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Pavlov posted:Hello Harry Potter fans. I haven't read through your thread, but at the risk of kicking up a shitstorm, I'm going to ask a question: You need to talk more about what you liked about it.
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Dec 15, 2013 02:15
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mastajake posted:I enjoy hpmor, but most people's beef with it is that the charm of HP is the magic world and the sense of wonder Harry has with it (and thus the reader does as well), which hpmor rips to shreds. Also it very blatantly has an agenda. I suppose that makes sense. I only read about halfway through the HP series, so I guess I wasn't enough of a fan to get offended. regulargonzalez posted:You need to talk more about what you liked about it. Well, I learned about the fanfiction because I watched a lecture on AI that the author made and tried looking him up. I pretty much just read it as the author using an established setting to showcase his own philosophical system, and explore how the scientific method could apply in a fantasy setting, without having to spend the time world-building for people. It seemed like kind of an interesting idea. A lot of it was just talking heads talking about how smart they think they are, but I read actual scientific papers too so that doesn't really bother me too much. Is it the specifics of the agenda that get people so riled up?
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Dec 15, 2013 02:25
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This is the same fanfic that has Harry and Draco discussing whether they should rape Luna or some poo poo, right?
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Dec 15, 2013 02:48
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Strategic Tea posted:This is the same fanfic that has Harry and Draco discussing whether they should rape Luna or some poo poo, right? Something kinda similar? The part it came up was here: hpmor posted:Draco snarled. "She has some sort of perverse obsession about the Malfoys, too, and her father is politically opposed to us so he prints every word. As soon as I'm old enough I'm going to rape her." And here: hpmor posted:He hadn't redeemed Draco yet, not even close. Contrary to what Draco himself might now believe, Draco was still the child of a Death Eater, through and through. Still a boy who'd grown up thinking "rape" was something the cool older kids did. But it was one heck of a start. Definitely not something to put in a children's book, but I'm pretty sure the author wasn't aiming this thing at children.
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Dec 15, 2013 03:02
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Pavlov posted:Hello Harry Potter fans. I haven't read through your thread, but at the risk of kicking up a shitstorm, I'm going to ask a question: eta: woops sorry didn't realize there was another page 
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Dec 15, 2013 03:16
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There are some pretty decent reasons to dislike the fic (I enjoy it, but I don't worship it or anything; I'm not part of the author's cult), but the rape thing everybody loves to bring up isn't one of them. First off, as has already been mentioned, the fic isn't aimed at children, so the mere inclusion of the topic isn't worth lashing out at. Second off, the main character, who we're supposed to sympathize with, finds the notion exactly as ethically revolting as he should, and it's being used to shock into the reader how ethically off-base the character who brought it up was.
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Dec 15, 2013 04:20
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Pavlov posted:Hello Harry Potter fans. I haven't read through your thread, but at the risk of kicking up a shitstorm, I'm going to ask a question: Eliezer Yudkowsky has invented an extensive jargon/ideology of "Rationality" that is so hyperliteral that it borders on the absurd and MoR is an Atlas Shrugged-style overt manifesto of his faux-scientific-philosophic ideology. Despite this, the first half or so of the story can be fun if you laugh at how dumb Harry is despite being a supergenius. Once things really take off with the plot, paradoxically, it's much less worth reading. Strategic Tea posted:This is the same fanfic that has Harry and Draco discussing whether they should rape Luna or some poo poo, right? As quoted above it's supposed to be "Death Eater culture is really misogynistic, racist and generally lovely", showing how hosed up Draco is and that sort of thing. MoR really is terribly  but it's not abhorrent (most of the time).
