You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

DanArmak comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: b_sen 20 February 2015 09:53PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (352)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: DanArmak 21 February 2015 06:25:28PM *  6 points [-]

You don't have to test it on your friends; you can test it on your enemies, or on bystanders you don't care about, or in Voldemort's case, on minions you don't care about.

Get a random wizard off the street (if you're Voldemort) or a prisoner you're going to kill anyway (if you're ethical). Control them by Imperius, Legilimizing, or plain threats. Have them make a Horcrux. Kill them and activate the horcrux on a second person you're willing to kill. Test the result. When done, kill the second person and destroy the Horcrux.

Comment author: cousin_it 21 February 2015 06:27:38PM 5 points [-]

Yeah, that's why I said "we don't have a good explanation why Riddle missed this idea anymore".

Comment author: DanArmak 21 February 2015 06:41:52PM 16 points [-]

Harry thinks it's because making a Horcrux for someone else pattern-matches "teaching your most powerful spells to others", which pattern-matches "helping others altruistically", and Voldemort has an ugh field around that concept, or at least a blind spot. For what it's worth, Voldemort agreed with this analysis.