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

FAWS

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

I agree that the victim model sucks. I was actively trying to distance myself from it through harsh and angry rhetoric but failed. Probably the sarcasm was the mistake that made me seem victim like. What should I do to distance myself further, since I've apparently failed? No one wants to deal with a victim which is definitely justified. At the same time, I want to complain.

My response should be viewed in context of multiple high numbers negative reputations I received on multiple posts in different discussion threads. I wouldn't have responded like that to one single instance. But I had multiple instances where good posts, just like the one above, received multiple negative reputations. I wanted to complain about that. It seems like as soon as I opposed pendanterrific on the other thread everyone started smashing on everything I said, which is stupid and justifies a response on my part.

The specific above response was flawed, although I still strongly defend its sentiment. I don't want to apologize, exactly, because I feel that being angry with the hordes of negative reputation is justified. At the same time I wish that it had been phrased differently, and that I had more specifically tailored my response to address the people swarming me with bad karma.

I apologize for that response to all people on LessWrong who did not downvote my good comments, such as (presumably) you. I do not and will not apologize to the people who downvoted my comments without any real justification, those guys are assholes. I will also not apologize to the people who are willfully misunderstanding me or who are attacking every statement I make.