I'm starting a job in an "adaptive learning" startup soon, and many of the points you make here remind me of the things this company does or plans to do. The basic idea of the company is that it collects data about the student as he or she interacts with an electronic course, then uses this to personalize the course and make recommendations for the student's education path. This isn't quite the same as what you're suggesting, where a student independently finds educational content and then gets certified in those areas. However, there are several...
Hi everyone! I've been lurking around here for a few years, but now I want to be more active in the great discussions that often occur on this site. I discovered Less Wrong about 4 years ago, but the Methods of Rationality fanfic brought me here as a more attentive reader. I've read some of the sequences, and found them generally to use clear reasoning to make great points. If nothing else, reading them has definitely made me think very carefully about the way nature operates and how we perceive it.
In fact, this site was my first exposure to cognitive bias...
There are at least two alternative interpretations.
1) Quirrel said this while he was roleplaying as the defense professor. Perhaps the role he came up with happened to be constructed so that Harry's actions made him happy. But that doesn't mean that it made Riddle happy (insofar as the "true" identity of Riddle exists). Heck, we don't even know that Harry is dealing with Riddle in chapter 108, or yet another identity that Riddle selected for the occasion. (He "changes names as you or I change clothes.")
2) Even if Quirrel/Riddle was not ... (read more)