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Dec 15, 2013 04:25
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Hmmm. I suppose part of me enjoyed it because Yudkowsky is an AI researcher who pushes a paradigm he calls "friendly AI", which tries to detail moral and ethical systems for hyper-rational, extremely powerful sapient AIs to implement, and for people to use in regards to the AI, so that Terminator doesn't happen. So fittingly enough, he wrote his Harry to be a hyper-rational, potentially extremely powerful person, who debates a lot of ethical issues, and may be on his way to becoming Skynet. From that perspective I found it interesting to see how Yudkowsky thinks his ideas should actually work in application. It's kind of a silly premise, but it's more interesting than trying to read about "theoretical" ethics. That doesn't mean I believe in his brand of ethics, but I'm not a big fan of Starwars' ethical system either, and I still enjoyed the movies.
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Dec 15, 2013 04:47
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mastajake posted:I enjoy hpmor, but most people's beef with it is that the charm of HP is the magic world and the sense of wonder Harry has with it (and thus the reader does as well), which hpmor rips to shreds. Also it very blatantly has an agenda. hpmor (are we really giving it a lowercase acronym?) is written by Aspergers, for Aspergers.
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Dec 15, 2013 05:02
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HPMOR looks kinda strange, like it's supposed to be the government that replaces the SPQR. I will admit, it does take a certain amount of spergishniss to write Harry Potter fanfiction about your AI research. But I mean, right now we're in the place people come to talk about a several year old children's book on the internet, so I try not to judge ya know.
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Dec 15, 2013 05:13
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This HPMOR thing seems really bad. I guess I don't really get the point of fanfiction. For instance, I feel as if the existence of the G Norman Lippert James Potters books actually devalues the Harry Potter series itself, by JK Rowling allowing her series to be associated with creatively bankrupt trash.
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Dec 15, 2013 06:01
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The broad problem with the Methods of Rationality thing is that it is so far removed from the source material it might as well not be Harry Potter. It's fine if you want to articulate your ideology in a fictional narrative but when you're using other fictional characters it becomes creatively and morally bankrupt. As a one off short story I can sort of dig the idea of a super scientific Harry thought experiment but then this fan fiction sort of took it too far by being arguably poorly written, and by having a very strong ideological agenda. Okay great you want to inspire people with your rhetoric but to you really need boy wizard characters someone else invented to do that? Terry Goodkind at least made his own world. It just feels a little disingenuous relying on a brand name you have no real claim on to draw readers to a story. It seems like the author edited the rape part because I remember reading it in the context of time travel causality exploiting temporal shifts caused by drinking magical soda pop. As is, it's still pretty sloppy and unnecessary. Ultimately Methods of Rationality isn't a Harry Potter fanfiction but rather a ideological narrative that happens to have characters that share names with a crazy popular children's series, as well as using very similar settings. I bet someone at Rowling's publishing house or WB is kicking themselves that they aren't commercially exploiting the very real market for more written Harry Potter/Hogwarts content. Authorised Harry Potter novels pushed out in the style of the Star Wars EU would have sold like crazy. I think it's a sad reflection on our culture that even the "good" fan fiction is written by talented writers who'd be better served creating their own content but feel pressured to write fan fiction because it gets them more attention.
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Dec 15, 2013 12:18
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You're delving into one of the biggest issues of the information age. The fact that with expanding population and connectivity that there is more content then any one person can ever read. More good books then any individual can follow. For every good book you read there are three more that you would have liked that you will never even hear of. Thats why fanfiction is so popular. It boosts your chances by being associated with a known successful series. MoR is pretty idological. But its still an author doing a marginal job of expressing his view. Which in my opinion is better then ten good writers writing for the current NYT best seller roulette.
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Dec 15, 2013 15:17
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Paragon8 posted:As is, it's still pretty sloppy and unnecessary. Exactly. There's nothing wrong with examining rape in an adult context. But offhandedly throwing it in and treating it in a -y way is not 'adult' just because it's dark.And doesn't he have an original novel as well? Something where future-humanity has abolished all that 'consent' nonsense. When thinking of weird future values to surprise us, when the book has been condemning the same in aliens, where does Yudkowsky's mind go? Straight back to  non-consensual sex.
