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Mestroyer comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 28, chapter 99-101 - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: palladias 12 December 2013 05:10AM

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Comment author: Mestroyer 12 December 2013 11:53:09PM 4 points [-]

That is the interpretation I'm thinking of, and no he doesn't. When he describes science to Draco, he says that not keeping secrets is one of their mistakes. Spreading the power to everyone has bad consequences he wants to avoid (things like knowledge that could enable a small faction of people to destroy the world). In this case, it would have consequences he thinks are bad, which are people interfering with Quirrell's plans to stay alive.

Comment author: Velorien 13 December 2013 12:00:33AM 0 points [-]

Surely that is "the power granted by possessing specific items of true information"? This is a very different thing from what I said. I think that to Harry the power of truth relates to rationality rather than knowledge.

Comment author: Mestroyer 13 December 2013 12:08:17AM 0 points [-]

Oh, I thought that's what you meant by "the power conferred by believing true things rather than false things", which is what Harry is withholding in the cover-up.

Why do you think he wants rationality for everyone?

Comment author: Velorien 13 December 2013 03:29:41PM *  3 points [-]

He attempts to instruct people in it at every reasonable opportunity (at least in the earlier parts of the story), and strongly indicates that his ideal world is one where everyone is "sane". In addition, we know that the fic's explicit purpose is to promote rationality to those who might otherwise not encounter the concept (specifically HP fans and fanfic readers in general), and that Harry is the author's primary mouthpiece to this end (though this is not to say that his own use of the methods of rationality is always successful).