Let's Read: "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"

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Colin Mockery: Jun 24, 2007; Rawr

Honestly, if you want an example of pretty neato AI, just look at Google's progress in self-driving cars. I assume there's some amount of machine learning involved, when figuring out the right behaviors for things like "what to do at this intersection", "how to tell if this car might hit me so I need to stop", "is that bicyclist making a turn signal and is that pedestrian preparing to step into the street" etc, but most of its advantage over traditional cars comes from "I don't get distracted", "I know exactly how much to brake to come to a stop X feet from here" and "My sensors can see the bicyclist hanging out behind the bush/parked car" and "Blind spots are for mortals".

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car

Anyways, IronClaymore, pretend you thought it was a generic fanfiction celebration, not one for this specific dude, and ask people to read your Harry/Voldemort slash fic and/or talk about how much you enjoyed Master of the Universe (what 50 Shades of Grey was before the author changed the name and published it) and some of the published Sherlock Holmes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-canonical_Sherlock_Holmes_works ) or Pride and Prejudice ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_adaptations_of_Pride_and_Prejudice ) fanfiction.

And then ask if he looks up to EL James (the author of 50 Shades of Grey) and hopes to be as good at writing as she is.

I saw a neat writeup on reddit about how she'd self-marketed herself so well but I've since lost the link, but here's a super ironic link about some nerd talking about it or whatever http://lesswrong.com/lw/kl3/fifty_shades_of_selffulfilling_prophecy/ . It looks like at completion, HPMOR has a little under 30,000 reviews on FanFiction.net while 50 Shades had well over 40,000 before it finished, and they had comparable chapter counts.

Colin Mockery fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Mar 14, 2015

# ? Mar 14, 2015 22:15

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# ? May 17, 2024 18:08

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 7 � Reciprocation
Part Four

quote:

"Potter," drawled a young boy's voice, "what is that on your face and what is standing next to you?"

Ron's look of horror was replaced by utter hatred. "You! "

Harry turned his head; and indeed it was Draco Malfoy, who might have been forced to wear standard school robes, but was making up for that with a trunk looking at least as magical and far more elegant than Harry's own, decorated in silver and emeralds and bearing what Harry guessed to be the Malfoy family crest, a beautiful fanged serpent over crossed ivory wands.

"Draco!" Harry said. "Er, or Malfoy if you prefer, though that kind of sounds like Lucius to me. I'm glad to see you're doing so well after, um, our last meeting. This is Ron Weasley. And I'm trying to go incognito, so call me, eh," Harry looked down at his robes, "Mister Black."

"Harry! " hissed Ron. "You can't use that name!"

Harry blinked. "Why not?" It sounded nicely dark, like an international man of mystery -
"I'd say it's a fine name," said Draco, "but it belongs to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. I'll call you Mr. Silver."

"You get away from... from Mr. Gold," Ron said coldly, and took a forward step. "He doesn't need to talk to the likes of you!"

Harry raised a placating hand. "I'll go by Mr. Bronze, thanks for the naming schema. And, Ron, um," Harry struggled to find a way to say this, "I'm glad you're so... enthusiastic about protecting me, but I don't particularly mind talking to Draco -"

This was apparently the last straw for Ron, who spun on Harry with eyes now aflame with outrage. "What? Do you know who this is?"

"Yes, Ron," Harry said, "you may remember that I called him Draco without him needing to introduce himself."

Isn�t Harry supposed to be �smart�? Why can�t he tell that in this context, �who this is� doesn�t refer to �what is his name� but �what are his character and/or affiliations�?

quote:

Draco sniggered. Then his eyes lit on the white owl on Ron's shoulder. "Oh, what's this? " Draco said in a drawl rich with malice. "Where's the famous Weasley family rat?"

"Buried in the backyard," Ron said coldly.

"Aw, how sad. Pot... ah, Mr. Bronze, I should mention that the Weasley family is widely agreed to have the best pet story ever. Want to tell it, Weasley?"

Ron's face contorted. "You wouldn't think it was funny if it happened to your family!"

"Oh," Draco purred, "but it wouldn't ever happen to the Malfoys."

Ron's hands clenched into fists -

"That's enough," Harry said, putting as much quiet authority into the voice as he could manage. It was clear that whatever this was about, it was a painful memory for the red-haired kid. "If Ron doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't have to talk about it, and I'd ask that you not talk about it either."

Draco turned a surprised look on Harry, and Ron nodded. "That's right, Harry! I mean Mr. Bronze! You see what kind of person he is? Now tell him to go away!"

Harry counted to ten inside his head, which for him was a very quick 12345678910 - an odd habit left over from the age of five when his mother had first instructed him to do it, and Harry had reasoned that his way was faster and ought to be just as effective. "I'm not telling him to go away," Harry said calmly. "He's welcome to talk to me if he wants."

"Well, I don't intend to hang around with anyone who hangs around with Draco Malfoy," Ron announced coldly.

Harry shrugged. "That's up to you. I don't intend to let anyone say who I can and can't hang around with." Silently chanting, please go away, please go away...

Ron's face went blank with surprise, like he'd actually expected that line to work. Then Ron spun about, yanked his luggage's lead and stormed off down the platform.

I can see now why Eliezer �[felt] the need to disclaim that certain parts of this chapter are not meant as "bashing". It's not that I have a grudge, the story just writes itself and once you start dropping anvils on a character it's hard to stop�.

Even if we take it at face value that he doesn�t have a �grudge� against Ron, this scene is so contrived, and Ron is so blatantly and awkwardly forced into the role of �blithering idiot� for the sake of showcasing Harry�s �maturity�, that it�s almost physically painful to read.

JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Mar 16, 2015

# ? Mar 16, 2015 02:44

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

Yeah, the rat. This never goes anywhere, but for some reason in this fic Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew switched roles. It's just weird.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 03:46

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

Who the hell wants to be called 'Mr Anything' by other eleven-year-olds to attract less attention?

Also that is not a schema.

Good news, the fanfiction is officially complete. Clocks in at 661,619 words. Only 640,000 more words to go. Plus or minus a few thousand.

Hope you weren't planning on doing anything else for the next few years JWKS!

# ? Mar 16, 2015 03:55

bobjr: Oct 16, 2012; Roose is loose.
🐓🐓🐓✊🪧

Most Harry Potter fanfics usually make Ron an outright idiot unless it's the writers favorite character usually, so I'm not surprised at all.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 04:36

Pvt.Scott: Feb 16, 2007; What God wants, God gets, God help us all

I can only hope that this Harry gets sorted into Hufflepuff because nobody likes him.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 08:32

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 7 � Reciprocation
Part Five

quote:

"If you didn't like him," Draco said curiously, "why didn't you just walk away?"

"Um... his mother helped me figure out how to get to this platform from the King's Cross Station, so it was kind of hard to tell him to get lost. And it's not that I hate this Ron guy," Harry said, "I just, just..." Harry searched for words.

"Don't see any reason for him to exist?" offered Draco.

"Pretty much."

People � both children and adults � hate other people all the time. It�s normal to hate someone else.

�Not seeing any reason for him to exist� is much, much worse. It�s a denial of the humanity of the other person. It�s the thought process of a sociopath. Are we actually supposed to like or respect Harry for this?

quote:

"Anyway, Potter... if you really were raised by Muggles -" Draco paused here, as if waiting for a denial, but Harry didn't say anything "- then you mightn't know what it's like to be famous. People want to take up all of our time. You have to learn to say no."

Harry nodded, putting a thoughtful look on his face. "That sounds like good advice."

"If you try to be nice, you just end up spending the most time with the pushiest ones. Decide who you want to spend time with and make everyone else leave. You're just getting here, Potter, so everyone's going to judge you by who they see you with, and you don't want to be seen with the likes of Ron Weasley."

Harry nodded again. "If you don't mind my asking, how did you recognise me?"

"Mister Bronze," Draco drawled, "I have met you, remember. I saw someone going around with a scarf wrapped around his head, looking absolutely ridiculous. So I took a guess."

Harry bowed his head, accepting the compliment. "I'm terribly sorry about that," Harry said. "Our first meeting, I mean. I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of Lucius."

Draco waved it off while giving Harry an odd look. "I just wish Father could have come in while you were flattering me -" Draco laughed. "But thank you for what you said to Father. If not for that, I might've had a harder time explaining."

Harry swept a deeper bow. "And thank you for reciprocating with what you said to Professor McGonagall."

"You're welcome. Though one of the assistants must've sworn her closest friend to absolute secrecy, because Father says there're weird rumors going around, like you and I got in a fight or something."

"Ouch," Harry said, wincing. "I'm really sorry -"

"No, we're used to it, Merlin knows there's lots of rumors about the Malfoy family already."

Harry nodded. "I'm glad to hear you're not in trouble."

Why is Harry so friendly to Draco? He doesn�t know anything about the Malfoys, and so far Harry has witnessed two people � McGonagall and Ron (both of whom have been kind to Harry) � having extremely adverse reactions to Lucius and/or Malfoy. Wouldn�t it be more rational for Harry to be a little warier or guarded until he�s gathered more information on Draco and his family?

quote:

Draco smirked. "Father has, um, a refined sense of humor, but he does understand making friends. He understands it very well. He made me repeat that before I went to bed every night for the last month, 'I will make friends at Hogwarts.' When I explained everything to him and he saw that's what I was doing, he bought me an ice-cream."

Harry's jaw dropped. "You managed to spin that into an ice-cream? "

Draco nodded, looking every bit as smug as the feat deserved. "Well, father knew what I was doing, of course, but he's the one who taught me how to do it, and if I grin the right way while I'm doing it, that makes it a father-son thing and then he has to buy me an ice-cream or I'll give him this sort of sad look, like I think I must have disappointed him."

Harry eyed Draco calculatingly, sensing the presence of another master. "You've had lessons on how to manipulate people?"

"Of course," Draco said proudly. "I'm a Malfoy. Father bought me tutors."

"Wow," Harry said. Reading Robert Cialdini's Influence: Science and Practice probably didn't stack up very high compared to that (though it was still one heck of a book). "Your dad is almost as awesome as my dad."

How�s Draco's "feat" in any way supposed to be impressive? Children manipulate adults all the time without any training or instruction whatsoever. Literal toddlers pull it off on a regular basis.

JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Mar 16, 2015

# ? Mar 16, 2015 09:29

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Harry, being a megalomaniac, has (correctly) identified that Draco is more politically connected and potentially influential than some rando. As his goal is to acquire power over others, obviously he will cultivate that, rather than genuine friendships.

What do you think this is, a children's story?

# ? Mar 16, 2015 09:57

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

i81icu812 posted:

Good news, the fanfiction is officially complete. Clocks in at 661,619 words. Only 640,000 more words to go. Plus or minus a few thousand.

Hope you weren't planning on doing anything else for the next few years JWKS!

21,000 words in 23 days, that's about 913 words a day. So literally seven hundred more days, at this rate.

JWKS: I think you need to stop trying to work through this line by line, because it's going to end up killing you. Just, summarise the chapter in a one-er, drill down to hit any major points of interest, then move on.

JosephWongKS posted:

It’s the thought process of a sociopath. Are we actually supposed to like or respect Harry for this?

There's a bit later on where, simplifying a bit here, Hermione turns to Harry and says, "You are a high-functioning psychopath and that is a terrible thing to be," and then a bit later on he has a conversation with Quirrelmort that boils down to, "We are high-functioning psychopaths and that is the best possible thing to be," and for a while there I thought there might be a Point in the offing, and Harry would end up Learning a Lesson about friendship or whatever the gently caress, but

but

no

he learns nothing

it turns out the filling in the poo poo sandwich is more poo poo

# ? Mar 16, 2015 15:58

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

See, having character development would imply he wasn't perfect in the first place, something that simply can not stand when it's a Harry Sue.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 16:56

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

Just realised what I'd forgotten / why this is that chapter. Can I take back anything positive I said so far?

# ? Mar 16, 2015 18:53

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

Don't worry, I'm sure this is the edited version.

Imagine what it takes to persuade Yudkowsky to edit.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 18:54

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

chrisoya posted:

Don't worry, I'm sure this is the edited version.

Imagine what it takes to persuade Yudkowsky to edit.

It ain't.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 19:01

Telarra: Oct 9, 2012

It was editted, but he was unwilling to compromise on certain points, so it will still be that chapter.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 19:32

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Moddington posted:

It was editted, but he was unwilling to compromise on certain points, so it will still be that chapter.

Yeah, there were a couple of bits where the language was toned down slightly (and the originals should definitely be posted when that section shows up, as should Yudkowsky's hideously smug explanation for why he didn't want to dial things back any more), but the general gist remains.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 20:12

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

Autonomous Monster posted:

21,000 words in 23 days, that's about 913 words a day. So literally seven hundred more days, at this rate.

JWKS: I think you need to stop trying to work through this line by line, because it's going to end up killing you. Just, summarise the chapter in a one-er, drill down to hit any major points of interest, then move on.

There's a bit later on where, simplifying a bit here, Hermione turns to Harry and says, "You are a high-functioning psychopath and that is a terrible thing to be," and then a bit later on he has a conversation with Quirrelmort that boils down to, "We are high-functioning psychopaths and that is the best possible thing to be," and for a while there I thought there might be a Point in the offing, and Harry would end up Learning a Lesson about friendship or whatever the gently caress, but

but

no

he learns nothing

it turns out the filling in the poo poo sandwich is more poo poo

No, I disagree. Word by word is the only way for us to fully appreciate this work.

For a while JWKS was actually losing ground and Yud was writing faster than JWKS was reviewing.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 22:31

Added Space: Jul 13, 2012; Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

i81icu812 posted:

No, I disagree. Word by word is the only way for us to fully appreciate this work.

For a while JWKS was actually losing ground and Yud was writing faster than JWKS was reviewing.

Not quite, he's been sitting on the last arc for months, including a two-week vacation to get it done. That poo poo was polished.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Darkness-That-Comes-Before/dp/1590201183

I finally remembered what MoR reminded me of. There's another series that features a rationalist hero. This guy was was raised in a rationalist kung-fu monastery and taught to see into men's souls by observing people whose faces had been flayed and then drugged into emotional states. He spends his time being a total dick to everyone around him, starting a cult, commenting on how much smarter he is then everyone in the world, and stealing his advisers' girlfriends.

Added Space fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Mar 16, 2015

# ? Mar 16, 2015 23:41

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

chrisoya posted:

Imagine what it takes to persuade Yudkowsky to edit.

As a strict rationalist, Yud was surely more than happy to look at alternate ways of doing things, I assume? :v:

Added Space posted:

He spends his time being a total dick to everyone around him, starting a cult, commenting on how much smarter he is then everyone in the world, and stealing his advisers' girlfriends.

Yud was a monk?

petrol blue fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Mar 17, 2015

# ? Mar 17, 2015 00:05

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

He actually confesses the superiority of tech billionaires over himself.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 00:25

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 7 � Reciprocation
Part Six

quote:

Draco's eyebrows rose loftily. "Oh? And what does your father do?"

"He buys me books."

Draco considered this. "That doesn't sound very impressive."

"You had to be there. Anyway, I'm glad to hear all that. The way Lucius was looking at you, I thought he was going to c-crucify you."

"My father really loves me," Draco said firmly. "He wouldn't ever do that."

"Um..." Harry said. He remembered the black-robed, white-haired figure of elegance that had stormed through Madam Malkin's, wielding that beautiful, deadly silver-handled cane. It wasn't easy to visualise him as a doting father. "Don't take this the wrong way, but how do you know that?"

"Huh?" It was clear that this was a question Draco did not commonly ask himself.

"I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it? What makes you think Lucius wouldn't sacrifice you the same way he'd sacrifice anything else for power?"

Draco shot Harry another odd look. "Just what do you know about Father?"

"Um... seat on the Wizengamot, seat on Hogwarts' Board of Governors, incredibly wealthy, has the ear of Minister Fudge, has the confidence of Minister Fudge, probably has some highly embarrassing photos of Minister Fudge, most prominent blood purist now that the Dark Lord's gone, former Death Eater who was found to have the Dark Mark but got off by claiming to be under the Imperius Curse, which was ridiculously implausible and pretty much everyone knew it... evil with a capital 'E' and a born killer... I think that's it."

And Harry�s still keen to buddy up with the son of the �evil with a capital �E�� man, a son who clearly adores his father and is proud of his family. What does that say about Harry?

quote:

Draco's eyes had narrowed to slits. "McGonagall told you that, did she."

"No, she wouldn't say anything to me about Lucius afterwards, except to stay away from him. So during the Incident at the Potions Shop, while Professor McGonagall was busy yelling at the shopkeeper and trying to get everything under control, I grabbed one of the customers and asked them about Lucius."

Draco's eyes were wide again. "Did you really? "

Harry gave Draco a puzzled look. "If I lied the first time, I'm not going to tell you the truth just because you ask twice."

There was a certain pause as Draco absorbed this.

"You're so completely going to be in Slytherin."

"I'm so completely going to be in Ravenclaw, thank you very much. I only want power so I can get books."

Draco giggled. "Yeah, right. Anyway... to answer what you asked..." Draco took a deep breath, and his face turned serious. "Father once missed a Wizengamot vote for me. I was on a broom and I fell off and broke a lot of ribs. It really hurt. I'd never hurt that much before and I thought I was going to die. So Father missed this really important vote, because he was there by my bed at St. Mungo's, holding my hands and promising me that I was going to be okay."

