Hm, I didn't think I was reacting that strongly... If I was, it's probably because I am frustrated in general by people's inability to just take a step back and look at an issue for what it actually is, instead of superimposing their own favourite views on top of reality. I remember I recently got frustrated by some of the most rational people I know claiming that sun burn was caused by literal heat from the sun instead of UV light. Once they formed the hypothesis, they could only look at the issue through the 'eyes' of that view. And I see the same mistake made on Less Wrong all the time. I guess it's just frustrating to see EY do the same thing. I don't get why everyone, even practising rationalists, find this most elementary skill so hard to master.
people's inability to just take a step back and look at an issue for what it actually is, instead of superimposing their own favourite views on top of reality.
I think that people who fully possess such a skill are usually described as "have achieved enlightenment" and, um, are rare :-) The skill doesn't look "elementary" to me.
New chapter!
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 102.
There is 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.)
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: