Describing good play as "making few mistakes" seems like the wrong terminology to me. A mistake is not a thing, in and of itself, it's just the entire space of possible games outside the very narrow subset that lead to victory. If you give me a list of 100 chess mistakes, you've actually told me a lot less about the game than if you've given me a list of 50 good strategies -- identifying a point in the larger space of losing strategies encodes far less information than picking one in the smaller space of winning.

And the real reason I'm nitpicking here is because my advisor has always proceeded mostly by pointing out mistakes, but rarely by identifying helpful, effective strategies, and so I feel like I've failed to learn much from him for very solid information-theoretic reasons.

Tragedy of the commons, the shared resource being mutual trust. The first one to defect reaps the rewards of his faux signals being taken at face value ("I don't mind at all sticking around", wow, such pleasantness, many social laurels, wow), degrading the network of trust a "tell culture" relies upon.

It's like saying "wouldn't we as a society benefit overall if hidden negative externalities were internalized", yea well, first one to secretly pollute the river gets some bonus shares next quarter (wow, such money, many boni, wow)! Same with a trust culture ending in a race to the bottom.

But the gains have been already cancelled by Romney's better performance in the first debate. You could spin this in two ways. One one hand, you could argue that the "47%" comment did move the polls, and that ceteris paribus it would have reduced significantly Romney's chances of winning. On the other hand, you could say that ceteris should not be expected to be paribus; polls are expected to shift back and forth, and regress to the mean (where "the mean" is dictated by the fundamentals--incumbency, state of the economy, etc), and that if 47% and the debate hadn't happened, other similar things would have.

That comment did move Intrade shares by around 10 percentage points,

So? That just means that some of the people who trade on intrade also made the mistake Will alludes to.

To what extent does it contains spoilers? I haven't read HP:MOR yet.

He is maximizing his utility part-function: people should not be harmed. If I know of a situation such that: Someone will be harmed if I do nothing; They will be harmed equally if I tell the authorities; If I intercede with my allies, they will be harmed less.

The first two actions are equal. The third one is better. The ability to determine the actual consequences of future actions is magical. Fortunately for Harry, he has access to magic. I expect Harry to develop a procedure where he makes several plans, checks for a note indicating which plan he should use and any changes he should make, executes the plan, and then time-turns a note back to himself indicating which plan worked and any retroactive changes to it, then assists himself if needed.

A lot of the comments take a very consequentialist point of view, and they explain themselves fairly well, which is good.

Perhaps it is because I've seen many really bad reddit comments before (even in subreddits relating to fields usually sympathetic to rationalist ideals) and what I'm seeing here is of a different standard, but I find myself hoping to some extent that some of the people commenting here were idiots before reading HPMOR, and that somehow they became more insightful and eloquent as a result of being exposed to the fic and related content.

I think I might recommend the fic to some more people...

I don't buy Harry's argument. I call it ethical solipsism, thinking that you are the only one who has any ethical responsibility, and everyone else's actions are simply the consequences of your own.

Ironic. I consider anything else ethical solipsism. Why would it matter when it's your fault, but not when it's someone else's?

Also, I don't think Harry made an argument. He just defined heroic responsibility.

World politics:

One or more new 'revolutions' (described as such by international media) will take place. 80% - At least one of which will be in Sub-Saharan Africa: 60%

Fidel Castro will die, or has already died and it will be officially confirmed 90%.

Open hostilities will take place between Iran and another country 60%.

Vladimir Putin will become president of Russia: 95% - There will be significant rioting with civilian injuries in Russia: 70% - There will be substansive political change in Russia 5%.

UK politics

The coalition government will break up 10%. - One of the 3 major parties will change leader 50%.

Some random personal predictions as I find the exercise interesting:

I will have sexual interactions with one or more women. 95% [Here defining sexual interactions as something that would require an 18 certificate to display in a film, and women by their own self definition). - I will have an 'official' relationship 25% (defined as one where we both alter our facebook statuses to 'in a relationship'.) - I will have sexual relations with one or more men 1% (the prospect doesn't currently appeal to me, but given my observations of sexual preference variability in others I can't rule it out).

I will graduate university this summer. 90% - Assuming I graduate it will be with a grade of 2:1. 80% 1st 10% Other 10%

I will miss one or more deadlines due to ongoing depression and anxiety issues 80% (I would like to say lower, but given past results that seems unlikely from an outside view. )

I will break at at least one debating competition. 70%. (Break meaning entering semi finals or final depending on size of competition). I will win a Debating competition 20%.

I will attend the European debating championships. 80%. Assuming the preceding: I will be in the top half of speaker scores 95%. Top 100 60%. Top 50 10%. Break 25%.

Travel outisde UK 99%. (I intend to book tickets in the next week), - Travel outside EU 50% (no current plans but most of yea is unplanned and I wish to.

LW

This post will have positive Karma 90%. - Karma >5 50%. - Karma >10 10%.