Harry glanced away uncomfortably, then, with an effort, forced himself to look back at Draco. "Why are you telling me that? It seems sort of... private..."

Draco gave Harry a serious look. "One of my tutors once said that people form close friendships by knowing private things about each other, and the reason most people don't make close friends is because they're too embarrassed to share anything really important about themselves." Draco turned his palms out invitingly. "Your turn?"

Wait, what? �Most people don�t make close friends�? Is that actually what ~~Eliezer's secondary self-insert~~ Eliezer believes?

quote:

Knowing that Draco's hopeful face had probably been drilled into him by months of practice did not make it any less effective, Harry observed. Actually it did make it less effective, but unfortunately not ineffective.

If Harry�s knowledge of Draco�s manipulativeness merely makes said manipulation less effective instead of totally ineffective, doesn�t that mean that Harry is being irrational? And �knowingly� irrational, at that, which is doubly irrational?

JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Mar 17, 2015

# ? Mar 17, 2015 01:37

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

"Hey this is how I was taught to manipulate people. Is my manipulative technique working? Am I manipulative and cunning?"

I cannot see that working very well.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 01:45

Seraphic Neoman: Jul 19, 2011

I just can't get into this story. It's like Harriezer read the entire series, and is now making decisions based on what happens in the novels (and if you say "perfect decision theory" a) gently caress you and b) that would mean that Harry is a robot)
He's 10 years old and was ignorant of magic until just a few weeks ago, but in the span of several days he has picked up enough information to discuss wizard politics.

EDIT: OH. I just remembered what line will come up. Hoooooooooooooooooo boyyyyyyy...

# ? Mar 17, 2015 01:59

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

SSNeoman posted:

I just can't get into this story. It's like Harriezer read the entire series, and is now making decisions based on what happens in the novels (and if you say "perfect decision theory" a) gently caress you and b) that would mean that Harry is a robot)

I've said it before, but this is the way cheap, bad sci-fi/fantasy authors write 'smart' characters. They give them the script.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 02:03

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Night10194 posted:

I've said it before, but this is the way cheap, bad sci-fi/fantasy authors write 'smart' characters. They give them the script.

Big Yud apparently had multiple classifications of smart people and helpful advice on how to write intelligent characters. "Helpful."

# ? Mar 17, 2015 02:57

Motto: Aug 3, 2013

Man, I thought this was dumb when I discovered it a while back and read the first few chapters, but back then I thought it was just some silly fanfic by a typical sperg. I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 03:46

Strong Mouse: Jun 11, 2012; You disrespect us. You drag corpses around. You steal, and you hurt feelings!

RRRRRRRAAAAARGH!

Prepare to die!

So I finally caught up with this thread, and I know I've read past this part, but I can't remember what's so infamous. The waiting is the worst part, since I'm not going to go back and read MoR myself.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 05:10

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 7 � Reciprocation
Part Seven

quote:

The same could be said of Draco's clever use of reciprocation pressure for an unsolicited gift, a technique which Harry had read about in his social psychology books (one experiment had shown that an unconditional gift of $5 was twice as effective as a conditional offer of $50 in getting people to fill out surveys). Draco had made an unsolicited gift of a confidence, and now invited Harry to offer a confidence in return... and the thing was, Harry did feel pressured. Refusal, Harry was certain, would be met with a look of sad disappointment, and maybe a small amount of contempt indicating that Harry had lost points.

�Lost points�? Is Harry treating real-life conversation and social interaction like a Bioware game or dating sim? Is that what Robert Cialdini teaches in �Influence: Science and Practice�?

quote:

"Draco," Harry said, "just so you know, I recognise exactly what you're doing right now. My own books called it reciprocation and they talk about how giving someone a straight gift of two Sickles was found to be twice as effective as offering them twenty Sickles in getting them to do what you want..." Harry trailed off.

Telling someone you recognize �exactly what [he is] doing� is the best and most time-honoured way to make friends, yup yup.

quote:

Draco was looking sad and disappointed. "It's not meant as a trick, Harry. It's a real way of becoming friends."

Harry held up a hand. "I didn't say I wasn't going to respond. I just need time to pick something that's private but just as non-damaging. Let's say... I wanted you to know that I can't be rushed into things." A pause to reflect could go a long way in defusing the power of a lot of compliance techniques, once you learned to recognise them for what they were.

