Velorien comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 28, chapter 99-101 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: palladias 12 December 2013 05:10AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (365)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Velorien 13 December 2013 03:51:44PM 0 points [-]

I would say that "living a cursed half-life" sounds more detrimental to the individual than to wider society. And in general, the limited discourse we hear ("you have slain something innocent to save yourself") sounds more like that of punishment than corruption to me.

Comment author: Desrtopa 13 December 2013 04:17:41PM 1 point [-]

I always interpreted it as more of a corruption effect; a cursed half-life sounds to me like something where you lack various things that people consider important elements of being alive, perhaps things like taste and touch, perhaps also things like empathy.

Comment author: kilobug 13 December 2013 05:32:17PM 0 points [-]

So did I, in canon, I imagined unicorn-blood-drinking to be somewhat like horcrux, ripping you of the ability to love, feel empathy, ... and that's what Dumbledore and others consider "half life". It's an hypothesis that is worth probing before just saying "oh let's farm unicorns".

Comment author: Velorien 13 December 2013 09:06:37PM 1 point [-]

Makes you wonder if anyone has ever tried to research magics that restored someone's empathy etc., or gave it to people born without. Somehow, I doubt it.

Comment author: Sheaman3773 04 January 2014 03:46:40AM 0 points [-]

It's likely observation bias, but the whole of the wizarding society seems to lack empathy; I join you in doubting that much research on the subject has been done.