All of MarkusRamikin's Comments + Replies

Stupidity I would get, let alone well-reasoned disagreement. But bad faith confuses me. However selfish, don't these people want to live too? I really don't understand, Professor Quirrel.

The "they are playing a game" thing - some examples, please? 

Was cold war NATO willing to retaliate "in full force" against an attack on a non-member?

If Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons in a limited theater, It seems to me that, given the West's reticence, it may seem reasonable to expect from it a similarly limited, local retaliation. 

Even if it's not a certainty, Putin may be weighing such risks against the risk of what will happen to him if he is ousted from power (this idea speaks to me because it's simple, mundane fear, it does not require Putin being about to keel over and looking for a dramatic end).... (read more)

Kamil Kazani proposed that Putin may be planning to use nukes as a face-saving gesture (in the eyes of Russian public opinion, not yours, you don't matter to him no matter how absurd you think he's being), since it's not humiliating to lose to a retaliatory strike from powerful America, but losing to "inferior" Ukraine certainly is.

Thoughts on this?

2Aiyen
Presumably that would depend a lot on whether Putin expected American retaliation to be large enough to let him claim "we were pushed back by the Americans' power, but we still stand, so we win", and small enough to still make that claim (the destruction of the Black Sea Fleet, already threatened by the US, might be an example of this scale of response, though if it's literally only the fleet destroyed that would still raise the question of why the Russian Army can't handle Ukraine).  A retaliation on that scale could conceivably save face, though everyone would still remember how poorly the Russians fared beforehand.  A larger retaliation, though, one that threatened Putin's image or even his life, would be something he'd presumably like to avoid (unless the rumors of him having a terminal illness and seeking to go out with a bang are actually true).   A serious wildcard here is that the West does not seem willing to risk nuclear war.  During the Cold War, NATO projected the image of being absolutely willing to go to war if need be, even if that destroyed the world.  Indeed, given some of the incidents that occurred (there was at least one instance of planes actually lining up for what they believed to be a nuclear strike; the aircrews were preparing to fight, rather than mutinying over the likely end of the world), that wasn't a bluff:  NATO was willing to fight, and the Soviets knew it.   Now, though, that isn't the image the West projects.  It's possible that Biden would order nuclear retaliation, but it doesn't seem like the certainty that it was in the Cold War.  And that may increase the risk.  A West that predictably retaliates at full force is one Putin won't be willing to antagonize (barring the dying Putin scenario), while one that unpredictably retaliates is one that might end up actually doing so.  

What if there was an asteroid rushing toward Earth, and box A contained an asteroid deflector that worked 10% of the time, and box B might contain an asteroid deflector that worked 100% of the time?

I'd change that to 95%, because if B contains a 100% deflector, A adds nothing and there's no dilemma.

Finally got around to it, and it's great. The ending was exactly what it should be.

Is this against spaced repetition as such, or against flash cards?

For me the value of Anki (or my own custom program that I wrote a while back) is as a review-scheduler, not as a quizzer.

3beberly37
disclaimer This defense of corn ethanol is by no means “publish ready”, it is simply a gathering of data and concepts obtain during my work that has been sufficient enough to change my mind on the merits of a seemingly insane practice. It could use more work, however I don’t really care enough either way to put much more effort into this particular topic. The primary data driven argument against corn ethanol is that it takes more energy to make than the fuel contains. A statement that is generally true, which I don’t really care about. The whole point of getting away from fossil fuels is to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and slow/stop/reverse climate change. My grizzled, old, super-conservative thermo professor in undergrad often complained about hippies wanting to conserve energy. “Energy is always conserve” ,he would suggest , “what we need to conserve is exergy”. Likewise, I (and I believe the collective “we” should feel the same) don’t care about energy balance, I care about carbon balance. To find the “best” data on carbon balance of fuels, I turn to the California Air Resources Board, which limits carbon intensities (CI) for fuel sold in California, they have lists of every producer of fuel sold in the state and list the CI’s of the fuels. The unit they use is gCO2e/MJ (grams of CO2 equivalent per megajoule). Which can be found here. They also have published pathways for CI, which are documents describing how they arrived at the CI numbers. The one for corn ethanol is here. Reading through the pathway for corn ethanol, the biggest take away is that there is wide variation in production practices that have major impact on the CI of ethanol, for example, the highest CI for corn ethanol listed as of 5/20/15 is 120 (1) gCO2eq/MJ while the lowest is 63(1) gCO2eq/MJ. That’s nearly a factor of 2. For comparison, the CI of standard CA gasoline is 95(1). The difference between the high ethanol CI and the low is primarily the production energy (ie heat

Well crap.

I guess that when I thought "religion", I thought "system of worship", not "system of belief". To me the a religion would be "true" if it accurately responded to a demand for worship or obedience or such. If the creators of the Universe have no preferences over our actions, then at most you could have a, well, description of them, but not much of a religion thus defined. Discovering such beings would not make me a religious person.

Of course now that I thought of it explicitely, I realize this is a rather narrow definition.

Wait, why? If God existed, I'd expect the true religion to be among actually existing ones.

2Wes_W
As long as it's a god with a Big Divine Plan in which humans play a role, sure. If the gods created the universe so they could watch the big shiny hydrogen balls, and don't care about the emergent properties of complex proteins on that one planet in that one galaxy, we wouldn't necessarily know about it.

Pretty sure you're getting downvoted for some combination of the following: unclear, incoherent, unspecific, and impolite. Compared to your growing wordcount in this conversation so far, you have shown little evidence of having something to say.

-3[anonymous]
That is because I waste time on replying to comments while trying to be polite. I think that I have tried very hard to be polite, and it is hard to be specific when people go off topic all the time. It is confusing aswell. I only tried to be critical on my own belifes, but apparently it is forbidden to ask "weak points of christianity" unless you explain all of christianity and everything you believe in at the same time. (When you say that you are a physicists, no one asks if you believe in string theory or inflation, they find out subsequently.) It feels to me that almost the majority of those who have commented here, totally disregarded my request that they would only answer after seriously thinking about my question and actually be familiar with christianity. I don´t have time to explain christianity to everyone and I don´t want to, and it don´t help me either. Here is what I can say about my belief: I am an evangelic christian, I confess to the Apostles' Creed and I believe in a personal God. I am enrolled as ev. luther, and I can live with that, but I don´t agree with everything the church does, just as a democrat doesn´t agree with everything Obama does. If there is anything more people need to know, they can ask me personally and treat me with respect, or they can have it and everyone can be happy.

For reasons, I suggest that Bayesian Judo doesn't make EY look good to people who aren't already cheering for his team, and maybe it wasn't wise to include it.

More generally, the book feels a bit... neutered. Things like, for example, changing "if you go ahead and mess around with Wulky's teenage daughter" to "if you go ahead and insult Wulky". The first is concrete, evocative, and therefore strong, while the latter is fuzzy and weak. Though my impression may be skewed just because I remember the original examples so well.

stop watching TV

One of my past life decisions I consistently feel very happy about.

I'm guessing something vaguely along the lines of the "do not mess with time" warning. Except I can't imagine it specifically, how that might possibly go in the case of someone who's doing what Minerva says not to do.

If Quirrel killed Hermione to "improve [Harry's] position relative to Lucius", what was the point of trying to persuade her to leave Britain for France, in chapter 84?

To be sure: Fiendfyre, the black-red phoenix, and the "spell of cursed fire I shall not name" are all the same thing? I don't see Quirrel sacrificing a drop of blood in chapter 107...

2dxu
I'm not actually sure. "It's weird to see yourself", possibly? Though, in a world with stuff like Polyjuice Potion, I don't know how rare that sort of thing would actually be...

"Although wizards are advised to avoid being seen by their past selves. If you're attending two classes at the same time and you need to cross paths with yourself, for example, the first version of you should step aside and close his eyes at a known time - you have a watch already, good - so that the future you can pass. It's all there in the pamphlet."

"Ahahahaa. And what happens when someone ignores that advice?"

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips. "I understand that it can be quite disconcerting."

So what does happen when... (read more)

2dxu
Probably nothing, but it would require a series of improbable coincidences (every atom in future!Harry needs to be in the same position that past!Harry saw it in), significantly complicating the loop. Such complications would make it simpler for the loop to not happen at all, and so it probably wouldn't. A precommitment to interact with your future self as little as possible would then maximize the probability that the loop occurs in the first place.
5dxu
...I have no comment. Instead, have an upvote.

Interestingly, this is kinda one of the reasons this Voldemort impresses me. EY writes that "more than your own life has to be at stake", but Voldemort was sane enough that caring about his own life was enough to get him thinking and to get him moving.

