Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality

New progress report. Nothing much has happened, and our hopes and dreams for this month are dashed. Perhaps March 1 will bring better news, but it seems unlikely. Also Eliezer's research institute renamed itself after that one episode of Star Trek. And, apparently, Eliezer is into Touhou now, which seems like a bad sign to me.

That's not all that's going on, though. IIRC Islam is growing in Europe, although I'm not sure if that's because of conversion or immigration + birth rates. Still doesn't mean Islam is memetically better, though; religions are well-known to wax and wane...

edited 1st Feb '13 10:13:25 PM by Exetera

Guys, guys, guys, I just thought of something. If God Is Love, then does that mean... that the Ministry Of Magic has God locked up in the Love Room?

All the non-indigenous religions are "growing" in europe, because Europe is a huge immigration magnet. If a country has four thousand muslims, buddists or whatever and another 7000 move in, that looks like a really impressive growth rate, but it is not conversion, and the immigrants either turn outright apostate or become very lax very rapidly and in very high numbers - Solid super majorities loosing their religion in less than a decade, as a rule. It is very difficult to hold onto a belief system when you are immersed in a culture that continually disproves fundamental axioms of said belief system just by existing. Islam is even more vulnerable to this than most religions, because it is also a system of governance and law. So "heathens" having more just and functional societies (by the standards of Islam!) inspires doubts

edited 2nd Feb '13 2:00:45 AM by Izeinspring

So that is why the church tried to burn witches! :O

That post honours your handle. Just saying.

Harry said something along the lines that "not even wizards are stupide enough to reject viable immortality" is that based on somehow real psichology? I don't put much credit in the human intelect, so to me, it seems possible for that to happen.

It is based on nothing more than Harry's mind going "Does not compute" in a big way at immortality getting ignored. I have more or less the exact same reaction to how little research is actually allocated to fighting senescence, so I get his reaction. Ignoring eternal youth in the presence of a successful example is several large steps further along the curve of crazy, tough. It should lead to some hilarious conversations once he gets around to asking people about the stone.

edited 2nd Feb '13 10:51:09 AM by Izeinspring

In regards to the dangerousness of wizards, it might bear commenting that even the worst among them have some pretty strong ethical injunctions. Do not mess with Transfiguration. Do not mess with magic you aren't ready for. And so on. When Voldemort flayed people alive or popularized the use of the Unforgivables, it seens clearly implied that that stuff is NOT standard practice. I may even go so far as to say that wizards have developed a meme of being unimaginative with their powers because it's what allowed them to live for the longest time and in the least stressful conditions. That's why Muggleborns (or, for that matter, sons of anti-social wizarding families), who have not developed this memetic defense, are instinctively and irrationally seen as extremely dangerous. That's why it did not occur to them to "owl hand grenades to the list of their enemies".

After finally having read the last chapter so far of the work, I have one burning question.

Why has Hermione left Harry in the state of still breathing air?

Honestly, I didn't understand their conversation very well. That kind of stuff confuses me greatly.

I understand why you are a bit confused. So am I. That usually means something in this story but... Lemme see if I can break that down for myself, it may help you a bit but I am not sure. Anywaysss...

Hermione wants Harry. Or did. Harry wants Hermione. Or did. But doesn't want exclusivity. Naturally Hermione and Harry are both extremely confused. Hermione mainly because she has, how do I put this, started to be a woman. Harry mainly because he hasn't started to become a man yet. Yet thinks that when he does, he has a one in ten chance of being gay. Unlike most other Ravenclaw girls, Hermione doesn't seem to think that that is hot though.

At least I think that is how things are going in that chapter. Anyone who has a better idea, feel free to pipe up.

Edit: Wrong thread.

edited 9th Feb '13 11:25:48 AM by CDRW

Regarding the whole "God is love" thing, what bugs me is that if God really loves us and wants what's best for us even if we don't know that's what best... shouldn't God be able to realize that no, even if somebody is apparently rejecting him by not trying very hard to find him, clearly they don't actually want to end up in Hell without the ability to love or be loved by anyone ever? Shouldn't he try a bit harder to steer us away from that fate?

It makes sense God could stop loving somebody and leave them... but he's not very worthy of worship if he does, given the actual relationship dynamic involved. He is more like a parent than a lover if he created us and we depend on him to that degree, and yes, parents do have a moral responsibility to not just walk out on their child who depends on them and is unable to properly comprehend the consequences of their actions. Wanting people to have free will doesn't equate to allowing them to unwittingly doom themselves to a horrible fate. Maybe your child will throw a tantrum one day and scream that they hate you and never want to see you again, but if you react by throwing up your hands, telling them they're on their own and actually walking out, you are a horrible parent. You have an obligation to love them even if they're being ungrateful brats. If they're actually running out the door and for some reason you won't be able to open the door for them again if they change their mind, you have an obligation to try very, very hard to explain to them what it will mean if they leave and implore them to reconsider.

