buural comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, July 2014, chapter 102 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: David_Gerard 26 July 2014 11:26AM

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Comment author: buural 20 August 2014 05:09:30AM 0 points [-]

Harry himself appears to be pretty firmly set against that...

The quote by Harry that you provide comes from very early in the story, before he resolved to become the next "Dark Lord" (in the sense of someone willing to defy the tyranny of majority if necessary) and before he resolved to undo Hermione's death doing whatever it takes.

More generally, my sense is that HPMOR Harry is partial to utilitarian logic (recall his qualms related to the possibility of sentient grass). Even if his worldview hadn't evolved as much as it did since the beginning of the story, I would not rule out him going against his feelings expressed in the quote if he believed the net welfare gain to humanity warranted it.

On a slightly related note, I always found the Comed-Tea horribly overpowered. Not only does the soda drink look forward in time (anticipating choke-worthy events in advance) but also is powerful enough to affect the mind of the drinker to make him/her feel the urge to drink it. The programming/magic behind the drink's creation seems absurdly advanced for the end purpose used. Merlin's spell being able to affect all wizards of all time or the very existence of time travel - all these seem to narrow down significantly the set of possible physical realities as imagined by Eliezer, perhaps even his own timeless physics, but that's just pure speculation on my part as I am in no way an expert in physics.