So much so, he ended up genuinely working to save the world, and indeed ended up doing so, or at least significantly helping (Harry's Vow). Sociopath or not, the fact that normal people aren't sufficiently motivated by risk to their own lives is not a strength.

Also, Riddle's care about his own life ... (read more)

Agreed, I didn't buy it either. Felt a bit like a forced end-of-episode moral in a kid's show.

I see the point of the Something to Protect article as being about growing past your current conception of how you should think and act. That you need something more important to you than whatever is anchoring you to your current rules of thought, in order to do that.

Say, when Harry realized he could have used Lesath to save Hermione from the troll, instead of thinking that would have been "sort of Dark-lordish", that seemed like an example to me.

Or when... (read more)

2buybuydandavis
Interesting. I saw it largely as Canon: Basically Something to Protect = Something to Love. Otherwise, doesn't Quirrell also have "something to protect", namely his life, and the world in which he lives it? The difference seems to be the motivation. Which is what Harry is claiming. And he is correct in the general case. Quirrell isn't motivated by love or happiness. He doesn't really enjoy his life much (though he did seem pretty jolly after defeating Dumbledore). The distinction between a Yes to Life versus a No to Death is a very common theme. I can see how the Yes to Life provides more motivation, but the claim that this made the difference in this particular outcome just seems false. Let me give it the best interpretation I can. Wouldn't a Yes to Life be a much better defense against despair in that situation than No to Death? I can't cite studies, but that does seem plausible to me. It's not that Yes to Life makes you think better, but that it better keeps you thinking instead of giving up. So, from Harry's perspective side, it's maybe true that having a more positive reason provided more motivation to keep him thinking and not just giving up, but "thinking faster" still seems like a mischaracterization. And from Quirrell's perspective, I don't see that a heartfelt "Kumbaya" would have allowed him to overcome his ignorance of certain facts, which was a clear cause of his defeat. The overconfidence that I would argue that Quirrell also displayed by leaving Harry his wand seemed very out of character for the hyper prepared but totally unloving Quirrell. How would a lack of love explain his failure to take the wand, given his general level of hyper preparedness?

I'm not sure why having won one kind of lottery is more admirable than another. (Getting a good brain from genes vs inheriting useful brain patterns from Tom Riddle).

1buybuydandavis
That's why I said "in real world terms". Not a lot of genius horcruxes to bestow in the real world. Or partial transfiguration powers to exercise. Or bigger, harder, longer, and more throbbing midichlorians pulsing through your blood. Hermione has real world admirable characteristics. Real world Hermiones prosper, and help those around them prosper.

Haven't read it, putting it on my list now.

Upon some reflection, the reason I liked Luminosity less on second reading seems to be at least partly that the protagonist started as a relative underdog (sympathetic) and ended up as dominant authority, one effective in their dominance to an oppressive degree, enforcing her ideas on everything and everyone. This moved me out of "yay, rationalist fiction, let's get into it from the pov of the protagonist" into a third person view... from which I started noticing how freakin' obnoxious rationalist!Bella is. Poor Edward.

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?

7buybuydandavis
Sounds like an answer to me. Most people simply didn't have the power to combat Voldemort. Doing what you can isn't getting yourself killed trying to do what you can't. Meanwhile, QuirrellHero did have the power (under the fraudulent scenario where he was supposedly opposing Voldemort). There are some problems with the moral theory "with power comes responsibility", but the application to Quirell's scenario is clear enough.
9Izeinwinter
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.
3BrindIf
So according to her, someone who's walking away from a fight he could fight is wrong, as is someone who never lift a finger when he could have.

Please subscribe to the notification email list at hpmor dot com, if you want to see the separate epilogue when it appears (not for months, at least)

Separate epilogue? Does EY mean the "shorter, sadder ending"? or an expansion of the one we got?

I believe he means one set 6 years after these epilogues, i.e. when they would have graduated from Hogwarts.

why, Professor Quirrell, why, the thought still stabbing sickness at Harry's heart

Minor point, but wouldn't it be better with "stabbed" rather than "stabbing"? It's a sentence fragment, and lacks a verb. Compare:

why, Professor Quirrell, why, something inside him asked for the hundedth time, the thought still stabbing sickness at Harry's heart

Or either of them speaking to Hermione's parents.

I also wonder if Lesath was allowed to remember his involvement in V-day.

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Except for that leaving and changing identity thing. That might get in the way.

It was disguised. And Harry he admits in chapter 120 only figuring it out after the fact.

