Don't forget to report back how it went!

I'm interested in people's opinions on The Hunger Games, if they've read them. A number of my friends like them, but I'm concerned that it might have tropes that kick me in my LW parts. I don't say this because of anything I heard, I just want to be as sure as possible that I will like it if I'm going to invest the time to read them.

The first London meetup in a while was yesterday. We got a dozen people and lots of lively discussion. We tried playing the Five-minute Debiasing game which was fun but I needed to do more work in advance to make it run smoothly. At about 17:30 we decamped to a nearby pub and got into lots of philosophical discussion. We're talking about organising the next one on Tuesday May 1. Hello to everyone who came along - how was it for you?

Join the London Less Wrong mailing list.

On the subject of Italy but sadly not of this meetup, I am in Florence and Milan for 5th to the 12th of June: the former for the first half of my trip, and the latter for the second. I hope something Italian takes off in the meantime!

Was thinking of applying, I already work 40 hours a week and am unsure how easily I could do a further 20. Seems like it would be useful sort of thing in the future if I'm freelancing or travelling. Shame about the current hour limit.

If you tell them the whole riddle ("what is most scary, unkillable etc"), then give the answer, I'd say there's a good chance that it would cast enough doubt for the animal patronuses to fail, at least temporarily. Also, Harry could improve his credibility by casting his human patronus.

I think he's just describing what happens when you tell people Dementor's are Death. He considered that a tactic in the WIzengamut to prevent them from being able to cast a patronus, and gives no thought to the possibility that knowing that would enable them to cast the True Patronus.

Did anyone encounter a good response to this comment?

EY doesn't seem so fond of Rand, and it's like he's building her up as the great bugaboo of the story. That whole talk with Hermione was one of those "Gault Recruits a Striker" speeches.

If you live in a world where you are punished for what was called Good:

And yet it was as if they tried to do everything they could to make his life unpleasant. To throw every possible obstacle into his way. I was not naive, Miss Granger, I did not expect the power-holders to align themselves with me so quickly - not without something in it for themselves. But their power, too, was threatened; and so I was shocked how they seemed content to step back, and leave to that man all burdens of responsibility. They sneered at his performance, remarking among themselves how they would do better in his place, though they did not condescend to step forward."

And rewarded for what was called Evil:

"And it was the strangest thing - the Dark Wizard, that man's dread nemesis - why, those who served him leapt eagerly to their tasks. The Dark Wizard grew crueler toward his followers, and they followed him all the more. Men fought for the chance to serve him, even as those whose lives depended on that other man made free to render his life difficult... I could not understand it, Miss Granger."

What should you do?

Voldemort Shrugged:

"Why, no," said Professor Quirrell. "I stopped trying to be a hero, and went off to do something else I found more pleasant."

At that point, it's hard to complain. But I'm seeing Rand paired with Lord Foul. Consider Harry, Dumbledore, and Quirrell.

Harry: Harry's eyes were very serious. "Hermione, you've told me a lot of times that I look down too much on other people. But if I expected too much of them - if I expected people to get things right - I really would hate them, then.

"No..." said Professor Quirrell. "That was not why I came here. You have made no effort to hide your dislike for me, Miss Granger. I thank you for that lack of pretense, for I much prefer true hate to false love.

Dumbledore: There is evil in this world which knows itself for evil, and hates the good with all its strength. All fair things does it desire to destroy."

The Moral of the Story seems to be Harry finding an answer to the weakness, stupidity, and evil of others besides hating them and destroying them.

You get a lot of interesting passages just by searching for Hate.

The Killing Cure is formed of Pure Hate

And it’s not that I hate this Ron guy,” Harry said, “I just, just...” Harry searched for words. “Don’t see any reason for him to exist?” offered Draco. “Pretty much.”

“Sometimes,” Professor Quirrell said in a voice so quiet it almost wasn’t there, “when this flawed world seems unusually hateful, I wonder whether there might be some other place, far away, where I should have been.

Right now this flawed world seemed unusually hateful. And Harry couldn’t understand Professor Quirrell’s words, it might have been an alien that had spoken, or an Artificial Intelligence, something built along such different lines from Harry that his brain couldn’t be forced to operate in that mode. You couldn’t leave your home planet while it still contained a place like Azkaban. You had to stay and fight.

