Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89

Vaniver

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 88-89. The previous thread has passed 500 comments.

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, 16, 17, 18.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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 won't address the first part of your post; I think it is largely correct. We are, after all, responsible for our own actions.

However, for the second part, I don't think that anyone is even remotely trying to claim the equivalency you're describing above. It's most definitely a straw man argument.

If nothing else, the first claim should read more properly as "Person A is hurt because they have become legally responsible for a new human being and half of all associated costs and maintenance for that new human being for a period of no less than 21 years, in a situation where person A is not responsible for the creation of said new human being."

After all, we are responsible for our own actions. Not necessarily those of someone else.

(Side note: the 'control of sexual access' part doesn't make any sense, other than to construct a strawman. I don't understand at all why you felt that to be a legitimate argument or position.)

If nothing else, the first claim should read more properly as "Person A is hurt because they have become legally responsible for a new human being and half of all associated costs and maintenance for that new human being for a period of no less than 21 years, in a situation where person A is not responsible for the creation of said new human being."

Comparing the best-case scenario outcome of one thing with the worst-case scenario outcome of another thing sounds disingenuous to me.