0TobyBartels
If Harry has to do harm in order to obtain security, then I expect him to do it, but I still expect him to feel guilty about it. That's Harry. (And in this case, I also don't see the need.)

Harry may be shown as flawed in this chapter, but choosing to keep extremely important secrets secure is not one of the reasons.

0Subbak
Maybe he recognized the voice, assuming it was not disguised by a charm?

Could you elaborate on the evidence pointing to White that you see? In what way is it more in line with canon?

6Subbak
Well, I read canon a loooong time ago but IIRC in book 7 in one of the first chapter Voldie goes around humiliating Lucius, in particular taking his wand without offering a replacement, and insulting him for believing he (Voldie) would give Lucius his wand in exchange. The conversation with Mr. White (" most delinquent of my servants") and the fact that he humiliates him similarly by removing part of his magic ability is reminiscent of that. Also, before I thought Mr. Grim was Peter Pettigrew, but now that we know that Black is the actual bad guy, it's even clearer that Mr. Grim = Sirius Black. In particular, Voldie says to him "I was surprised to see you here tonight; you are more competent than I suspected", which in retrospect clearly means "I thought you were rotting in Azkaban".

Or is she. She doesn't seem to have found her Muggle existence very meaningful. Now that she's presumably going back to the real "first world", her rightful place, to reunite with what's left of her family, I see it as at the very least a possibility that she'll look back at it with contempt, and resentment for whoever removed her from her real life.

Of course that's just speculation, depending on what kind of a person she is - I imagine diferent people in her position would have wildly different reactions to something like this.

I hoped for Draco saying "I need more time. Lock me up somewhere safe if you have to, but I need time to process this."

Yeah, I feel like Harry was being kind of unreasonable in dropping bombshell after bombshell of worldview-shattering information on an already emotionally fragile mind, and then asking for an irrevocable decision, all in a span of thirty minutes.

So Mr. White was the one who was Lucius? Not Mr. Counsel, the one Voldemort chided for not conquering the country in his name and limiting himself to the Wizengamot?

What made Harry certain of that?

3Subbak
For what it's worth, I too thought Mr. White was Lucius before seeing everyone else convinced it was Counsel. It seemed more in line with canon, and "white" evokes Lucius's awesome white hair. On the other hand, Harry could be mistaken, and using codenames that seem to indicate who the person behind is when they in fact bear no relation sounds like a thing Voldie would do.

Mr. Counsel might have been Bartemius Crouch Jr.

Dumbledore knew about Quirrelmort

Ugh, I hope not. The closer a story gets to "actually, everyone knew everything all the time, it was all just acting all along and the audience was being lied to and otherwise misled constantly" the more pointless such a story becomes in retrospect. The tricks and maneuvers that impressed you at the time, the emotional reactions that used to engage you (like Dumbledore's surprise at seeing Quirrel before the Mirror) all turn out meaningless.

(Can you tell I didn't like Ender's Shadow all that much?)

I remember I enjoyed reading Luminosity/Radiance a lot less on second reading, once I knew how it ended. The same thing was true for Friendship is Optimal.

I am starting to wonder if the same thing will happen with HPMoR, once I read the last chapters. It's like there's something about story endings written by transhumanists....

1JoshuaZ
Interesting. I'm waiting to go and reread all of HPMoR from the start once it is done. But there may be a substantial issue here: once one has that sort of ending everything else in the story may feel trivial in comparison. To test this it might make sense to look at books with similar sort of endings that aren't written by transhumanists. Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End might one to look at. How did people feel about rereading it?
8Manfred
Well, to be fair to Friendship is Optimal, the ending was in no way a twist. We even get to see Hanna planning it. So I dunno, it's okay on reread for me.

One bit that feels unsatisfying is the complete underreaction to Harry's "oh btw Voldemort's alive, here, I brought him with me."

So instead I Obliviated most of his memories, then Transfigured him into this." Harry raised his hand, and silently pointed to the emerald on his ring.

Splat. Boing. Splat. Splat.

"Huh," Moody said, leaning back in his chair. "Minerva and I will be putting some alarms and enchantments on that ring of yours, son, if you don't mind.

I immediately thought of a scene in the Eye of the World:

It was hi

... (read more)
0BrindIf
Saying nothing is a reaction. We're talking about poeple who knows how to keep their reactions shut down and seems to have secret agenda to hide from each other. They underreact also about Harry's being Tom Riddle Jr.

