Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 16, chapter 85

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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 85. The previous thread has long passed 500 comments. Comment in the 15th thread until you read chapter 85.

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, 15.

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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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

So all of the above are obvious rationalizations and are also pathetic.

Alsadius asserts that I'm overconfident and that I'm not thinking very clearly. That only makes sense if my comment is wrong, and he gave no reasons my comment was wrong. EY is clearly mirroring the language which I used in a previous comment, that's why he specifically mentions Hufflepuff and distinguishes between Hufflepuff and the dark side, which is exactly what I was asking other commenters to do. Apparently he thought my previous belief was at least somewhat justifiable and worth addressing. I thought that was cool.

ArisKatsaris tries to pose as the neutral and objective Voice of Polite Reason by not downvoting me. He sides himself with "the community" so it's "him and them" against "me". He says I shouldn't have attacked the entire community because my low reputation is a result of specific individuals who dislike what I'm saying and not the fault of LessWrong as a whole. This is wrong because the LessWrong community is nothing more than the sum of these individuals, and when multiple individuals -karma me and no one +karmas it shows that the community does not approve of me. Obviously I'm not criticizing literally each and every one of the people who visit this site, but I am criticizing the people who are going after me. Additionally, if there are parts of the community sympathetic to what I'm saying who aren't speaking up, it makes sense to talk about groupthink. Since no one has commented in my favor, everyone in the community is either against me or is complicit in the problems I criticize. (If you (yes you, generic reader) find that the fact that everyone is criticizing me persuades you to criticize me, you know much less about fallacies than you think you do. Don't fall into the evil pit of stupid, it's not safe in there.)

He is correct to say that I would get more reputation if I did not challenge the community for being stupid groupthinkers, but that is obvious, I already knew that. My goal isn't to get good karma, it's to get a few of people who are reading this to realize how stupid the commenters here are behaving. Ideally EY would come out and tell all of you that you're being stupid, but that's utopian and doesn't seem probable.

Ahartell says my comment sounded annoying, I would rather that it sounded annoyed but it probably does sound annoying. Ahartell's assertion that the text doesn't match is probably based on a misinterpretation of this: "His "dark side", so far as Harry could tell, was a different way that Harry sometimes was" as though it means that his dark side is just a mood. But it's not a mood, it's been clearly characterized in past chapters. Reread the quotation, literally nothing within it even suggests that the dark side is not Voldemort's soul, it just seems artificially similar to that upon a careless first glance (I know because I made the same careless first glance). EY can't have Harry come right out and say "Oh yeah, that must be someone else's soul" so this is as close as he can get to correcting my earlier comment. The parallels between that earlier comment and the text I quoted are obvious.

If I have misguessed what Ahartell's position is, that is his own fault because he never actually made a warranted argument supporting his interpretation, he just asserted his interpretation and forced me to defend against whatever I perceived as the most probable reasons he would come to the position that he did. Ahartell, clarification would probably be appreciated.

Additionally, I reject (his?) claim that "the downvotes come from you making a claim about the quoted text that doesn't seem particularly well supported". -6 doesn't happen as a result of a factual mistake, nor does +9 for a clever rationalization; both happen as a result of dislike for me as a person and because of social influences and not as a result of a flawed claim. The intensity of reactions to my posts got much stronger as it became apparent that rejecting my arguments was the hip new trend that all the cool kids were doing.

My above comment was intended to make EY happy that I saw what he did there, so that he knows that he was being effective with this passage. Instead he'll probably just be upset about the stupidity of his fans who don't recognize truth when it's obvious.

The Comment I Was Referencing:

http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/bmx/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/6bwg

Ironically I was earlier criticized for arguing that the dark side wasn't Voldemort's soul. Apparently I'm damned whether I do or don't.

Also, I've decided that I'm sticking around until the issues I have with the commenters on this site are resolved to my satisfaction. I think it's worth spending a few last minutes of time trying to convince the silent lurkers that I'm sure are out there somewhere that the commenters on this site are not all that hot. This last point is intended to qualify my earlier remarks about leaving so that it becomes apparent that there is no contradiction and that I do intend to leave.

"Additionally, I reject (his?) claim that "the downvotes come from you making a claim about the quoted text that doesn't seem particularly well supported". -6 doesn't happen as a result of a factual mistake, nor does +9 for a clever rationalization; both happen as a result of dislike for me as a person and because of social influences and not as a result of a flawed claim. The intensity of reactions to my posts got much stronger as it became apparent that rejecting my arguments was the hip new trend that all the cool kids were doing."

... (read more)

15thomblake14y

This is at least rude. Downvoted without having to read more. Learn about the principle of charity. [...] Illusion of transparency. [...] Unnecessarily insulting. What do you mean on the object-level, and how could you say it in a way that is not rude? [...] No. You can have true conclusions from a fallacious argument or false premises, or true beliefs following from faulty reasoning. And for example, precisely 100% is overconfident that the sun will rise tomorrow, even if it turns out to be correct. [...] Again, illusion of transparency. If you say the community, and the community means "the sum of [all] the individuals" here, then it is not obvious that you do not mean "each and every one of the people who visit this site". [...] 'Groupthink' is a highly technical term, and shouldn't be bandied about. If you're going to assert that without any evidence that it's accurate, then I'm forced to assume that, like most usage of that term, it's shorthand for "people disagree with me". [...] I don't see what fallacies could possibly have to do with that; criticism is a behavior, not an argument or conclusion. And I don't see how that follows, even if it did make sense - I don't expect a generic reader to know much about fallacies, so I don't see how that should necessarily indicate they know less about them. [...] As far as I can tell, the large numbers of downvotes started rolling in when you started being rude. That's why I downvoted. And overconfidence is not a mere factual mistake, it's an error in reasoning, which is much more damning of a comment's quality. [...] I was not under the impression anyone here knows you. Really, try not to take downvotes personally, they just mean your comments are really bad. [...] you keep using that word. [...] True conclusions are not a shield from criticism.

6khafra14y

This is a pretty meta comment thread. Speaking of different sides, or different ways that you sometimes are, and simultaneously illustrating it. [...] What was your goal before you got that first downvote? Reflecting on the change in your goals, do you endorse your original goal, your post-downvote goal, or some third option?