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Dec 15, 2013 16:44
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There are really only a few circumstances I'll passively accept the concept of rape in fiction. In hpmor it's not anything close to a central theme. It's only brought up once, by a shithead kid saying something dismissive in the way I've seen actual shithead kids do, and the protagonist responds in the way a reasonable person might to that sort of thing. It's not done without reason, it's meant to show that the kid grew up in a really shithead culture. That all counts as one of the circumstances where I'll accept the concept popping up. I haven't read any of the author's other fiction, it could be awful but I don't know. I'm only judging hpmor from what what I've read of it, and it didn't have any of the warning flags I'm used to looking for in stuff people write on the internet. Actually I'll take that back. There was a single chapter that briefly and suddenly descended into what I could only describe as a torture fic. I have no idea what the author was thinking there, and it certainly made me lose some respect for it. Thinking about it, I can probably understand people disliking hpmor only on that point, I almost stopped reading myself. Having read through the whole thing to date though (it's as long as an actual HP book), it seems to have only been a one time thing, and the rest was engaging enough that the experience as a whole leveled out to being about OK. Paragon8 posted:-snip- You seem to be somewhat against the idea of fanfiction in general. The majority of fanfiction is pretty awful, but I'm not really against the idea in principle. Truthfully I'm not sure the author could have accomplished the same thing if he'd made his own setting. A lot of the things he did required him to analyze things that people were already familiar with and mostly took for granted. Harry Potter seems to be a good fit for that reason. I mean, if you dislike hpmor as is, imagine how insufferable it would be if Yudkowsky had created his own strawmen to knock down, instead of using things that other people had taken relatively seriously. Edit: Spelling Pavlov fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 21:10
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Like every other piece of fanfiction on the internet, it was utterly lacking in subtlety and had a main character who wasn't defined as anything more than a mouthpiece for the author. I think there's a brilliant opportunity to deconstruct HP with the premise of "wizard world meets the scientific principle", and that MOR is a terrible execution of that premise. Edit: I think a good contrast is the Culture series - it's pretty much just riffing on the idea of the Federation from Star Trek and deconstructing what life would really be like in a post-scarcity, galaxy-spanning society, but does so through explorations of its characters. They have emotions and beliefs; MOR characters have ideologies and fallacies to be knocked down. CheesyDog fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 00:39
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Pavlov posted:You seem to be somewhat against the idea of fanfiction in general. The majority of fanfiction is pretty awful, but I'm not really against the idea in principle. I understand the appeal of fan fiction, I really do. For me the experience is reading the books and what my imagination fills in afterwards. So to me I find most fan fiction to be challenging to that enjoyment. I'm happy to walk away content with those seven books being enough to feed my personal imagination about the harry potter universe. I'm also weird in that I think anything Rowling herself added outside the books is on the level of fan fiction for me. Sure she created the universe but my idea of what happened after is equally valid in my mind as her interview postscripts. Fan fiction is an interesting topic. Harry Potter has certainly been a huge driving factor as well as it being in the right place at the right time with the emergence of the internet. I always just get a bit bummed out by the people who can't move on from Harry Potter and just sort of stay wallowing in a bunch of mediocre fan fictions desperately chasing that original high.
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Dec 16, 2013 04:08
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There are a lot of reasons to hate HPMOR. As mentioned above, it is not really Harry Potter fanfiction so much as it is Rationalism's Atlas Shrugged with a Harry Potter paintjob to bring in readers. Plenty of fanfic is only tenuously related to canon, though. HPMOR goes the extra step of repeatedly bringing up things that happened in canon only to sneer at how incredibly stupid they are. It's really condescending and awful. The author is super duper extra egotistical. I read a thing where he recounted a time he earnestly asked a friend, "Am I the smartest person you have ever met?" The friend said no, and then talked about meeting a famous mathematician and seeing him go to town on a math problem. This was a blow to Yudkowsky's ego. To top it off, the moral Yudkowsky used this story to tell was that Yudkowsky is actually humble, unlike all those people who only pretend like they might not be the smartest person to ever live. (Fun note. I also read an article where Yudkowsky was completely baffled by gambling.) This ego thing can be grating and can turn people off. Some people were saying that HPMOR isn't aimed at kids. I am not sure that is fair to say. The author has actively bragged about HPMOR getting kids to sign up for some math competition/indoctrination workship his NPO runs.