But they'd also not take him for granted the way they had Munroe and Dumbledore, accepting their heroism like princes, with a sneer for the lateness of the payment. *blinks innocently*

More seriously: I only meant the closed circle he's talking to: Moody, Bones, McGonagall, and he still wouldn't have to admit to killing anyone, just let Bones know that Quirrel wasn't a good guy and Harry deserves the credit for the Light winning. We can still have Voldemort supposedly killing everyone else.

The more I come back to this story, the more I like him, and I had felt he was well written to begin with. There are moments I find not just believable but moving, like after Harry rejects his phoenix:

I truly do not know if it was the right thing, or the wrong thing. If I knew, Harry, I would have spoken. But I -" Dumbledore's voice broke, then. "I am nothing but a foolish young boy who has become a foolish old man, and I have no wisdom."

It always stops me when I get to that part.

And there were ones that were moving in a not-sad way, li... (read more)

Sorry if I was unclear, I meant it turns out they weren't fooled and I'm glad of that.

2Gondolinian
Sorry I misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification.

Hm, any particular reason, if Harry is already discussing other vulnerable info like having a transfigured Voldemort, he won't fess up to the part where Quirrel was Voldemort and that he won single-handedly?

I gotta say, I've been wanting to know what intelligent people like Moody and Amelia made of Harry's derp story, and hoping that it wouldn't turn out that "Eliezer wants us to believe that everyone in Magical Britain really is that stupid" - and I got precisely what I wished for. Great!

0wobster109
My feeling is Harry doesn't want everyone knowing that he, 11-year-old warrior of light, killed 36 death eaters. People would always be wondering if you were evil after that.

Hm, any particular reason, if Harry is already discussing other vulnerable info like having a transfigured Voldemort, he won't fess up to the part where Quirrel was Voldemort and that he won single-handedly?

Harry's upper hand relies on the idea that Dumbledore knew exactly what he was doing, and them that Dumbledore hired Voldemort to teach children for a year would undermine that.

Incidentally, my P(Dumbledore knew about Quirrelmort) just went way up this chapter.

0Gondolinian
Maybe they are on to him, but they see little reason to let him know that until they have better evidence?

I had assumed Harry was being sarcastic in chapter 6:

Nah, in chapter 33 we have Harry irrationally worried that Hermione is dying rather than just Somnium-ed:

Could've been her last breath escaping.

Oh be quiet. Why are you being so paranoid-protective, anyway?

Er, first real friend we've ever had in our whole life? Hey, remember what happened to our pet rock?

Would you SHUT UP about that worthless lump of rubble, it wasn't even alive let alone sentient, that is like the most pathetic childhood trauma ever -

(Which had me in stitches.)

I did find that reference quite amusing. I had assumed Harry was being sarcastic in chapter 6:

Professor McGonagall pointed toward a shop that looked as if it had been made from flesh instead of bricks and covered in fur instead of paint. "Small pets are permitted at Hogwarts - you could get an owl to send letters, for example -"

"Can I pay a Knut or something and rent an owl when I need to send mail?"

"Yes," said Professor McGonagall.

"Then I think emphatically no."

Professor McGonagall nodded, as though ticking off a point. "Might I ask why not?"

"I had a pet rock once. It died."

This might be a dumb question, but is the specific lesson of the Something To Protect article reflected in these last chapters? If so, in what way?

My take: Harry has QQ('s legacy) and Hermione to protect, and kills dozens of death eaters etc. etc. to make it happen

McGonagall has her students to protect, and commits publicly to doing so, no matter who their parents are, and takes up the role of headmistress (which we know she thought herself unsuited to) to do it

The students have themselves and future cohorts to protect, and commit to passing on QQ's teachings themselves to do it

It's close to the same thing, yes.

(Unless we count the horcrux backups, but since Harry doesn't mean for them to come into play, they don't count in this moral calculus.)

I am okay with that.

Agreed. Especially if we judge the story by usual storytelling standards. Though that's harder to do after HPMoR itself has been teaching us the difference between story-logic and what is realistically probable, and mocking stories in general and the original Harry Potter in particular at every turn for that stuff.

I don't think that hole was even necessary. Voldemort did need to let Harry keep his wand for the Unbreakable Vow. and could have intended to have someone disarm him afterwards. So just have Harry prepare the antimatter bomb while Voldemort is di... (read more)

3TobyBartels
Well, ‘hate’ is a strong word, but I certainly wasn't going to be bullied into leaving a review.
Load More