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Rukifellth comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: palladias 18 July 2013 02:23AM

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Comment author: ChrisHallquist 18 July 2013 07:41:19AM 13 points [-]

On Quirrell's theory of human nature:

It seems to me that in general, his theory yields pretty accurate predictions, and to see what's wrong with it you probably need to know some evolutionary psychology; Eliezer's Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers. Evolution is going to favor genes for convincingly acting like you care about your friends without incurring too many costs for their sake. Yeah, it's also going to favor genes for seeing through easily faked signals, but to the extent that people can get away with it, it's going to favor genes for seeming to care about your friends without incurring the costs that would go along with that. The twist is that evolution while evolution produces behaviors that tend in that direction, it doesn't produce creatures who follow the strategies exactly, or consciously. The result is people who actually care about their friends... even if they very often don't act like it.

Comment author: Rukifellth 18 July 2013 01:48:34PM *  26 points [-]

I've been working with the idea that Quirrell is a high functioning psychopath, who often believe that other people are also "faking it".

Comment author: Alsadius 20 July 2013 06:52:20PM 2 points [-]

That seems like a really obvious descriptor of Voldemort.

Comment author: Rukifellth 21 July 2013 02:40:09AM *  0 points [-]

Or maybe Voldemort is pretending to be a psychopath. pretending to be a cynic who uses masks.

Comment author: Velorien 21 July 2013 03:01:19PM 2 points [-]

In the fact of pretending to be anything he becomes someone who uses masks, so that has to be his first level of identity even if it gets duplicated further up. He could, I suppose, secretly be an idealist who uses masks, but that seems unlikely.

Comment author: Rukifellth 21 July 2013 04:14:32PM *  0 points [-]

I figured a psychopath could pretend to have the emotion of fear and hurt, which a mask using cynic would retain.