Some discussion has popped up on /r/hpmor about the an apparent decline in the quality of HPMoR's recent chapters. Now, I personally don't think there's been any drop in terms of quality, but the commenters there make some compelling arguments. In particular, I feel that /u/alexanderwales articulates those arguments nicely:

I am hesitant to make any remarks prior to the story being completed, as I'm fairly confident that there are things which will only make sense after the fact. And I'm also hesitant to make remarks in a public forum that I know the author reads. But to put on my writing hat anyway ...

In terms of prose and mechanics, I think the chapters have been great. In terms of characterization, I think that Eliezer's Dumbledore has always been a little bit shaky, though almost always when he's being serious or emotional - this is in contrast to the aloof and enigmatic Dumbledore, which reads wonderfully. In chapter 110, he's mean, and gives weak arguments in favor of his side of things, and then he dies. Perhaps that's EY's conception of the character, but it's not mine. Harry and Quirrell are written the same as ever, and I had no problem there (save for the two times Quirrell leans so heavily on the fourth wall that it seems like it's about to break).

And then we get to plot, and that's where I start having some real problems. I wish that we'd gotten to see the Mirror of Erised prior to the chapter where it became really important. I wish we'd been introduced to the spell that Dumbledore uses prior to the chapter where he kills himself with it. There are a number of things that happen first and are explained after the fact, or that are explained only moments before they've happened. (And unfortunately, in a serial you can't go back and change these things if you realize that you needed to foreshadow them a few chapters back.) So yes, I agree that there are some issues with how information is given out to the audience. Most of it must be transparency illusion, which can be difficult for an author to deal with - it's clear in your mind what's happening, but when you put it to the page you don't realize that you're not describing it in such a way that the reader will get that too.

I do somewhat wonder whether this is the result of the author reading/writing these chapters all at once, which I would think would enhance the transparency illusion. I think we'd probably have had fewer problems with these chapters if they'd been released all at once.

Any thoughts on this?

That was absolutely awesome. This story is really very well written. So much exposition, and it just all made perfect sense. And it was even somehow brought back far more in line with the original novel than I thought possible.

And I guess the '"Power the dark lord knows not" really is love, which is kinda awesome.

It's still kind of obvious how to defeat Voldemort though. Simply permanently disable him without killing him. Some magical prison, or a coma, or a permanent transfiguration into a stone. This is in fact so obvious that Voldemort himself should realize it as well. Maybe he just figures he is so far above Harry's power level that he has nothing to fear. Or he has some defenses against even this.

Another way to get rid of him: Destroy all his horcruxes on earth, then kill him. He'll live on on pioneer, but that's fine. You can pick him up again in 10000 years when humanity has progressed far beyond him, and can probably even cure him. Heck that'd even be a nice ending. A epilogue set 10,000 years from now, with Harry recovering the Pioneer 11 and curing Voldemort.

The sequel could then be a Harry / Voldemort slashfic where Harry and a redeemed Voldemort rule the galaxy as father and son.

(note that I'm a bit wary of meal-replacement shakes)

So, I suspect MealSquares deserve a mention as having many of the benefits of meal-replacement shakes without of the detriments of it being a shake or being thrown together from uncertain ingredients. They seem to be the best option time-wise (it takes approximately five seconds to open a package and start eating), but are significantly more expensive than a diet based on preparing staples yourself. (If you want to eat just MealSquares, you're looking at ~$10 a day; if you want to eat just rice and beans, you're looking at ~$1 a day.)

Hypothetically (since I'm not a parent), I'd want to be somebody my kids could trust to give them the no-BS answers. Absolutely prepare them for the fact that the world is full of those who will seek to mislead and brainwash them, but you don't have to start by doing it to them at home. When I was a kid (admittedly rather older than is under discussion here; I was around 9) my parents and I would explicitly go through the newspaper looking for propaganda that we could analyze for impact and for the bias or mistaken belief it intended us to have, and why. I'm pretty sure I could have handled it earlier; by age five I was fairly comfortable with the concept of fiction vs. non-fiction, and by six I'd already sorted the first part of Genesis into the first category...

