Heh, I know. I chose that phrase to express despair more than to describe objective reality.
Here's a blog post about how everyone hates each other over politics more than before. Eliezer commented on it on Facebook, hypothesizing that it's a slow-growing effect of the Internet.
I cursed aloud when I read that comment, because I've had that exact idea and an accompanying sick feeling for a while now, and this is the first time I've seen it repeated.
(it's never a good sign when Eliezer Yudkowsky is the one to express your deepest fears about why everything's and everyone's brokenness is unstoppably accelerating)
I wish to read more about the "The Internet Is Why We Can't Have Even The Few Nice Things We Almost Kind Of Once Had" phenomenon — hopefully from someone who thinks there's a way easier than developing Friendly AI to put even one evil back in Pandora's Box, but that's probably wishful thinking, and I want to read about it in any case.
(Note: I'm aware that the entire LW-affiliated rationalist community writes about how things are broken, and desires to teach people to be less broken. But right now I'm looking specifically for things about how the Internet's massive boon to free speech is way more double-edged than was anticipated.)
Anyone have any good links?
I'm not sure how much influence Narcissa's going to have on him, since Draco's already 12. Maybe if Narcissa eschews blood purism and actively tries to teach Draco, perhaps, but I think she's going to be busy running around screaming "BLECH! ECH! POISON MUGGLE LIPS!" for a while if she had any blood purist inclinations before the memory charm.
Dammit dammit dammit.
I vote no on this theory. "All the good martial artists live" in Asia, so that may be the reason this combat instructor was said to be Asian, but if he was trying to get a random Muggle in, (1) Quirrellmort would have said "Muggle instructor", and (2) there would have been more legitimate resistance than just a smugly smiling clerk.
"My life is yours, my Lord, and my death as well."
I like this.
That would pretty much DELETE ALL THE PEOPLE AFFECTED and REPLACE THEM WITH DIFFERENT VERSIONS, so I don't think Harry would do that.
That may even be the reason he has, as he said, changed his mind about teaching Harry any magical secrets.
Definitely this.
I think there's a bonus feature to having two hops in the middle. If the sender finds that the recipient never received the message, he immediately distrusts his first hop and perhaps publishes the knowledge. If the first hop wasn't the culprit, he either publishes the second hop's unreliability or takes horrible devious Slytheriny vengeance on them.
So, due to mutually assured destruction, neither hop wants to defect and risk losing a nice income source permanently.
You're referring to the problem with people being mean to each other within a given online community. I'm thinking more of people hating each other more in real life because the Internet lets them seek out unfiltered outrage from people with similar beliefs, with nothing tempered by gatekeepers as in the days before the Internet and the rise of cable news.