Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95

palladias

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 95. 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, 21, 22, 23, 24.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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 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, 21, 22, 23, 24.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

So, what do you all think is Voldemort's goal here? In canon, he was a power hungry sadist, so conquering the world while torturing his minions made sense. But MOR!Voldemort seems to find people tiresome and is happiest as an immortal in lifeless space. In that case, why not Horcrux Pioneer 11, kill his earthly body and be done with it?

At the moment, he has a plausible motivation -- provoke Harry into discovering a better form of immortality than Horcruxes, and use it for himself. But it seems implausible that this was his goal until Harry came to Hogwarts this year since he had no reason to expect that his murder of James and Lilly would lead to a combined scientific genius/wizard. What was he trying to accomplish before that?

I think Quirrelmort enjoys many aspects of life on Earth (he is shown to enjoy fancy foods and intricate plots, etc.) He enjoys outer space as an occasional respite from human nonsense, but that doesn't mean he would enjoy a billion years of staring at the stars.

-3RomeoStevens13y

My goal had I access to magic: 1. instantiate self in immortal form 2. build experience machine 3. make 1 and 2 unreachable by launching them out of the solar system He did say he was worried about morons...I mean Harry destroying the probe. So all his efforts could be merely to ensure his survival. But that would make for a rather lackluster villain/ending.

2gjm13y

Conventional wisdom around here, as I understand it: He wanted to unify Magical Britain under a strong leader (namely himself, in the persona of David Monroe) and wipe out, or neutralize, or otherwise remove the danger posed by, the muggles. He wanted to do this because he was very, very frightened of dying, and he thought nuclear weapons (and potentially other things you might classify as "scientific overreaching") were likely to produce more destruction than he could escape. And probably also because he wanted power.