Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

I was pretty disappointed to find out EY didn't write something about birth certificates.

also, lol he's probably not going to start posting the final arc this year.

Never mind, it made me giggle. I will let you off with that one.

About three Worlds collide's use of rape, Yudkowsky's posts on weirdtopia, help a lot with making that make sense.

Someone from 300 years ago would find more than a thew things we consider okay or at least legal as horrible. Of course the story's future humans also think of some of the stuff we think of as normal as horrible, That just comes with the territory of massive moral change.

Some things we see as normal or good, will probably be considered horrible in the future, while some things we consider horrible will be considered good, okay, or at least private.

The thing is that if you write a weirdtopia, it has to sound kinda crazy. There still has to be arguments for it, but it has to sound about as odd to you as modern mores would to Isac Newton.

edited 19th Sep '14 8:41:30 PM by supermerlin100

That's still an extremely bad idea, to use casual rape and expect us to show any interest in them after that.

Thirty years ago they casually beat kids in schools and everyone thought that was okay. Heck, Life On Mars could be seen as portraying the Seventies as a reverse Weirdtopia; a crazy world with different morals that the protagonist feels happier living in than in the modern one, one of which is casual violence. If you look further back, Courtly Love often meant that for every maiden a knight exalted, many more peasant girls would get to appease his frustration, whether they want to or not, and I don't mean prostitutes. If you look at, say, Central Asia in the nineteenth century, and the diverse ways they handle marriage, some of which continue to this day, you'll find some really weird shit.

Point is, differences like that make you feel distanced and a bit disgusted from the other group. But they're still humans, with compelling stories and motives and lives. It'd be like completely disqualifying the Founding Fathers from human interest because they owned slaves.

Just wondering, does anyone know which chapters' author's notes contain the more significant Word of God statements on Quirrelmort? I'm honestly having difficulty seeing how some of his actions are consistent with the whole "being Voldemort" thing, though that's partly based on believing most of what Quirrel tells us...but if we can't trust a large amount of what he says, it really makes it difficult to do any useful thinking.

And I don't even know what to think about the David Monroe thing.

I fail to understand where you see an inconsistency...

Do note that a villain is perfectly capable of doing good things. It could be for a deeper plot, such as pretending to be good so you can betray people later. Or it could be something as simple as a mutually beneficial trade. For example, a villain with all the water in the world might want for some beer, and another the opposite, they could either kill each other over it, or just trade some beer for some water. While the winner gets what he wants either way, the effort expanded is clearly different.

It's like the prisoner's dilemma where cooperate cooperate gives bigger rewards to both sides than defect/cooperate or defect/defect. In a case like that, it isn't even a dilemma, only an idiot would defect.

Edit: I'll put it like this. If I were a villain, let's say I wanted to burn babies for whatever reason, maybe I just like the smell of roasted flesh. Now, suppose I was standing at an orphanage. Obviously, in the normal case of events I would simply douse it with some gasoline and light it on fire. But what if there was, say, a pregnant woman in there, who looked like she was six months pregnant, yet looked frail enough to die before the baby was born?

Suppose, then, I had the patience necessary for a proper villain. Now, wouldn't it be natural for me to ensure the woman lived, at least long enough to give birth to the baby, maybe longer, depending on whether I liked the smell of burning orphans in general, or only burning orphans of a certain age.

I'm doing something good: helping a woman stay a live, for a evil cause: I want to burn the woman's baby later.

edited 8th Oct '14 11:41:06 AM by dnc

I want to have your babies... so that I may burn them!

Essentially, I'm just finding that whatever Quirrel's plan is, it appears to be far too complicated, if it involves winning over Harry's trust, playing the game against (with?) Dumbledore and Malfoy, etc etc. Voldemort's main motivation in the original canon is simply avoiding death (along with some level of Take Over the World), and the depths of plotting to which Quirrel is going here seem a little overboard for that, assuming "like canon unless otherwise noted".

Though I suppose complicated (or complicated-seeming) plots are precisely what we should expect from this series.

Avoidance of the Villains Never Lie trope though, as much sense as it makes from an in-universe standpoint, is rather frustrating as a reader because it renders a big source of information about the story universe unreliable. Though I suppose for this fic, it might be possible to pick through the clues for inconsistencies.

edited 10th Oct '14 11:05:24 AM by ashnazg

I think Quirril's plan is to unify Magical Britain under a "Un-Light Lord" so that they become strong enough to dominate the Muggles.

It's not a matter of domination, I think. Quirrel is just terrified Muggles will blow up the earth. I.E. end his existence. Other than the horcrux in space, everything else would go up in flames if the earth blows up. And even the space one isn't that safe. Considering he's piggybacking on muggle technology, he doesn't know for sure that it's actually out of the muggles' reach.

Given the way his character is presented, he seems like he'd be fine just chilling in the middle of nowhere. Except he knows muggles will bother him no matter what. Global destruction is global. He's stomping down a risk factor, so to speak, by trying build up a military force capable of subduing the muggle world.