"All right," Draco said. "I'll wait while you come up with something. Oh, and please take off the scarf while you say it."

Simple but effective.

And Harry couldn't help but notice how clumsy, awkward, graceless his attempt at resisting manipulation / saving face / showing off had appeared compared to Draco. I need those tutors.

Maybe� just maybe Harry shouldn�t want to be friends with someone who�s trying to manipulate him? Has he considered that?

quote:

"All right," Harry said after a time. "Here's mine." He glanced around and then rolled the scarf back up over his face, exposing everything but the scar. "Um... it sounds like you can really rely on your father. I mean... if you talk to him seriously, he'll always listen to you and take you seriously."

Draco nodded.

"Sometimes," Harry said, and swallowed. This was surprisingly hard, but then it was meant to be. "Sometimes I wish my own Dad was like yours." Harry's eyes flinched away from Draco's face, more or less automatically, and then Harry forced himself to look back at Draco.

Then it hit Harry what on Earth he'd just said, and Harry hastily added, "Not that I wish my Dad was a flawless instrument of death like Lucius, I only mean taking me seriously -"

"I understand," Draco said with a smile. "There... now doesn't it feel like we're a little closer to being friends?"

Man, their understanding of friendship is completely hosed up. Has Eliezer written anything on his blog or other publications that indicates that he shares the same sentiments regarding friendship as his self-inserts?

# ? Mar 17, 2015 05:48

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

So this is what happens when an antisocial man tries to write a cunning and charming character.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 06:10

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Not be friends with the powerful and wealthy person? Don't be ridiculous!

Tragically this is probably pretty good survival advice. :negative:

# ? Mar 17, 2015 07:11

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Nessus posted:

Not be friends with the powerful and wealthy person? Don't be ridiculous!

Reminder that Big Yud wrote about how being wealthy and powerful explicitly means you're a superior person and is an objective measure of greater worth.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 07:16

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 7 � Reciprocation
Part Seven

quote:

Harry nodded. "Yeah. It does, actually. Um... no offence, but I'm going to put on my disguise again, I really don't want to deal with -"

"I understand."

Harry rolled the scarf back down over his face.

"My father takes all his friends seriously," Draco said. "That's why he has lots of friends. You should meet him."

If Eliezer is writing based on his childhood experience of friendship, I weep for his childhood.

quote:

"I'll think about it," Harry said in a neutral voice. He shook his head in wonder. "So you really are his one weak point. Huh."

Because parents caring for and loving their children is a �weakness� and that is totally the thought that a mentally and emotionally healthy person would have.

quote:

Now Draco was giving Harry a really odd look. "You want to go get something to drink and find somewhere to sit down?"

Harry realised he had been standing in one place for too long, and stretched himself, trying to crick his back. "Sure."

The platform was starting to fill up now, but there was still a quieter area on the far side away from the red steam engine. Along the way they passed a stall containing a bald, bearded man offering newspapers and comic books and stacked neon-green cans.

The stallholder was, in fact, leaning back and drinking out of one of the neon-green cans at the exact point when he spotted the refined and elegant Draco Malfoy approaching along with a mysterious boy looking incredibly stupid with a scarf tied over his face, causing the stallholder to experience a sudden coughing fit in mid-drink and dribble a large amount of neon-green liquid onto his beard.

"'Scuse me," Harry said, "but what is that stuff, exactly?"

"Comed-Tea," said the stallholder. "If you drink it, something surprising is bound to happen which makes you spill it on yourself or someone else. But it's charmed to vanish just a few seconds later -" Indeed the stain on his beard was already disappearing.

"How droll," said Draco. "How very, very droll. Come, Mr. Bronze, let's go find another -"

"Hold on," Harry said.

"Oh come on! That's just, just juvenile! "

"No, I'm sorry Draco, I have to investigate this. What happens if I drink Comed-Tea while doing my best to keep the conversation completely serious?"

The stallholder smiled mysteriously. "Who knows? A friend walks by in a frog costume? Something unexpected is bound to happen -"

"No. I'm sorry. I just don't believe it. That violates my much-abused suspension of disbelief on so many levels I don't even have the language to describe it. There is, there is just no way a bloody drink can manipulate reality to produce comedy setups, or I'm going to give up and retire to the Bahamas -"

Harry has, within the past few days, witnessed:

(a) his father being levitated;

(b) McGonagall turning into a cat;

(c) McGonagall opening a secret passage by turning a wall with her wand;

(d) a bag of holding (his mokeskin pouch);

(e) a luggage trunk of holding;

(f) his wand producing multi-coloured sparks; and

(h) Platform Nine and Three-Quarters;

(i) the stain on the stall-holder�s beard disappearing within seconds after being spilled.

