Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 22, chapter 93

daenerys

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 93. The previous thread has passed 300 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, 17,18,19,20.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

It's not relevant to Eliezer, since he has not actually done what he was accused of doing: i.e., treating females in the story as if their main purpose is to provide motivation for the men.

You are a writer. You've written a story which you believe instantiates concept P; you're aware of a related concept Q, which is considered harmful, but you believe you're avoiding it. On publication, an unexpectedly large group of people get upset over your plot because by their lights it's indeed an example of concept Q, despite your precautions. Isn't this evidence for expanding your definition of Q to include portions of P, at least for the purpose of avoiding pissed-off fans? I've been thinking of this as pretty basic Human's Guide to Words stuff.

I was not aware of Women in Refrigerators as a trope at the time I wrote that chapter, let alone at the time the outcome of Hermione's meeting with the troll was determined as part of the plot - which was the instant I thought 'What happens with the troll?' back when the fic was being formed, insofar as I'd read that scene a dozen times in a dozen fanfictions and nobody ever gets hurt. That event was one of the primordial ingredients of HPMOR, and canon!Hermione is the troll's target in canon, and that is the true causal origin, period.

13Viliam_Bur13y

It seems to me like if people become upset in the middle of a history book, and then complain why the author let Nazis win the war. As opposed to reading the next chapter to see they actually lost.

5wedrifid13y

It is also (similarly weak) evidence that it may be useful to update Z, the set of desired fans, such that it excludes those who execute behaviour Y. The act of using social-political attacks to attempt to modify your author-tract from one evangelising a rationality ideology to one evangelising some other ideology isn't one that must necessarily respond to with compliance.