Sereg's God apparently gives vague, mysterious evidence, and if you don't choose to go out of your way to follow up on it, then surprise! You've rejected him, you go to Hell, and you will never experience love again ever. He should at least ensure people are properly informed before they make this choice in order for it to be an actual free choice - that they've been told, very clearly and unambiguously by him, that if they don't choose to worship him he's going to walk out and they're going to suffer an eternity without love. This is just like giving people the choice of two doors, one of which has a picture of an arm on it and the other of which has a cake, and then informing them after they've chosen the arm door that because they walked through this door and not the other, they're now going to have their arms cut off. Saying they freely chose to have the amputation is just incorrect: odds are they wouldn't have gone through that door if they'd properly and unambiguously known that was going to happen, instead of just having a vague picture of an arm to go on.

edited 9th Feb '13 11:53:59 AM by antialiasis

Can we not just stop the whole god chat? It is alienating to those amongst us that have taken a sharp left turn away from the whole ideas of organized religion, gods, goddesses and other things that you are supposed to take solely on faith with no evidential data to prove of their existence?

Agreed, this story is complicated at is. I don't need to wade through page after page of theological discussion.

So... Draco tells Harry a story about Salazar using a viper to gather information from other snakes, implying that the magic granted inteligent to these snakes. Should we believe it true?

Well, there was that boa constrictor from the zoo, knew where Brazil was and how to read, and what "Captivity" meant. There, I used an example that can't be disregarded just because Nagini did it.

Well, actually, according to JK Rowling, that snake was Nagini, but that was Nagini before Nagini became a Horcrux, so it still counts.

The snake in the zoo was an entirely different species than Nagini. It being the same snake is fanon.

Just one story, so probably legendary - after a thousand years, the recorded deeds of Salazar are certainly going to include a lot of stuff that just isn't so, and infectious sapience is.. awesomely reckless spell design with hilarious as heck failure modes, the most obvious of which being your orders mutating out of all recognition as they are passed down the chain, and escalating upwards from there. Not that I'd bet a lot on this prediction. Harry could test this fairly safely with two snakes and some soundproofing, but almost certainly wont, on grounds that he is not willing to be a "parent" at age 11.

Speaking of Salazar, Harry ought to get a team of experts into the chamber of secrets asap - Quirrelmort implied that there is nothing of importance there, but he is a lying bastard, and even if not.. it is a chamber of secrets. Might have missed things, And heck, Salazar might have been a believer in data backup and redundancy.

edited 9th Feb '13 4:53:28 PM by Izeinspring

I realized the other day, there is a really big chance would do other stuff besides the Basilisk, I even considered that the thing might come back from the dead, but the seventh book stated that Ron and Hermione found it's skeleton there.

I disagree with "heckless" being enough reason for Wizards to do anything that isn't obviously stupid (and even when it is)

I kind of get the feeling that book seven was for Rowling nothing more than an exercise of stripping away things that a lot of her readers had as fanon, to such an extent that it got in the road of being a proper conclusion to the book series.

And what she did to Slytherin-affiliated kids in real life was unforgivable. "Yeah, the House you identify with is always Chaotic Evil and cowardly. Deal with it, Slytherslime."

On snakes being sapient, being able to read and know what captivity is? Yeah, I buy that. What level of intelligence they have and whether or not they can form a hive mind of sorts, given that a lot of snakes in the natural world form large communities, not just in things like the Indiana Jones films, is up for debate.

edited 10th Feb '13 7:34:44 AM by TamH70

Cough Slughorn Cough

Hmm. What mattered more was her making all the Slytherin students still at school run and hide or fight against the defenders of Hogwarts. Not one anomalous professor. Not unless you are saying that Slughorn was the exception that proves the rule.

On reason the potterverse inspires so much fanfic is the flaws. It is a fascinating if rather dystopian universe, and the niggling issues just makes you want to do it right. I think a lot of it is that Rowling went straight from "Beginner" to "Too profitable to edit heavily".

There really ought to have been a lot of slytherins fighting voldemort firstly on the general principle that an immortal dark lord is in the way of everyone with ambitions beyond "torture, kill, mayhem", and secondly, the way the deatheaters operated, the house got a closer look at what he was than most people, which should cause defections. I mean, there is Regulus, but we never met him...

edited 10th Feb '13 3:09:49 PM by Izeinspring

Didn't the edited versions in later editions specifically say that a bunch of Slytherins came back with Slughorn? I seem to remember someone making a big thing of that.

In any case, even the first time I read it I got the impression Voldemort was bullshitting with that whole announcement. 'Oh yeah, Draco's the only one who didn't come to me like a good loyal Slytherin. I'm totally not standing here with three creepy Bellatrix fangirls and Pansy Parkinson'.