|
Surely, rationally speaking, engaging with Draco Malfoy and using his political connections and resources would far outweigh any mere rapes or murders Draco does along the way, out of boredom or pique. The greater good and all that.
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 21:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 18:12 |
|
|
If you think rape's the worst thing people treat casually in the Harry Potter universe then I've got some unicorn blood to sell you.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 22:37
|
|
|
sarehu posted:If you think rape's the worst thing people treat casually in the Harry Potter universe then I've got some unicorn blood to sell you. What are your views on Bayesian AI?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 23:13
|
|
|
sarehu posted:Yeah because if you don't turn into a blubbering little baby you're a horrible person.  It's true!(But really, my point was less about "rationality" and more about how it's poor writing and a rather inconsistent characterization of Harry)
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2015 23:16
|
|
|
sarehu posted:If you think rape's the worst thing people treat casually in the Harry Potter universe then I've got some unicorn blood to sell you. The hell are you talking about?
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 00:17
|
|
|
The english language.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 00:24
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:The hell are you talking about? Dementors, probably.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 00:30
|
|
|
That, and the fact that parents are ok sending their children to a school where the students are constantly exposed to unnecessary danger. Hogwarts has a GOOD reputation. Just think how horrifying a shittier school would be. Defense against the dark arts classes sometimes involve live fire exercises with little oversight.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 00:57
|
|
|
Look, the hungarian one just hit students against each other till the toughest one is left, ok? Besides, it builds moral fibre... **mutters about public schools.**
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 01:01
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, I've been reluctantly reading along because I feel like I need to keep an eye on the big threads in this forum, got to that post, my skin tried to crawl into my eyeballs, but then I went "well, this is Something Awful after all." Mocking the horrible is part of the mission statement. I don't know what else there is to do with this fic other than mock. Detailed literary criticism seems like a waste of effort for 660,000 words. The writing is bad. Show don't tell is ignored. Characterization is inconsistent. Tone shifts are bizarre and whiplash inducing. Is this supposed to be a children's book with fallible eleven-year-old protagonist or a philosophical paean to Bayesianism? The story is explicitly a didactic, pedagogical, rationalist tale, showing the reader how rationalists should think. Per intro: "This is a rationalist story; its mysteries are solvable, and meant to be solved" and "All science mentioned is real science". But the science presented isn't all correct! (Legacyspy, a less linguistically nitpicky criticism of the pouch passage is that it isn't a demonstration of natural language processing! Everything could have been done with a lookup table by a CS101 student.) The pedagogy is blatant and assaults (or insults) the reader with tons of jargon and belabored explanations of reciprocation theory and the like alongside self-congratulatory observations of how clever other characters are. Show don't tell! The other thread of the fic introduced in the very beginning--'Harry applies the scientific method to the wizarding world'--is not explored well. The only experimentation so far has been with the pouch. But it stopped after one paragraph and didn't ever go beyond what a lookup table debugger would have done. The wizarding economy is dumb sure, but explore that! Why can't you just transfigure stuff to gold/silver/bronze and melt THAT down? Why can't you just conjure anything you want? 'Wizards are stupider than Harry and ignore muggles' is a pretty uninspired point to make. We're a good novella worth of words into the story and there isn't much science being explored. Perhaps comed-tea will change this? i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Mar 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 01:31
|
|
|
Pvt.Scott posted:That, and the fact that parents are ok sending their children to a school where the students are constantly exposed to unnecessary danger. Hogwarts has a GOOD reputation. Just think how horrifying a shittier school would be. Defense against the dark arts classes sometimes involve live fire exercises with little oversight. "Hogwarts is the safest place in the wizarding world." You could actually write a pretty good comedy fanfic by taking that quote as literally correct.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 01:37
|
|
|
The first 17 chapters of this are for sale on Amazon. $7 and weirdly no kindle version. Although you'd think he'd add the rest of the story, but maybe he's going to charge seven bucks for chucks of chapters. http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Methods-Rationality-Chapters/dp/B00E640ZAG I hope JK's lawyers see it soon. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 01:44
|
|
|
Ahhh Real Zombies! posted:The first 17 chapters of this are for sale on Amazon. $7 and weirdly no kindle version. Although you'd think he'd add the rest of the story, but maybe he's going to charge seven bucks for chucks of chapters. Who is selling that? Because that's a pretty blatant copyright violation, isn't it?
