harry reached a break between his disjointed thoughts.
Additionally, Eliezer had posted the following on Facebook:
Presumably a time turner will save her if it's possible to use time turning to save her at any point in the next couple hours, but if something prevents time turner rescue the only way to save her would be to rush to save her. I think Harry is wrong about having been able to use the time turner to save Hermione.
How hard? Very.
That doesn't sound hard at all. Sending a message does not require transporting (another) human. Find someone half-sympathetic, talk to them, have a message sent back. No need to transport another human, no need to steal it, and used by original owner so lock is not an issue.
You misunderstand.
Kawoomba appears to be talking about Harry getting himself a backup Time-Turner, not merely using one to send a message.