= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
gwern comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (718)
You know, that might work. I mean, it's well-known that "Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration" allows one to increase the amount of good food you have.
...Is it just me, or should that create a post-scarcity economy? Because that lets you make food in ways that violate the conservation of energy.
How to survive as a wizard: 1. Get some nutritious, nonperishable food. 2. Make more. 3. Eat, but not all of it. 4. Repeat steps 2-3 indefinitely.
Water isn't a problem, since aguamenti conjures it.
So, question: why are there house elves? Why does Mrs. Weasley cook?
...Why can't the Weasleys buy a can of Coca-Cola, create as many more as they want and sell them? And do the same with hot dogs? And get rich?
No, seriously. That makes no sense. But that's a problem with canon, not MoR.
The dark secret, AspiringKnitter, is that all the food magic actually works on the same principle as the Hogwarts Hall meals - enslaved house-elves in obscure kitchens. That they feel no need to mention this merely demonstrates how thoroughly wizarding society is based on slavery. (We didn't hear about the house-elves for how many books?)
One, actually, but your point still stands. That is just plain creepy. Wait a minute. Why would it work for people who don't own house-elves, then?
Watch your Fox News; it's England so they have socialism.
They have socialized slavery?
There are so many things wrong with that.
I think gwern omitted the <sarcasm> tag in his reply
No: it was there, he just spelled it Fox News.
Well, you know, under socialism everyone is a slave to the state. So it's hardly inconsistent.
You know, I wonder whether Magical Britain has policies as liberal (American liberal, which I think means socialist in the rest of the world) as Real Britain. Somehow, I think not, but do we have evidence either way?
Just a minor nitpick, I think it's the other way around. I'm reasonably sure that the American form of liberalism is usually on the right end of the political spectrum in other Western democracies. What is called liberal in other countries is what many Americans would call socialist and what is called moderate is 'American liberal'. Specifically, the Democratic Party's (the major party that most Americans call liberal) significant policy stances would probably be considered moderate in Great Britain and conservative in Denmark.
Nope, in France "libéral" is closer to American "libertarian", i.e. pro-free markets, anti-welfare (as opposed to the "mainstream" right wing, which isn't particularly hostile to big government, and is more about traditional values and whatnot, and of course as opposed to the socialists and other left-wingers, who are very much at odds with the liberals). I think "liberal" has the same meaning in most of Europe (and in most of the world, though I'm less sure of that), and Americans and Canadians are more of the exception (where for historicaly reasons "socialist" had anti-American connotations, so the label "liberal" was adopted instead. This is a gross oversimplification).
Let me rephrase: we would consider your socialists liberal, even though certain parts of the world have a political spectrum shifted so far to the left that even your right-wing parties are liberal. In this case I meant that I wonder whether Magical Britain is as far to the left as regular Britain.