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 01:46
|
|
|
Ahhh Real Zombies! posted:The first 17 chapters of this are for sale on Amazon. $7 and weirdly no kindle version. Although you'd think he'd add the rest of the story, but maybe he's going to charge seven bucks for chucks of chapters. How has that listing been up for almost a year? 300,000 amazon sales rank for a book is actually quite a few sales. No ISBN so it probably is vanity press. The lone 'new' bookseller has 15 copies for sale but is otherwise a normal amazon seller account selling almost exclusively books. 1,000 seller feedback/year translates to ~30,000 sales/year --a respectable amount of business. Almost definitely not an amazon seller account that Yud personally runs, way more profitable than his AI foundation. I wonder who created the listing and actually printed the books. With the shipping credit the seller only gets $8.02 minus shipping fees. Seems like a lot of work for a few bucks. EDIT And to state the obvious, this is a clear copyright violation without consent of J.K. Rowling. i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Mar 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 01:58
|
|
|
Arcturas posted:
I think one of the reasons that it's so egregious is that this 11 year old boy goes into detail about his plan to rape a (currently) 10 year old girl. He's not just throwing out the rape action for the shock factor like many boys of that age might do. Rather, he talks about how he would do it and then get away with his crime in a way that is presented as pretty much foolproof. It's not that he's making what would amount to an 11 year old boy's empty joke/boast; it's that he has clearly thought of how he would do it and then avoid the repercussions of what he recognizes as a heinous crime. He speaks and thinks like an adult would, in that he understands what exactly he is talking about re: the unforgivable nature of his crime, but we are, I guess, supposed to forgive him because??
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 02:39
|
|
|
Legacyspy posted:What is about this story that makes people so upset? angry? IDK but clearly there is a lot of hate for it and its not clear to me why. It's SA man. Someone's gonna hate something and if they're funny they attract a bandwagon of people to hate the thing with them. If you try, you can probably picture the thread as a parody in-itself. Some of the complaints have been so dumb, I've almost wondered if it has been.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 02:47
|
|
|
Ahhh Real Zombies! posted:The first 17 chapters of this are for sale on Amazon. $7 and weirdly no kindle version. Although you'd think he'd add the rest of the story, but maybe he's going to charge seven bucks for chucks of chapters. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 02:48
|
|
|
Chapter 7 – Reciprocation Part Ten quote:
“Banality of evil” is a lot less convincing when the subject is someone who’s been raised by an “evil with a capital-E” father and has received special training in manipulation and social influence. quote:
Dog-whistle racism / Orientalism. Just lovely. I’d guess that this was the part that was edited. Could someone confirm if I’m correct and if so, what was the original passage? quote:
Huh, that came out of nowhere. Nothing in the first six chapters gave any hints that Harry was at all concerned about justice and equality. In Chapter Four, at Gringotts Bank, he was all “On the other hand, one competent hedge fundie could probably own the whole wizarding world within a week. Harry filed away this notion in case he ever ran out of money, or had a week free”. In Chapter Six, “Harry cracked his knuckles in determination, but they only made a quiet sort of clicking sound, rather than echoing ominously off the walls of Diagon Alley. Possibility two: He'd be taking over the world. Eventually. Perhaps not right away.”
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 03:13
|
|
|
This:quote:"As soon as I'm old enough I'm going to rape her." was originally this: quote:"As soon as I'm old enough to get an erection I'm going to rape that bitch." This: quote:There were places in Muggle-land where it was still the same way, countries where that sort of nobility still existed and still thought like that, or even grimmer lands where it wasn't just the nobility. It was like that in every place and time that didn't descend directly from the Enlightenment. was originally this: quote:Even in Muggle-land it was probably still happening, somewhere in Saudi Arabia or the darkness of the Congo. It happened in every place and time that didn’t descend directly from the Enlightenment. This was the header he initially posted justifying the edit: quote:I've also tried a rewrite on Ch. 7 which I don't feel is a literary improvement, but which does make it clearer that Harry is talking about the Enlightenment having mostly solved the problem of nobility rather than the problem of surprise sex, and which eliminates the explicit reference to Saudi Arabia and the Congo as specific non-Enlightenment countries. Most readers, it's pretty clear, didn't take that as racist, but it now also seems clear that if someone is told to *expect* racism and pointed at the chapter, that's what they'll see. Aren't preconceptions lovely things? This is a recent one of several news articles about the ruling elite of a country directly descended from the Enlightenment running an extensive paedophilic rape and murder ring with the co-operation of the police and security services. It is also my country. All of the above is why Chapter Seven is notorious, and why that smug pseudointellectual gently caress Yudkowsky fills me with genuine rage.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 03:33
|
|
|
Darth Walrus posted:This: Haha! I knew I remembered that poo poo. Also, these stupid psuedointellectual shits have no idea how long 'nobility' persisted (and persists) after their precious Enlightenment. They never do. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Mar 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 03:36
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:Also, these stupid psuedointellectual shits have no idea how long 'nobility' persisted (and persists) after their precious Enlightenment. They never do. You could argue that the Dark Enlightenment goobers realize that aristocracy is alive and well, and their pseudo-monarchist rhetoric is a desperate attempt to curry favor with the upper crust. Better to be at the devil's side than in his path, or something, I guess?
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 03:52
|
|
|
Based on his slobbering of tech CEOs, this is Yud's plan. Also, "surprise sex." Really.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 03:58
|
|
|
I like how he offers a backhanded insult at the people who called him out for being a horrible poo poo. "Oh yeah, this chapter wasn't racist, but about racism! But I've fixed it now for the grognards who obviously didn't get the social commentary, losers."