At this point, isn�t it �irrationally� obstinate of Harry to say that �I just don�t believe� that magic can [do this thing that he just saw being done]?

quote:

Draco groaned. "Are we really going to do this?"

"You don't have to drink it but I have to investigate. Have to. How much?"

"Five Knuts the can," the stallholder said.

"Five Knuts? You can sell reality-manipulating fizzy drinks for five Knuts the can?" Harry reached into his pouch, said "four Sickles, four Knuts", and slapped them down on the counter. "Two dozen cans please."

The drink just guarantees �something surprising�, it�s hardly on the level of levitation, polymorph, or spatial manipulation. Five Knuts seems reasonable for a can of Comed-Tea.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 09:25

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

Literally everything Yud writes about magic in the fic is just a random set of rules he creates on the fly to justify whatever he's trying to say at the moment. As far as I can tell, the entire basis of this fic is Yud having not read the books, knowing the general plots from wikipedia, and then creates his own "rational" take on the setting and then goes completely off the rails in a Ayn Randian way to have his characters exist as nothing more then a mouthpiece for his moronic beliefs.

I love that MOR has now become the most associated aspect of Yud to anyone now looking him up, because it discredits him immediately in a way that nothing else can. All his writings about how he's solved the AI problem and "hey you need to give me money because otherwise a vindictive AI will torture you for eternity or might suddenly start because you are in fact in a AI simulation oh go ahead prove me wrong hmm?" are pretty dumb, but comprehensively written to appeal to naive college students and techno-libertarians but now that Yud has hitched his entire philsophy to a massively sprawling fanfic based on the biggest book series of the last few decades I can't see anyone ever finding out about him and taking him seriously in any capacity.

He's been saying for 3-4 years that his AI institute has created some insanely revolutionary work that they won't publish for fear of it being misused, but has he been pressed on that topic recently?

# ? Mar 17, 2015 10:27

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

He's clearly been talking about about HPMOR. There's meanings hidden in there, just use a bit of kabbalah on the poo poo.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 10:52

petrol blue: Feb 9, 2013; sugar and spice
and
ethanol slammers

"The first thing that a google results in is their fanfic" is a pretty damning argument.

# ? Mar 17, 2015 23:30

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 7 � Reciprocation
Part Eight

quote:

"I'll also take one," Draco sighed, and started to reach for his pockets.

Harry shook his head rapidly. "No, I've got this, doesn't count as a favor either, I want to see if it works for you too." He took a can from the stack now placed on the counter and tossed it to Draco, then started feeding his pouch. The pouch's Widening Lip ate the cans accompanied by small burping noises, which wasn't exactly helping to restore Harry's faith that he would someday discover a reasonable explanation for all this.

Twenty-two burps later, Harry had the last purchased can in his hand, Draco was looking at him expectantly, and the two of them pulled the ring at the same time.

Harry rolled up his scarf to expose his mouth, and they tilted their heads back and drank the Comed-Tea.
It somehow tasted bright green - extra-fizzy and limer than lime.

Aside from that, nothing else happened.

Harry looked at the stallholder, who was watching them benevolently.

All right, if this guy just took advantage of a natural accident to sell me twenty-four cans of nothing, I'm going to applaud his creative entrepreneurial spirit and then kill him.

"It doesn't always happen immediately," the stallholder said. "But it's guaranteed to happen once per can, or your money back."

Harry took another long drink.

Once again, nothing happened.

Maybe I should just chug the whole thing as fast as possible... and hope my stomach doesn't explode from all the carbon dioxide, or that I don't burp while drinking it...

No, he could afford to be a little patient. But honestly, Harry didn't see how this was going to work. You couldn't go up to someone and say "Now I'm going to surprise you" or "And now I'm going to tell you the punchline of the joke, and it'll be really funny." It ruined the shock value.

However, you could go up to someone and say �Now I�m going to manipulate you� and it�d still work. For example, �Knowing that Draco's hopeful face had probably been drilled into him by months of practice did not make it any less effective, Harry observed. Actually it did make it less effective, but unfortunately not ineffective�.

quote:

In Harry's state of mental preparedness, Lucius Malfoy could have walked past in a ballerina outfit and it wouldn't have made him do a proper spit-take. Just what sort of wacky shenanigan was the universe supposed to cough up now?

