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.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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

This is at least rude. Downvoted without having to read more. Learn about the principle of charity.

obvous

Illusion of transparency.

pathetic

Unnecessarily insulting. What do you mean on the object-level, and how could you say it in a way that is not rude?

Alsadius asserts that I'm overconfident and that I'm not thinking very clearly. That only makes sense if my comment is wrong

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.

Obviously I'm not criticizing literally each and every one of the people who visit this site,

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".

it makes sense to talk about groupthink

'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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

a result of dislike for me as a person

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.

The parallels between that earlier comment and the text I quoted are obvious.

you keep using that word.

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.

True conclusions are not a shield from criticism.