There’s no light in the place the Dementor takes you, Hermione. No warmth. No caring. It’s somewhere that you can’t even understand happiness. There’s pain, and fear, and those can still drive you. You can hate, and take pleasure in destroying what you hate.

But then something in the world changed, and now you can’t find any great scientists who still think skin color should matter, only loser people like the ones I described to you. Salazar Slytherin made the mistake when everyone else was making it, because he grew up believing it, not because he was desperate for someone to hate.

“I guess I was stupid too,” Draco said. “All this time, all this time I forgot that you must hate the Death Eaters for killing your parents, hate Death Eaters the way I hate Dumbledore.”

“No,” Harry said. “It’s not—it’s not like that, Draco, I, I don’t even know how to explain to you, except to say that a thought like that, wouldn’t,” Harry’s voice choked, “you wouldn’t ever be able to use it, to cast the Patronus Charm...”

Harry remembered it from the night the Dark Lord killed his parents: the cold amusement, the contemptuous laughter, that high-pitched voice of deathly hate.

Fury blazed in Harry then, blazed up like fire, it might have come from where a phoenix now rested on his own shoulder, and it might have come from his own dark side, and the two angers mixed within him, the cold and the hot, and it was a strange voice that said from his throat, “Tell me something. What does a government have to do, what do the voters have to do with their democracy, what do the people of a country have to do, before I ought to decide that I’m not on their side any more?”

The old wizard’s voice was pleading. “And it is possible to oppose the will of your fellows openly or in secret, without hating them, without declaring them evil and enemy! I do not think the people of this country deserve that of you, Harry! And even if some of them did—what of the children, what of the students in Hogwarts, what of the many good people mixed in with the bad?”

“Don’t go!” The voice came in a scream from behind the metal door. “No, no, no, don’t go, don’t take it away, don’t don’t don’t—” Why had Fawkes ever rested on his shoulder? He’d walked away. Fawkes should hate him. Fawkes should hate Dumbledore. He’d walked away. Fawkes should hate everyone—

rage grew in him alongside the self-loathing, a terrible hot wrath / icy cold hatred, for the world which had done that to her / for himself, and in his half-awake state Harry fantasized escapes, fantasized ways out of the moral dilemma,

You have everything now that I wanted then. All that I know of human nature says that I should hate you. And yet I do not. It is a very strange thing.

A couple more that I recalled showing the difference between Harry answer and Quirrells. See the last in particular.

There was a pause at this. Then the boy said, “Professor, I have to ask, when you see something all dark and gloomy, doesn’t it ever occur to you to try and improve it somehow? Like, yes, something goes terribly wrong in people’s heads that makes them think it’s great to torture criminals, but that doesn’t mean they’re truly evil inside; and maybe if you taught them the right things, showed them what they were doing wrong, you could change—” Professor Quirrell laughed, then, and not with the emptiness of before. “Ah, Mr. Potter, sometimes I do forget how very young you are. Sooner you could change the color of the sky.” Another chuckle, this one colder. “And the reason it is easy for you to forgive such fools and think well of them, Mr. Potter, is that you yourself have not been sorely hurt. You will think less fondly of commonplace idiots after the first time their folly costs you something dear.

“I’m certainly becoming a bit frustrated with... whatever’s going wrong in people’s heads.” “Yes,” said that icy voice. “I find it frustrating as well.” “Is there any way to get people not to do that?” said Harry to his teacup. “There is indeed a certain useful spell which solves the problem.” Harry looked up hopefully at that, and saw a cold, cold smile on the Defense Professor’s face. Then Harry got it. “I mean, besides Avada Kedavra.” The Defense Professor laughed. Harry didn’t.

This month I'm implementing a self-incentive mechanism to achieve tasks (and vaguely profit if I don't).

Last month I wrote up a list of 30 tasks, one for each day in April. If I fail to use any given day to complete one of my tasks, I move 1/100th (1%) of my previous month's salary to my savings account. This way my future self will either be cleverer (/stronger/more socially talented - due to the nature of the tasks) or richer than would happen otherwise.