Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

Yhea, but the wizengamot is not actually a parliament. The only real threats to the seats of the members are likely their families removing them as representatives because they have become an embarrasment. Possibly also assasination. So, in order to make them vote no against Lucius's will Harry would have to come up with a way to make voting yes a gigantic public embarrasment. In a society where Lucius controls the press. Eh. I am drawing a blank here. Actual riots / protests at the gate might do it, but Harry cannot arrange those at this point.

edited 24th Mar '12 8:34:15 AM by Izeinsummer

They're caught up in manufactured outrage. They're probably actually angry, because it's easy to make yourself angry, and not being angry would look bad.

Regardless of why the Wizengamot are angry, it's quite clear that they are perfectly willing to throw Hermione in Azkaban. As I said before, it is REALLY unlikely Harry would let that happen, and though it isn't exactly the optimal thing to do, he would probably end up storming Azkaban with Fawkes. Assuming he does manage to resolve this with something clever, maybe he could have Draco, under the effects of more Veritaserum, tell the Court how the blood purist beliefs are false, then corroborate them himself under Veritaserum - the court don't know he's an Occlumens. This would perhaps damage Malfoy's political power a little, as well as hopefully removing any bias against Hermione for being Muggleborn.

This hypothesis seems pretty cool. But "h" confuses me a little. Can someone please explain?

The idea of Harry trading his Invisibility Cloak to Lucius Malfoy is a very very good one — but unfortunately such an arrangement could have been only done in private before Lucius Malfoy made the impassioned plea against being denied justice. Now he would lose face to agree to such.

The only other suggestion by other people I've seen of comparable quality as a suggestion (I don't remember who suggested it, I think it was in Less Wrong if it wasn't here) is Harry making an Unbreakable Vow of significant worth to Lucius Malfoy in trade for Hermione.

But what could Harry possibly Vow to do that Lucius wants badly enough to lose face to the Wizengamot and let who he sees as his son's attacker free?

About the only bargain Lucius could accept and not loose face is the head of the puppetmaster behind the attack on a plate, and it would need to be very clear that said puppetmaster is in fact the guilty party. Since Harry doesnt know who the puppet master is this is off the table. He cannot even falsely claim to be said puppet master, because this would be severely doubted, and he is not a perfect occlumens, so the claim would not survive the likely level of scrunity. Dead end avenue. For Harry. *Dumbledore* could cop to it, and make it stick. Harry cannot.

Yes, but Dumbledore has already refused to sacrifice himself to save Hermione. At this point, Harry's only options seem to be somehow getting leverage over Lucius Malfoy or threatening the Wizengamot somehow (removing their ability to cast Patronuses, destroying the economy, storming Azkaban etc.)

I feel the correct answer is Solution 2 (Imperius debt) from Lorthos's post. Solution 1, where Harry sacrifices himself, does not seem likely at all to me. It is a plan that requires significantly more than three things to go right, and we already know what the author thinks about those. Likewise, solution 3, sacrificing Dumbledore, has been explicitly denied in the text. It is clear Dumbledore will not cooperate. Besides, both are solutions whose cost is too large compared to the payoff. Remember, Harry can always rescue Hermione and all the rest of the prisoners in Azkaban at an 80% risk of death, so any plan where he sacrifices himself is not going to be worthwhile.

The problem of taboo tradeoffs has its roots in human irrationality: we refuse to compromise our "sacred values" for any price, even when this results in ridiculous, damaging behavior on our part. Harry's values are not sacred, but rationally very important: Hermione's life is worth a lot, especially since losing her could lead to Harry's Dark Side going berserk. So it will be Lucius who is forced into a taboo tradeoff. In this case, Lucius' sacred value is vengeance. The rational solution must force him to compromise, and the best way to do so is to make him trade it against another of his sacred values: his life and political power.

