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.. The thing that puzzles me here is why Knox was ever prosecuted at all. The prosecution had Guede. Who left his fingerprints all over the scene, fled the country, had a history of burglary and knives and changed his story repeatedly. That's a pretty simple and very solid case. Why the heck the prosecution insisted on trying to pin the crime on two more people who could have no plausible reason at all for conspiring with him is just inexplicable to me. I mean, traces of dna from people who lived in the apartment? Wtf? All that proves is that they indeed, lived there.
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[FINAL CHAPTER] Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 122
Hermione says that she has an answer to Quirrel's question: if he was horrible for walking away from his fight, are the people who never even lift a finger still worse. That got my interest, because I think that's a good question.
But insofar as I can understand, her answer is not on topic. What she says may be a useful thought in its own right, but not an answer to Quirrel's question. Or am I missing something? Does she have a worthwhile point that I am failing to see, and what is it?
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[FINAL CHAPTER] Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 122
It does address it. What we call heroic action is high combat ability and resources deployed for good. Hermione's point is that privileging that particular class of good works is an error - The proper measure of virtue is if you do the things which fall within your reach. Thinking in terms of heroes is a distraction,
Note that wizarding britain still largely fails hard on this count.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
How do we know the crisis was war, and not (for example) people gradually reinventing the arts with which the Atlanteans destroyed themselves?
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
The description of the founding of the wizengamot. War is probably not a very descriptive term for what was going on before it - The political structure implies that it is what came after a period of feuding families. In this case, feuding families with magical might backing up the kind of stupidity bloodfeuds cause.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
The Vow doesn't kill you if you violate it, it makes you unable to violate it.
Voldemort can't get the law passed that everyone must obey him because the law-passers are vowed not to be intimidated by snake-nazis.
Its vows all the way down.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
Actually, the one wow I really do not get all wizards are not under is very simple. Merlin laid down his interdict due to a crisis of magic being used in wars in utterly unrestrained ways. Blocking people from learning certain kinds of magic is a daft way of stopping that. What you do is you take every single wizarding child of 8, and make them swear to never use any magic that would harm more than one person. Still free to fight, still free to defend themselves, just noone capable of area effect magics of destruction anymore.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
So what would he have been doing? Saving victims of accident so that they end up being fine after a small hospital stay? Miraculously curing terminally ill people? I find it unlikely that he could do anything else with long-term benefits without anyone catching on. But yeah, I like that alternate character interpretation of Flamel.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
Mostly, resurrecting dead children. The population used to be lower, but kids also used to have piss-poor odds of making it to adult-hood. In terms of QALY, this would have been the best use, and if a child goes missing from a sickbed only to wander into the kitchen feeling chipper and fine, noone would even think twice.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
Hopefully the apparent time limit on the Philosopher's Stone isn't going to get worse over time.
Good point. A time limit of 3:54 does seem too arbitrary to be hard-coded.
Harry also hasn't considered that it may only be good for some finite number of permanent transfigurations. He's going to try to use it many more times than it probably has been used in a very long time.
At least he only intends to use the Stone as a stop-gap measure for fighting death until he is able to properly end the world.
[edited]
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119
It occurs to me that this limit means Flame could, in theory, have been using the stone flat out for five hundred years without anyone catching on. 56 million people died this year. If the stone was used to save as many of them as possible, at random, then with only moderate use of magic for coverup purposes compared to shit we already know the magical world is pulling of, that is just going to be utterly undetectable. "Here have a second chance at life. Also a magical compulsion to keep your mouth shut".
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116
It's incredibly naive.
I didn't like it either, but:
Taking that guy out is entirely in sync with valuing life in general. I'm not a fan of the death penalty, but his mere existence is threatening enough that I would make an exception with no hesitation and not feel bad about it ever.
Harry has taken him out, in the most effective way possible. The existence of the Horcrux network means that the death penalty is not an effective punishment or removal method.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116
No, but moderating the memory charm is foolishness. He isn't even remotely proficient with that charm. He should either have gotten expert help, or gone for a total wipe.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116
Hum, good question.
I assumed that with all his experimenting he did in a year, he must have triggered a ward at a point. He doesn't all the wards, and since we expect them to be quite extensive, it's very unlikely he never triggered one.
So what are our hypothesis ?
Harry is not recognized as Defense Professor by the wards.
Harry is recognized as DP by the wards, never triggered a ward, but that didn't seem suspicious to Dumbledore because there are fewer wards I imagined there to be, so even with lots of experimenting, it's quite normal he didn't trigger one.
Harry is recognized as DP by the wards, never triggered a ward, and Dumbledore failed to realize it, due to a variation of the "availability bias", we don't tend to notice events that fail to occur (while they should) as much as events that occur (while they shouldn't).
Harry is recognized as DP by the wards, and Dumbledore did suspect it. Then, Dumbledore knowing that Harry is likely a Tom Riddle, must have suspected Quirrel to be a Tom Riddle. He knew much more that he claimed, and he lied when he said to Quirrelmort that he didn't suspect anything.
I would put most probability on 1, but none of 2, 3, 4 can be excluded at this point, yes.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116
We have some evidence Harry has defense professor permissions and didn't trip any wards because of that. He practiced memory charms. In Hogwarts. If the castle thought of him as a student, that would have set alarms ringing, with professor permissions, no alarms. Not strong evidence, because Harry was Dumbledores pet disaster, and it is entirely possible he'd hear an alarm like that, check up on what Harry was doing, and ignore it as long as he wasn't casting it on students. But it's an implication.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116
Doesn't this also apply to Baba Yaga?
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116
It does. I mean, it's possible "Goblet curse" trumphs Rebirth Magic,
But my preferred theory is that Flamel is Baba Yaga, and Voldemort read that story all wrong because he managed to err on the side of excessive cynicism, which is a lot simpler. No murdering took place at all, just an elopement.
This also explains why Flamel only interferes in politics by teaching chosen champions - She is still bound by the goblet rite on the Battle Magic position, so that is the only way she can oppose dark lords that don't show up at her door and try to kill her. Well, unless they graduated elsewhere, but selectively showing up and vanquishing only those fell practitioners that studied in other schools would make things just a tad obvious.
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I was thinking that most murders are gang-related and most gang members are male, but I see that this is disputed. Unfortunately, all the sources I can find seem to take a partisan position in the gun control debate, hence I don't know.
Bad prior. Gang violence is a major murder statistic, but it's pretty far from being "most". Quick googling says: "1 in 6 murders". The most common motive, at 50% is "Argument". So.. men are more likely to escalate those to homocide?