Comment author: FAWS 11 April 2012 07:34:51AM 7 points [-]

As of last week Eliezer didn't have any plans to include an allegory to FAI, and expected any such allegory to work very badly in story terms ("suck like a black hole").

Comment author: vali 11 April 2012 08:00:45AM 2 points [-]

Oh. I feel a little silly now.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 11 April 2012 04:55:05AM *  21 points [-]

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.

Comment author: vali 11 April 2012 07:20:13AM *  -2 points [-]

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.

EY has made it his life goal to creating an artificial intelligence that is friendly to humans. A mind that transcends us without hating us. Harry MUST triumph over Quirrel, and he must do so by being more moral, not more intelligent. Because if Harry wins by being smarter, then EY would be conceding that morality is a weakness, or at the very least that strength and strength alone will determine which AI will win. And there would always be that risk that the AI would "grow up" as Quirrel puts it, and realize that "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". And something tells me that EY's solution is not to create a being that can't be hurt.

My guess is that "The power that the dark lord knows not" is, in some way, a solution to this problem. Harry will triumph for the same reason EY's friendly AI will (supposedly) triumph. But we will see. I haven't read enough of EY's stuff on friendly AI to know for certain what his solution to the AI problem is, only that he thinks he has one.

Comment author: vali 16 March 2012 05:56:09AM 0 points [-]

Chapter 79 is out!

My first thought was that Quirrell is behind this, and he is trying to strip away Harry's friends and isolate him. It's pretty clear that Mr. Hat and Cloak is Quirrell (I can argue this elsewhere if you disagree), and we know that Mr H&C is behind Hermione's recent brainwashing.

The problem is that this plot ends with Quirrell blowing his cover. We can guess that Quirrell cast those spells protecting Draco in chapter 40, after learning that Lord Malfoy had threatened to give his entire game away as revenge against Harry should his son come to harm. So Quirrell was protecting Draco to prevent anyone (Dumbledore?) from killing Draco in order to turn Lord Malfoy against Harry. But Quirrell can't tell anyone else this. He has no good reason to have those spells on Draco. Quirrell is a clever guy; I'm sure he could have come up with some excuse to make sure Draco was found OTHER than "Oh, I just happened to be watching over this one student with spells since last January". He could have gotten past this point in the story still free of suspicion. So why didn't he? How does this development benefit Quirrell?

My ideas so far: 1: Quirrell blew his cover on purpose, knowing he would be questioned by Scrimgeour. He is going to take over Scrimgeour's mind in the next chapter, knowing that Scrimgeour is an important man in government. And we already know from the Canon that Scrimgeour would get elected if a crises like the reappearance of Voldemort took place. And we already know Quirrell has plans for creating a fake Voldemort crises. Harry is too young to run the country, but Scrimgeour could make for a good front for a while, while Harry builds up his own popularity.
Result: Harry loses his friends and comes to depend more on Quirrell, Quirrell gains time alone with someone he can use to create a foothold in the government.
Problems: Getting arrested seems to be an overly-elaborate and dangerous method for getting some alone time with a Auror.

2: Snape is behind this most recent plot twist. The second appearance of Mr. H&C (when Hermione is mindraped) is actually Snape. If, for some reason, Snape knew of Quirrell's protective spells then he might have done the mind rape and arranged the duel, knowing that Quirrell would intervene. Which would result in Quirrell being caught.
Result: Quirrell, the only person who know's Snape's secret, is discredited, Harry, who Snape hates, loses his best friends, and finally Draco, who Snape is responsible for, stops hanging out with a loser mudblood, and with Harry, who Lord Malfoy fears. Problems: I was really sure Mr. H&C was Quirrell every time.

3: Too many intersecting plots = a giant mess that no one could anticipate.

My biggest question right now is what Snape is up too. We've had a lot of screen time with Quirrell so I think I understand what he wants pretty well, but Snape's anti-bullying campaign doesn't make much sense. All that work, just to make Hermione hate Draco? I don't know. But I really doubt Snape gone to all that effort, and hurt the reputation of his own house, just because he hates bullies.

I will be very shocked if this ends with Quirrell killing a bunch of Aurors. Quirrell KNOWS that doing this would destroy his relationship (such as it is) with Harry. Quirrell has built up Harry for a purpose; he isn't going to throw that away. Nor, I suspect, does he have any intention of going to prison. Most likely he will just disappear after the next chapter, and leave a bunch of people scratching their heads.

