Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119

Gondolinian

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 119.

Plans for next chapter release:

Ch. 120 will post on March 12th, 2015 at 12PM Pacific Time (7PM UTC).

The next long chapter will be Ch. 122, posting on March 14th, 2015 at 9AM Pacific / 4PM UTC.

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:

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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 119.

Plans for next chapter release:

Ch. 120 will post on March 12th, 2015 at 12PM Pacific Time (7PM UTC).

The next long chapter will be Ch. 122, posting on March 14th, 2015 at 9AM Pacific / 4PM UTC.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

So you mean that Voldie screwed it up AGAIN when he tried to mess with a prophecy? Man, some people are simply not meant to hear prophecies.

On the other hand, the Vow did not change Harry's terminal goals. While he may not work to undermine the Vow itself, it is possible that before coming to the horrible realization that he has to protect the world above its people, he lets enough slip to other so that they may find a way to remove the Vow (or put him back in a box). Also, the Vow has some loopholes:

That I shall not... by any act of mine... destroy the world... I shall take no chances... in not destroying the world... if my >hand is forced... I may take the course... of lesser destruction over greater destruction... unless it seems to me that this >Vow itself... leads to the world's end... and the friend... in whom I have confided honestly... agrees that this is so. By my >own free will... If a good agent ever learns the full text of the Vow, they can use the loophole to make a dead man's switch and destroy the world if a significant fraction of its people are gone. Also "it seems that this Vow itself leads to the world's end" would probably be true if Harry ends up killing everyone to save "the world". More specifically, when making the Vow, Harry was probably picturing the people in it rather than the physical planet. Because Atlanteans did not speak English, it seems reasonable to assume that the intended meaning of the speaker, rather than the actual words he used, is binding. He may yet get out of this one.

On the other hand, the Vow did not change Harry's terminal goals.

If Coscott is right about the Vow protecting "the world" and not "its people", then it very much did change Harry's terminal values.

it seems reasonable to assume that the intended meaning of the speaker, rather than the actual words he used, is binding

The intended meaning of the three persons making the vow have to match, or the Vow won't work. And I think that two randomly chosen Death Eaters, who have absolutely no idea that people could survive without the Earth... (read more)