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Dec 16, 2013 04:25
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I've heard people say that they author is pretty egotistical before. I'd say that I try to enjoy things in spite of their authors, but I might actually want to work at the research institute that employs him some day, so it is kind of nice to know who you're getting in with. He is pretty rough on the source material too, but I'll admit, some of the source material was kind of silly. Plus like I said, I never finished the HP series, so I'm not really that attached to anything he's chewing out. I'm also kind of a big fan of deconstructions in general so I suppose that helps (I might have to read that Culture thing now). I guess I kind of fall in the really narrow target audience of college aged aspiring AI researchers who are familiar with but aren't particularly in love with the Harry Potter series, which he seems to be partially aiming the thing at. That's kind of eery now that I say it. The reason I can't believe it would be aimed at kids is really just because it's so obtuse at places that I couldn't imagine a kid wanting to read it.
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Dec 16, 2013 04:52
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Pavlov posted:Hmmm. I suppose part of me enjoyed it because Yudkowsky is an AI researcher who pushes a paradigm he calls "friendly AI", which tries to detail moral and ethical systems for hyper-rational, extremely powerful sapient AIs to implement, and for people to use in regards to the AI, so that Terminator doesn't happen. So fittingly enough, he wrote his Harry to be a hyper-rational, potentially extremely powerful person, who debates a lot of ethical issues, and may be on his way to becoming Skynet. From that perspective I found it interesting to see how Yudkowsky thinks his ideas should actually work in application. It's kind of a silly premise, but it's more interesting than trying to read about "theoretical" ethics. That doesn't mean I believe in his brand of ethics, but I'm not a big fan of Starwars' ethical system either, and I still enjoyed the movies. He isn't really an AI researcher - he doesn't produce actual code or papers or anything of the like that would qualify him for that title. He's just a guy who's really into talking about AI who happened to luck his way onto the Peter Thiel gravy train.
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Dec 16, 2013 07:25
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I would totally be on board for a Sophie's World style narrative that dealt with a super powerful AI rationalising his ethics. There's a lot of great Asimov stories that deal with the three laws and such that are interesting reads. There's definitely an audience or even an actual market for books that distill complicated subjects into accessible tests for the layman. I don't think Methods of Rationality really accomplishes that. Like as a short story I think you could do something pretty interesting with the concept of a rigorously scientific Harry as almost a parody. MoR just became a convoluted mess that lost sight of what I think was originally intended. As accomplished as he may or may not be in his other fields, his writing isn't strong enough to support his ideology. Especially when it so awkwardly borrows from an established universe. When your fan fic becomes so distinct from the source you might as well rename everyone and make it an original work. MoR is tricky to really evaluate because it does have some big ideas and there's more thought to it than a fiction where Snape having sex with Harry, or one where Harry has to sleep with every girl he knows to learn the power of love. It just feels so removed from Harry Potter it might as well not be considered a "Harry Potter" fan fiction. So for me it's always awkward when I see it recommended because it's more like - "here's an author's very strong opinion with a subject that uses characters from Harry Potter essentially as placeholders"
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Dec 16, 2013 12:16
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Paragon8 posted:Like as a short story I think you could do something pretty interesting with the concept of a rigorously scientific Harry as almost a parody. MoR just became a convoluted mess that lost sight of what I think was originally intended. As accomplished as he may or may not be in his other fields, his writing isn't strong enough to support his ideology. Especially when it so awkwardly borrows from an established universe. I think this is the biggest issue with it. It would work as something of a short parody, but the idea really doesn't merit a full length novel to reiterate the same point over and over. It honestly would probably have been more tolerable if he had just put in his own self insert instead of using a pre-existing character.