In response to Get Curious
Comment author: folkTheory 24 February 2012 10:33:18PM 1 point [-]

So, should I start consuming butter half-sticks?

In response to comment by folkTheory on Get Curious
Comment author: vali 25 February 2012 09:52:55PM 4 points [-]

The study had just 27 participants, and wasn't double blind. While it was an interesting experiment, I certainly wouldn't act on it, except perhaps to read another, similar experiment.

Comment author: erratio 06 December 2011 01:53:27PM 2 points [-]

I like to daydream. I have a bunch of different daydreams, and they function sort of like a screen saver for my brain. If I'm not doing anything mentally taxing, I turn on one and tune the world out. I can still remember as a child imagining all my stuffed animals as a council, sitting in a circle and doing something. Most involve a faceless, nameless protagonist who has some sort of magical powers. There are almost never meaningful relationships, and never names, in these daydreams. It's kinda creeps me out, what this fact says about me. These daydreams are very similar to what I experience when reading a book, in form if not content. These stories always involve some sort of enemy that needs defeating. Most run several years, until I get bored of them. I use them to help fall asleep.

Hey, I have those too! I always assumed it was a natural outgrowth of normal kid fantasies (being a magical hero and facing evil, no meaningful relationships) that for some reason I just never gave up on. As I've gotten older I've noticed certain tendencies in the way my protagonist acts and relates to others that have given me insight into myself, and I've stopped using them as a sleep aid because sometimes the adventure was interesting enough that I would deliberately stay awake so I could keep generating the next part.

Comment author: vali 06 December 2011 06:44:11PM 3 points [-]

Oftentimes, if I need to fall asleep I'll pick a really peaceful one. When I was younger, I had one where I was a full sized person in a world made entirely of legos, including tiny living lego people. I'd fall asleep, dreaming of building secret tunnels under the ocean, vast cities with towers a mile high, train tracks for the lego people that climbed mountains that rose above breathable atmosphere to reach secret veins of special legos. It was only during the day that floods, earthquakes and rival lego people threatened.

On a related note, I have such awesome ideas for a Minecraft mod.

Comment author: vali 06 December 2011 10:33:11AM 5 points [-]

I'm a very visual person. When I read books, my mind creates mental images and associates emotions with those images. If it's a really good book, the experience is very similar to dreaming. My conscious self is utterly submerged, and I live vicariously through the character. Six hours later (I'm a fast reader), the dream ends and I set the book down, and become myself again, and find I have visual slideshow of the entire book. I have never noticed a typo in a book. I remember virtually every fact about every book I've ever read, so long as it has some sort of narrative I can use to construct these images. So for example, I can read a history book once and never forget. I can look at a map, and navigate to anywhere on that map. I have an excellent sense of direction. I can close my eyes, and imagine myself anywhere I've been. I know it sounds like I have a photographic memory, but not really. If you gave me those tests where they show you a picture with a bunch of things, then ask you to repeat them back, I'd do pretty normally. My memory is average for details, excellent at the big picture.

I like to daydream. I have a bunch of different daydreams, and they function sort of like a screen saver for my brain. If I'm not doing anything mentally taxing, I turn on one and tune the world out. I can still remember as a child imagining all my stuffed animals as a council, sitting in a circle and doing something. Most involve a faceless, nameless protagonist who has some sort of magical powers. There are almost never meaningful relationships, and never names, in these daydreams. It's kinda creeps me out, what this fact says about me. These daydreams are very similar to what I experience when reading a book, in form if not content. These stories always involve some sort of enemy that needs defeating. Most run several years, until I get bored of them. I use them to help fall asleep. If anyone is interested, I could post one here.

I also have a really strong reaction to music. I can sit and listen to the same song on repeat for an hour, and I might as well be high, given how differently I think.

I mentioned earlier that books swallow me up, and spit me out later. I'm not capable of analysing anything I read critically the first time through. I have to go back and read it again, as an outside observer.

I have a bad habit of getting into emotional feedback loops. The need to control my emotions was what led to my current interest in rationality, and eventually here to Less Wrong. I would be a very different person if I hadn't needed to master my emotions at such a young age.

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