Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84

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The next discussion thread is here.

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 84. The previous thread has passed 500 comments. Comment in the 14th thread until you read chapter 84.

There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

The next discussion thread is here.

As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

I think you're confused about the meaning of Sword of Good. Without giving away too much, that is not the meaning I came up with. Instead I came away with the idea that everyone is the hero of their own story. Nobody is born innately evil

Dumbledore is good. Quirrell is good. Harry is good. Malfoy is good. But they're each only playing out the morality they've learned. Malfoy's morality about maintaining 1600s era stability and order and bringing prestige to the family. Dumbledore's is a conservative evolution of his imperial/nationalist era morality that turned sour. Quirrel's morality is difficult to discern, but I'd guess he was based on Randian Objectivism or Nietzschean philosophy. Harry's morality is rationalist and singularitarian. It's obvious to me that Harry's morality is the only one that's truly good. But then again I'm a rationalist singularitarian, and I bet people from other eras would look at the moralities differently.

I think the story is set up like this because that's the way the world works. Everyone thinks they're doing the good-and-right thing, but everyone has different starting points for their moralities. Wars occur because people have different ideas about what good-and-right is and how to achieve it. In real life, two good people sit down and talk to each other and neither one changes their mind, and the wars still happen. And the wars are not between good guys and bad guys, they're between good guys and good guys.

But that's the world we live in.

I think you're confused about the meaning of Sword of Good.

No, Argency summarized it well. It isn't a treatise on moral relativism.