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Dec 16, 2013 13:24
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GottaPayDaTrollToll posted:He isn't really an AI researcher - he doesn't produce actual code or papers or anything of the like that would qualify him for that title. He's just a guy who's really into talking about AI who happened to luck his way onto the Peter Thiel gravy train. Huh. That would explain some things.
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Dec 16, 2013 19:10
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It would definitely answer the question 'why has an AI researcher spent so much time and effort on writing a lovely fanfiction?'
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Dec 16, 2013 19:30
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Pavlov posted:Huh. That would explain some things. Doesn't it though? Yudkowsky has spent a solid decade or more blogging about Rationality and hosting "Rationality seminar camps" and poo poo, MoR is just a recent extension of his nonsense. I honestly have always wondered whether he genuinely runs an ideological cult like Ayn Rand or just pretends to, but I've never talked to anybody who's ever had closer interaction with him. I don't think that the fundamental premise of HPMoR is inherently unworkable. A fanfic which really fleshes out the HP world and critically examines the parts that are kind of bullshit is fine in theory. The problem becomes, as has been said, that the Rationality totally overshadows the Harry Potter universe after a while. There's some really good fanfiction for Harry Potter (by sheer virtue of quantity - it's the old monkeys & typewriters idea) but HPMoR fall pretty far short once you step back from it, even if it's reasonably entertaining to read while you are reading it.
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Dec 17, 2013 00:28
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That's something I've been meaning to ask. I haven't heard good things about the community/fanbase. The main reason I'm even here asking this stuff is because I heard hpmor is really popular on tvtropes, which is one of my personal warning signs for things. Is it cult-y as well?
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Dec 17, 2013 01:08
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The regular Harry Potter fanbase is pretty creepy and culty, and that's when the subject matter is all about the power of love and how good always triumphs against evil. Stands to reason that a Harry Potter/Atlas Shrugged crossover fic would be pretty lovely.
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Dec 17, 2013 01:19
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Saith posted:The regular Harry Potter fanbase is pretty creepy and culty, and that's when the subject matter is all about the power of love and how good always triumphs against evil. The regular Harry Potter internet fanbase somehow managed to inspire hundreds, if not thousands, of people to read and eagerly embrace rhetoric that makes the Third Reich look a bit tame (see all of the thousands of stories about Hermione discovering she's actually a Pure Blood and not one of those filthy muggle-borns). There is something really dark and sick in the Harry Potter fanbase, especially now that most of the not-insane/racist contingent have moved on.
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Dec 17, 2013 02:36
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Zore posted:The regular Harry Potter internet fanbase somehow managed to inspire hundreds, if not thousands, of people to read and eagerly embrace rhetoric that makes the Third Reich look a bit tame (see all of the thousands of stories about Hermione discovering she's actually a Pure Blood and not one of those filthy muggle-borns). It is so bizarre how so many people strongly identify with Slytherin and feel the need to fill in a huge amount of justification in what Rowling wrote as virtually one note fascism/racism until maybe the final book there was a sliver of ambiguity. I guess it's to be edgy? I suppose it's kind of similar to that storm trooper club.
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Dec 17, 2013 02:45
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Well if any group qualifies as the Master Race it's probably the magic-users  Anyway, I don't claim to understand fascist fanfiction authors, but I don't think you can compare them to the 501st Legion. The 501st's whole MO is to gently caress around in costumes and make people smile; they do lots of charity appearances. I just can't attribute the same motivations to these authors.
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Dec 17, 2013 03:46
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As nice as the sentiment is, It is a little odd to do charity work in the uniform of a fictional fascist space government. I'm sure for the most part it's a rad hobby. I doubt many of the people cosplaying as slytherin students are actually racists, it just seems to be such an odd takeaway from the story.