Solution 2, where Harry calls in the debt over Lucius' Imperius, fits this perfectly. This places Lucius on the horns of a dilemma (note the double meaning from the chapter title): accept the debt and free Hermione, or deny it and admit that he was not under the Imperius—that he was a willing Death Eater. Actually, this is a Xanatos Gambit for Harry, since in the latter case, Lucius might lose his life, but at the very least would sacrifice his political power, allowing the Wizengamot to free Hermione. (If Lucius quibbles on the legality of the debt, Harry may have to sign a betrothal contract with Hermione to call in the debt to House Potter, but Harry would obviously be fine with that; he was willing to basically do the same to save Luna, who he didn't even know.) This is the obvious answer and is clearly foreshadowed: the final sentence suggests the answer will involve Lucius (he can be trapped in his lie), the Wizengamot (they are complicit in the lie), the laws (Imperius=debt), and the individuals around him (the only unusual one highlighted is Augusta Longbottom, who told Harry about Lucius' lie).

Also, I think Quirrel is pretty much directly confirmed as being behind this.

Harry told Quirrel and Dumbledore about Lucius' claim that he would drop his entire game with Dumbledore and go after Harry if Draco came to any harm. A few weeks later, Draco is half-dead at the hands of Harry's best friend. Dumbledore could be responsible, but I doubt he's fallen so far as to be willing to put Hermione in Azkaban. Fawkes would never, ever allow that to happen if he's a s close to Dumbledore's mind as implied. And I can't see what Dumbledore gains from this, Lucius obviously hasn't lost anything, he didn't even have to expend a lot of political capital to get the result he wanted. Quirrelmort on the other hand has taken two of Harry's pieces with basically no loss.

I think that given this entire arc is named "Taboo Trade-Offs", Harry's solution is going to involve a taboo trade-off, not simply Lucius's response - the arc seems built around putting Harry in a situation where he will have to make such a trade-off to save Hermione's life, where having Lucius make it would have nowhere near the same impact or significance.

This would seem to mean that the Imperius debt theory is unlikely - there is no sacrifice of a sacred value in invoking the debt. Or, he may invoke the debt, but for one reason or another that will not be sufficient, and he will also have to make a genuine taboo trade-off.

And in light of what's happening with regard to Harry drawing upon his dark side and the fact what Harry seems to hold sacred most of all is his core goodness, I can't help but strongly feel that the solution will have to involve sacrificing some of that goodness. This means that, though the #1 theory in Lorthos' post is very ingenious, I don't think it will be it - it's clever, but Harry is not making any real taboo trade-off in it; he's not giving in to his dark side, only making use of it.

My bet is he'll come up with a sufficiently powerful false accusation that's impossible enough to deny that Hermione must be set free, directly exploit Lucius or Draco, or possibly go even darker than that.

edited 24th Mar '12 10:04:24 PM by antialiasis

The post explaining solution 1 is pretty long, but I think it only requires one or two things to go right. That Lucius believes Harry to be Voldemort is already a fact; all Harry actually has to do is successfully discredit the Malfoy testimonies under his own supposedly unassailable Veritaserum testimony. Everything else in the explanation is a disjunctive advantage that emerges from that fait accompli; clearing the core hurdle is enough for that strategy to succeed.

Regarding the post above this one, I believe the Imperious debt does constitute a Taboo Tradeoff. Harry is surrendering something of immense practical value (the ability to make the Wizengamot vote the way he wants on any one issue) in order to rescue his sacred value (Hermione, who is, at present, not very useful).

Harry having to sacrifice some part of his goodness to save Hermonie is interesting, at least. And plays into 'morts hands no matter the outcome.

Lorthos, you make a fair point with respect to Harry's tradeoff. I gave Harry too much credit; Harry would be willing to pay anything for Hermione's life, so Hermione's life is indeed a sacred value to him. However, it is also a significant secular value to him, just as anyone's life is. The value of the Imperius-debt, on the other hand, doesn't seem so big. It is more of a stop-Lucius-once card than a get-any-law-I-want card, otherwise Harry could just use it to eliminate Azkaban entirely. Thus, I think the tradeoff is justifiable as a secular tradeoff as well. Harry would probably choose the same for any other student in that position (though he might not be sufficiently motivated to think of it). The real cost to Harry is allowing himself to become complicit in the lie.

