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Pavitra comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 6 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Dumbledore is an r-strategist.
He tells Harry to carry around a random object purely on the theory that "it is wiser to do than not", and he tells Blaise that it's important to have multiple plots going at once. His basic strategy is to try as many things as possible, in the hopes that a few of them will work.
Furthermore, he's in pretty much the ideal situation for r-strategy: a highly chaotic environment, and few to no direct rivals or real peers.
I like this analogy.
Dumbledore's cost per plot is also very low: he has a large supply of minions whose time would otherwise be wasted playing Unicorn Attack, and he has no credibility to lose when his plots fail.
He also tries to force his rivals to be play the same way, since they don't have his advantages. If Voldemort is scheming to get at the Philosopher's Stone by year's end, he has to simultaneously target the third-floor corridor, Harry's father's rock, the Hogwarts vault at Gringotts, and who knows what other decoy locations. Similarly, Dumbledore engineered a three-way tie in Battle Magic to try to force Quirrell to pursue three different plots (Quirrell being a rival for the students' hearts and minds).
Do you think this will backfire if/when he pulls it all off?
Quite possibly! Dumbledore expects the curse to have kicked in by that point, but he doesn't know that Quirrell is Voldemort.
An interesting point. I hadn't considered that Quirrell might be exempt from the curse due to being Voldemort (or being closely connected to Voldemort, perhaps).
He wasn't exempt in canon. Here, I don't know.
Even if Quirrel is entirely under Voldemort's control here, it's unlikely that Quirrelmort will want or need to remain professor after this year. Heck, he could leave the school now, and even odds say that Harry would follow him; a few more months, and his work here will be done.
Considering the blow his trust in Quirrell just received, I don't think Harry would really throw away his future to follow him from school at this point, if he even would have before.
I'm assuming that, if he wanted to, Quirrell could think of something pretty smart to say to Harry, and even now I'd give him even odds on success. Before the blow to trust, I'd have given him much higher odds, again conditional on his really trying.
However, I wrote my comment before reading Chapter 66. If Harry succeeds in saying No to Quirrell once, then he'll find it much easier to say it again. Quirrell should have started with something that he really could talk Harry into (although he might yet talk Harry into this).