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Dec 17, 2013 05:32
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It's probably because the Stormtroopers in Star Wars were one of the most iconic images from the movies. Like, you can't have a bunch of people in Darth Vader costumes, but stormtroopers? Sure, that's kinda cool. And the reason a ton of people are into Slytherin is because they're the 'I don't need friends, I'm really talented/ambitious/backstabby' house. The sort of people who get obsessed with things like this are generally the sort of people who have to justify their lack of a social life to themselves, while ignoring the fact that Slytherins are characterised as cowardly and selfish. Also, Slytherin is basically the anime anti-hero house, even if it wasn't intended that way by Rowling.
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Dec 17, 2013 13:11
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Pavlov posted:That's something I've been meaning to ask. I haven't heard good things about the community/fanbase. The main reason I'm even here asking this stuff is because I heard hpmor is really popular on tvtropes, which is one of my personal warning signs for things. Is it cult-y as well? Beyond the notes of fascism the others have pointed out, there is the whole 'shipping' community which is basically a series of different cults for every pairing of characters out there. People get really, seriously mad about whom a given teen wizard will get smoochy with. And the loving names they come up with for their little cults.
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Dec 17, 2013 13:13
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I characterize Slytherin in my mind as the Ambitious/Confident house because it doesn't make sense to set aside a special house for the evil people in your school. I figure the founders had some reason to want Slytherin and it must have started as a positive.
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Dec 17, 2013 13:19
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Paragon8 posted:As nice as the sentiment is, It is a little odd to do charity work in the uniform of a fictional fascist space government. I'm sure for the most part it's a rad hobby. JesustheDarkLord posted:I characterize Slytherin in my mind as the Ambitious/Confident house because it doesn't make sense to set aside a special house for the evil people in your school. I figure the founders had some reason to want Slytherin and it must have started as a positive.
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Dec 17, 2013 14:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's less about the ideology or the organization represented by the Stormtroopers so much as how iconic their look is. In an alternate reality where George Lucas gave the Rebel Alliance pilots or soldiers a lot more personality and a very identifiable uniform people might be cosplaying as those. A guy with a khaki flak jacket, an orange jumpsuit and a bike helmet isn't going to stand out as a Star Wars reference to a fair number of laymen, but pretty much everyone who's familiar with any sort of Star Wars media, doesn't even have to be the movies, will know what a Stormtrooper will look like. The fact that you can see the Rebel's faces and they all look different is the point. One is team facist, the other is team freedom. People like being Storm Troopers/Slytherin because evil is cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1qVJ8bTwuw e: post sounded more dickish than I intended. Seldom Posts fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Dec 17, 2013 |
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Dec 17, 2013 15:14
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gradenko_2000 posted:a House that promotes individualism and ambition over all else. This could be a cynical description of Gryffindor too, though.
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Dec 17, 2013 15:14
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Olanphonia posted:Beyond the notes of fascism the others have pointed out, there is the whole 'shipping' community which is basically a series of different cults for every pairing of characters out there. People get really, seriously mad about whom a given teen wizard will get smoochy with. The best part was when a Harmony (Harry/Hermione) shipper compared the mockery Harmonians endured on the Internet to the racial oppression Harriet Tubman experienced. 
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Dec 17, 2013 16:17
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JesustheDarkLord posted:This could be a cynical description of Gryffindor too, though. I, uh, I think that's intentional
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Dec 17, 2013 18:28
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Pththya-lyi posted:The best part was when a Harmony (Harry/Hermione) shipper compared the mockery Harmonians endured on the Internet to the racial oppression Harriet Tubman experienced. Oh the Harmonians were absolutely loving nuts. Before the final movie came out half of them were convinced the movies would end differently from the books and Harry would get together with Hermione for the stupidest, most desperate reasons. The other half were still writing Rowlibg death threats over how the books ended. God sometimes I miss reading the insanity 
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Dec 17, 2013 18:50
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