"Anyway, let's sit down," Harry said. He prepared to swig another drink and started towards the distant seating area, which put him at the right angle to glance back and see the portion of the stall's newspaper stand that was devoted to a newspaper called The Quibbler, which was showing the following headline:
code:
BOY-WHO-LIVED GETS 
DRACO MALFOY PREGNANT

That did make me chuckle for a moment.

quote:

"Gah! " screamed Draco as bright green liquid sprayed all over him from Harry's direction. Draco turned to Harry with fire in his eyes and grabbed his own can. "You son of a mudblood! Let's see how you like being spat upon!" Draco took a deliberate swig from the can just as his own eyes caught sight of the headline.

In sheer reflex action, Harry tried to block his face as the spray of liquid flew in his direction. Unfortunately he blocked using the hand containing the Comed-Tea, sending the rest of the green liquid to splash out over his shoulder.

Harry stared at the can in his hand even as he went on choking and spluttering and the green colour started to vanish from Draco's robes.

Then he looked up and stared at the newspaper headline.
code:
BOY-WHO-LIVED GETS
DRACO MALFOY PREGNANT
Harry's lips opened and said, "buh-bluh-buh-buh..."

Too many competing objections, that was the problem. Every time Harry tried to say "But we're only eleven!" the objection "But men can't get pregnant!" demanded first priority and was then run over by "But there's nothing between us, really!"

Then Harry looked down at the can in his hand again.

He was feeling a deep-seated desire to run away screaming at the top of his lungs until he dropped from lack of oxygen, and the only thing stopping him was that he had once read that outright panic was the sign of a truly important scientific problem.

Harry snarled, threw the can violently into a nearby rubbish bin, and stalked back over to the stall. "One copy of The Quibbler, please." Harry paid over four more Knuts, retrieved another can of Comed-Tea from his pouch, and then stalked over to the picnic area with the blond-haired boy, who was staring at his own can with an expression of frank admiration.

"I take it back," Draco said, "that was pretty good."

"Hey, Draco, you know what I bet is even better for becoming friends than exchanging secrets? Committing murder."

"I have a tutor who says that," Draco allowed. He reached inside his robes and scratched himself with an easy, natural motion. "Who've you got in mind?"

Harry slammed The Quibbler down hard on the picnic table. "The guy who came up with this headline."

Draco groaned. "Not a guy. A girl. A ten-year-old girl, can you believe it? She went nuts after her mother died and her father, who owns this newspaper, is convinced that she's a seer, so when he doesn't know he asks Luna Lovegood and believes anything she says."

Luna is one of my favourite characters in the canon series and I dread to see how she�ll be caricatured / straw-womanned in this story.

quote:

Not really thinking about it, Harry pulled the ring on his next can of Comed-Tea and prepared to drink. "Are you kidding me? That's even worse than Muggle journalism, which I would have thought was physically impossible."

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."

What.

What the hell is this.

:catstare:

Why is the author�s ten-year old self-insert casually talking about raping a ten-year old girl.

:stonk:

# ? Mar 18, 2015 03:41

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

That's the notorious / infamous part of Chapter 7 that you guys were talking about right? It can't get even worse than this, right?

# ? Mar 18, 2015 03:48

Colin Mockery: Jun 24, 2007; Rawr

That's the part (including the rest of the scene in with it because I don't remember much about how it goes, except that it does).

# ? Mar 18, 2015 03:57

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

This is not the part that was edited. So something was even worse and got edited out!

Someone needs to post the unedited bits.

Also, author notes are here: https://www.evernote.com/pub/adelenedawner/Eliezer#st=p&n=2c67f08c-97ca-4a3c-9df5-395e3e46f326 starting from chapter 17, unfortunately. JWKS should read those too!

# ? Mar 18, 2015 04:25

The Iron Rose: May 12, 2012; Cat Army

Oh I was waiting for this.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 04:28

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# ? May 17, 2024 18:08

Motto: Aug 3, 2013

That line is so bizarre. Even with Yud's modifications to the characters to make it easier for him to set up situations to stroke :spergin:

Harry's ego, I have no idea why he thought that would be a good line to come out of the mouth of a snooty 10-year old. I just can't even imagine the state of mind that thinks that line fits at all, even within the frame of this fanfic so far.

# ? Mar 18, 2015 04:51

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Let's Read: "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"

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