This does run the risk of the kid picking up any biases that you have yourself, though, on account of "well, they never told me to be skeptical about that" but there's nothing wrong (and plenty right) with teaching them to be skeptical even of their parents' views... just don't do it by lying to them about easily verifiable facts.

I wonder if this can not be partially explained by people wanting to answer quickly. The teacher says you can make as many guesses as you like, but we still instinctively feel like we do better if we do it faster.

Imagine the same test, but now with the last line reading: "You can make as many guesses as you like, but you get graded on how fast you get the right result". With the rule it is a lot more rational to not spend too much time on verification of your hypothesized rule. I have no idea what the best strategy is, I guess it depends on your priors about the rule-space, but it probably does not involve spending a lot of questions on falsification.

My guess is that many people approach the problem as if it is of the above variety, even though it isn't. So while positive bias no doubt plays a part, I think a desire to answer quickly also factors hugely.

This is testable. Give people a 10 dollar reward for giving the correct answer, and explicitly tell them that the number of guesses does not affect this reward. I hypothesize that the fraction of people getting the correct answer will go up significantly.

(I know this is a very old thread, but this sequence still features prominently on the site, so I have some hopes that people still read this occasionally :P)

This is actually my first post on this site.

Welcome!

Given that someone has clearly made a mistake, what are the odds of me having made it, instead of every other person in the Conspiracy. The answer is obvious.

But this assumes that the Conspirator is telling him the truth, instead of testing him. I think Brennan is right in considering alternative hypotheses about the Conspirator's motives.

And I am not merely making a pedantic point here. This is a very important point for the real world as well.

There are questions of 'epistemic hygiene' here. If I hold a belief because someone else I trust holds that belief, I need to be careful that I don't give other people the impression that I'm providing independent verification of that belief instead of just importing their belief. If Brennan calculated a different answer, him telling the group that will allow them to converge more quickly to the correct belief (even if he acts on the group consensus belief, because that's the one that he trusts more than his private belief!).

I know this is a very old story, but I have some thoughts on it I wanted to share.

Let me first share an experience that I think everybody who has ever seriously studied math (or any complicated subject) has had. You're working on a difficult math problem, say a complicated differential equation. You are certain your method is correct, but still your answer is wrong. You've checked your work, you've double checked it, you've checked it again. Your calculation seems flawless.. Finally, in desperation, you ask a friend for help. Your friend takes one glance at your work, smiles, and says: "Four times five does not equal twelve"... Oh. Yeah. Right. Good point.

We all make mistakes. Even very skilled people sometimes make elementary mistakes. Brennan in the story is doing a calculation that is very trivial for him, but it is still possible. Even if he can't see a flaw, can't even imagine a flaw, that doesn't mean the odds are zero.

Yes, they are certainly very small. Brennan is saying "The odds of me making a mistake are very small, so I am confident I am correct". But this is the Bayesian Conspiracy, not the Frequentist Conspiracy. Brennan should be asking: "Given that someone has clearly made a mistake, what are the odds of me having made it, instead of every other person in the Conspiracy. The answer is obvious.

Thus, Brennan fails as a Bayesian, and should not be accepted into the Conspiracy.

And I am not merely making a pedantic point here. This is a very important point for the real world as well. Yes, standing up to peer pressure is important, but only when it is rational. Global warning deniers also think they are standing up to peer pressure. Creationists also think they are standing up to peer pressure. And often for the exact same reason that Brennan is doing so, in this story. They thought about the issue themselves, they may even know a thing or two about it, and they really can not see any flaw in their logic, so they stick with it, convinced the odds of them having made a mistake are very small, forgetting about the huge prior.

This is actually my first post on this site. I have read quite a bit, but not everything, so I hope I am not inadvertently saying something that has been discussed before. I couldn't find anything, and I think it's an important point.