Comment on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 22:14:34 GMT

I would guess >90% of whiz kids haven't.

Surely you mean ‘hadn't’ here?

And yet, 8 years later, Matt Groening and David Cohen could assume that fans of The Simpsons would know what it is as a matter of course; the pilot episode of Futurama offers no explanation beyond the word ‘cryogenics’, an icy cartoon effect, and a dial with a timer on it. You could blame that on the Internet, but that's for popular culture to learn that a sci-fi genius didn't know.

On the other hand, I could easily believe that Harry has only heard of this in a way that makes it sound like nonsense, and he never followed it up. Its absence doesn't detract from the story for me.

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