However, I don't understand your defense of Solution 1. Even the first point, that Lucius thinks Harry is Voldemort, seems dubious to me. Why would he think that? Lucius has no idea Voldemort is alive. Why would Lucius think that, instead of just thinking Harry is a foolish, plotting boy who is trying to take his son from him? I don't see where anyone is getting that Lucius specifically suspects Harry of being Voldemort. The remainder of Solution 1 requires many other things to work right: Harry must convince the Wizengamot that Draco tortured him, which me cannot prove; Harry must convince them that killing Draco was justifiable just because Draco was plotting, but Lucius will never accept that; etc. Each point in the plan is a potential point of failure, and in this case, a likely one. I just don't see how the plan is even remotely workable.

Lucius clearly thinks Harry is Voldie. See secret conversation in train station and letter right after breaking out Bella, dear.

Oh. That never clicked for me. I just thought that Lucius believed that Harry was seeking power to be a Dark Lord in his own right. The next Voldemort, not Voldemort himself.

The Voldemort Line has been passed on unbroken for GENERATIONS.

edited 25th Mar '12 1:16:15 AM by MarkThis

Mark This, what chapters were those?

38: The Cardinal Sin, 63: TSPE: Aftermath

Harry's going to have to do something impressive to get the Wizengamot's attention. Considering how the author took all that time to expound upon how invincible the Wizengamot chamber is, I'm betting Harry will use partial transfiguration to damage it in some way. It won't work as a complete solution to the problem, but it'd be a start.

But whatever he does, it will have to shock them, awe them, and make them a little afraid. And in time they will become very afraid. That's probably the true purpose of this whole scenario. It's not about Draco and Hermione at all, nor is it about attacking Harry through his allies, though it is quite cleverly disguised to look like it is. The real purpose is to turn Harry and the Wizengamot into enemies, which is already halfway to being accomplished since Harry has already "declared war" on magical Britain in his own mind.

Clearly those idiots don't read One Piece... then again it didn't exist yet, did it...

Okay: clearly those idiots don't read Dune. Yeah that might fit. Don't underestimate the Chosen Child. Heck, for that matter they probably don't even know who Jesus is...

Hm.

The thing is, it seems to me like the interesting thing about taboo tradeoffs - and more importantly, the reason Eliezer would create an arc about them in his rationalist fiction - is the fact that sacred values make people behave completely differently with respect to decision-making than non-sacred beliefs. And this is an interesting issue from a rationalism perspective. So I'd be inclined to believe Eliezer would want to explore that side of it in an unconventional way.

That doesn't rhyme with the idea that the sacred value is simply Hermione and that he will do anything to save her, because - let's face it - that is what every traditional storybook hero would do in the situation. Being willing to risk or outright sacrifice yourself and your practical assets to save the people you love is the bog standard of heroism, to the point where a character would pretty much be an instant Anti-Hero if they were to make the "practical" choice in such a situation. Saving Hermione is clearly the natural, expected choice here, almost no matter what the cost is. So, granted, it would certainly be exploring the concept in an interesting new way if he had Harry actually sacrifice Hermione here, or if he saved Hermione and the story went on to treat this as a bad choice, but that would seem rather extreme even for Eliezer.

We're seeing Harry reach for his dark side. We're seeing an entire arc about taboo tradeoffs. We're reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky who's likely pondered and written about ethics and choices more than all of us put together. Do we really think all this is leading up to is Harry doing the typical upstanding hero thing through some clever method?

That's why I don't think this is as simple as "Hermione is a sacred value for Harry, so he saves her by making an enemy of the Wizengamot". Any hero would do that without it warranting a special taboo tradeoffs arc. I think this has to be about sacrificing some other value he considers sacred for Hermione, because she is even more important. (And that fits with how Harry so vehemently disagreed with Dumbledore's efforts to prevent another war if it meant sacrificing the happiness individual children to do it.)

edited 25th Mar '12 6:24:59 PM by antialiasis

Are we sure that the title "Taboo Tradeoffs" actually means what the surface definition would imply?

I think that dark spell that was cast a while back is going to come in, and eldritch Harry Potter is going to smash apart all of wizarding Britain.

As rational an explanation as any!

IA! IA! HARRY FTHAGN!

Offtopic: I wonder how QB would fit in this story...