Edit: That is, his motivation is the exact same as canon, he's running away from death. He's worried muggles can undo what an entire magical world can't. It's not like artifact hunters are going around looking for his horcruxes, but an world ending event would get all of them no matter what. Game over. Obviously it's not at that point yet, but the entire point of being intelligent is having foresight.

edited 11th Oct '14 8:59:20 PM by dnc

He is a bit of a sadist. The second worst thing to him, after death, is boredom. I don't think he'd be content "just chillin'".

edited 12th Oct '14 6:14:42 AM by TheHandle

Considering he'd rather look at stars than at people, I think he would be perfectly fine with just chilling. Of course, that doesn't mean he wouldn't find other things more interesting, but it's not like boredom would be something that could force his hand.

Besides, I think he's more bored of people than anything else. He had been playing them for most of his life, after all. Sure, there's a few gems that are more interesting than others, but rather than sifting through a mountain of sand to look for a few gold nuggets, I think a mountain of copper or silver would be perfectly fine. Said mountain being looking at stars or something. The stars aren't more interesting than the most interesting people, but they're certainly better than the run of the mill.

... I feel bad for empathizing with that...

Don't. I feel a certain attraction to that point of view as well. But until someone else comes up with a totally new thing that changes my perspective, I'm more drawn to the conclusion that Master Potter-Evans-Verres comes up with. That we are what makes the stars meaningful. That without us to look up at them in wonder, they are just big flashy balls of nuclear fusion and its byproducts.

I, too, empathize with that point of view, but I question whether Quirril shares it. He's too terrified of the Muggles to be bored with them at this point. And remember, the last time he tried to use mass persuasion on Wizards, it blew up in his face big time. So he should be feeling challenged, not bored.

More like annoyed.

For a certain definition of (epic) levels of annoyance.

When Quirrell is annoyed by something, he wants it to die.

He's terrified of what Muggles can do, but not what they are. That is to say, he's aware that they're an existential threat to him, and he's taking steps to remove that threat. (Today, Magical Britain. Tomorrow, the World.)

The average Muggle wouldn't interest him at all, he'd probably treat them like ants. If they got in his way, he'd step on them, if they don't, he doesn't care. Just because the anthill is almost at critical mass doesn't mean the ants are interesting.

Muggle technology and capability isn't the same as the Muggles themselves.

And you can be bored of a game that's difficult, or rather, DIAS. (Do it again, stupid.) Basically, the solution to the game isn't by logically deducing what to do. But by doing random things over and over until you find the solution that works. (Badly made adventure games, no, not RP Gs, adventure games, the kind where you look for random stuff and use them on random stuff to advance is an example of DIAS games.)

In his case, you can think of Quirrel as someone who played the DIAS game of manipulating wizards over and over. Even if he hasn't reached the solution yet, he could still be bored of the game. Since the solution is illogical, even solving it wouldn't give him any satisfaction. It's something he does because he needs to, now, since Muggles are the threat, not something he does because he wants to.

Like... if you played a 'game' where it's basically rolling 3 dice over and over until you got '1' on all three. You could be bored of it even if you never 'won' the game. Except in this case not winning the game means you die. Note that you don't die if you LOSE the game, you just die if time runs out and you haven't rolled triple '1's yet.

You still wouldn't be interested in the game, but you'd be playing it over and over. (And, if you're Quirrel, also looking for a way to cheat while you're rolling the dice. Many ways, why stop at one?)

But that's not what Quirril is doing. He has some complicated long-term game going that involves Harry.

Harry's probably one of the 'cheats' I've mentioned. Muggle technology is dangerous, but it's dangerous because it's powerful. Sure, he could simply wipe out all the Muggles, but it would be better to be in control of it. Quirrel doesn't have an issue with dark and powerful rituals, but he does have an issue with power being available to idiots.

Harry isn't an idiot, and he had an Muggle education. Quirrel might think that Harry's magical education would show him how dangerous unfettered knowledge is. It's like a whole Chain of Command thing, rather than control Muggle technology himself, he'll trust a lieutenant, in this case Harry, to take care of it.

At least, that's my best guess for why Quirrel doesn't just off Harry immediately. (The guy could pop into private drive whenever he wanted, a simple grenade in the mail would be nothing.) Harry is a threat to him, Quirrel knows it, Harry knows it, Harry even knows that Quirrel knows it and vice versa. Mind, Harry doesn't actually know/want to know that Quirrel is He Who Must Not Be Named, but even he knows that Quirrel isn't keeping him around for shits and giggles.

Quirrel is training Harry to be Kiritsugu Emiya. To save the world, Harry is going to have to murder all the science, ALL OF IT. (And the scientists.) You could even see that right after Hermione died, Harry went from all life is precious to 'I have a moral right to murder Lord Malfoy because he killed people in the past.' Just one small step from that into 'I have a moral right to murder people because they might kill people in the future.' And guess who has the greatest chance of blowing up the world.

US and Russia presidents? Scientists have the power to keep the world going. Killing them would doom us all, newbies would have to step up and replace them, and many many many would die.

On the other hand, no robot uprising. So, mixed bag?