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:23
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:I like how he offers a backhanded insult at the people who called him out for being a horrible poo poo. "Oh yeah, this chapter wasn't racist, but about racism! But I've fixed it now for the grognards who obviously didn't get the social commentary, losers."
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:24
|
|
|
You guys have raised a lot of good points as to the quality of the work that I hadn't seen before. Some of it I disagree with, but I'm not interested in debating that. Also to be clear, I am totally on board with the "lets mock this because doing so is entertaining". I'm just also interested in why this story upsets so many of you on pretty emotional level. Like the same way I got really, really mad at the Lannisters after the red wedding. Or at how Joffery treated Sansa. ETC... But Harry doesn't invoke this kind of contempt in me, nor does he in many others. Similarly Clearly a lot of people, really, really like it, and don't see the flaws you guys do, or are capable of tolerating them. Why is this work so polarizing? Why do I not feel that Harry is an "Annoying little poo poo"? Does it simply come down to: anilEhilated posted:It's because the writing deserves no charity. With Rowling (and any, y'know, good books), I'm willing to suspend my disbelief because I'm enjoying it and I want to read more so I am willing to accept some silliness. There, however, are no redeeming factors for this. and Arcturas posted:Other stories have terrible main characters (e.g., the characters in series like A Song of Ice and Fire are often horrible). But that's not everything to the character. There's usually something else redeeming about them - their humanity, their struggle with failures, their focus on a relatable goal, their sheer magnificent badassery (e.g. Tyrion Lannister), stuff like that. For instance, we like Frank Underwood in House of Cards even though he's a sociopath because he has moments of compassion, humanity, and an overall goal that we can get behind. His relationship with his wife is fascinating, he seems truly invested in his America Works program, and not just for the electoral benefits, he has limited loyalty, etc. Compare that to Yud's Harry, who has very limited moments of humanity (his discussion with his parents, which can be charming) and a whole lot of obnoxious better-than-thou snark. Unlike Frank, he's not self-aware that he sounds like a douche and he doesn't do it for effect. Do those of us who like hpmor, we can find these redeeming factors in it that other people don't? Relatable goals, badassery, humanity, struggle with failures. I see all of that in hpmor. I think that last line though touches on something though. I could be wrong, but feel like a lot of people don't like Harry because he doesn't respect his "place" and people find that upsetting. See his treatment of Mcgonagall, Dumbeldore etc... The "better-than-thou". Like, clearly Harry is wrong to think that Dumbledore is some outdated fool, or is wrong the way he blackmails Mcgonagall, Or the way he treats her when shopping for the suitcase. He is talking down to her. But it doesn't bother me. But other people find this very upsetting? Added Space posted:If you look over the story as a whole you realize there were a lot of good ideas that were abandoned before being completely developed. Yeah. This is my main issue with the story. It would have been stronger as a just "Harry explores magic scientifically" or "Harry clashes with the politics and culture of wizards" or "Ender's game in Hogwarts" or "Harry the scifi-humanist" it covers all four then at the end jumps to something completely different. I think the work struggles as a whole, and is way too long, but I enjoyed it and read it for the individual parts in it which were good. I'm running into the same thing with Naturald20. Legacyspy fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Mar 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:31
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Also, "surprise sex." Really. It should come as no surprise that Yud is a huge  fan.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:31
|
|
|
Nessus posted:And yet, we're the centers of "sneer culture." The best way I think I could put it is, "HP&tMoR doesn't deserve all this scorn, but its author does. Therefore, the response." Sounds rational enough to me!
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:31
|
|
|
Legacyspy posted:Do those of us who like hpmor, we can find these redeeming factors in it that other people don't? Relatable goals, badassery, humanity, struggle with failures. I see all of that in hpmor. I think that last line though touches on something though. I could be wrong, but feel like a lot of people don't like Harry because he doesn't respect his "place" and people find that upsetting. See his treatment of Mcgonagall, Dumbeldore etc... The "better-than-thou". Like, clearly Harry is wrong to think that Dumbledore is some outdated fool, or is wrong the way he blackmails Mcgonagall, Or the way he treats her when shopping for the suitcase. He is talking down to her. But it doesn't bother me. But other people find this very upsetting? It makes Harry Potter both a completely different character (which could be fine) and shittily composed (which is not). You could probably keep similar beats here without extensive internal monologues or quirky asides aping Pratchett.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:36
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Also, "surprise sex." Really. Girls love surprises. They're romantic and show that you have the capacity for spontaneity.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 04:47
|
|
|
Nessus posted:It isn't that he 'doesn't respect his place,' it's that he's being presented as this rationalist supermind but he's actually acting like Artemis Fowl or some kind of Randian ubermensch. It makes him seem like an intelligent but barely hinged maniac rather than some kind of uber-rationalist super-optimizer. You could use this as a lesson on how mere scientific rational thinking does not in any way guarantee you won't be a shithead. Are you saying that Harry is supposed to be a "uber-rationalist super-optimizer", but fails to do so? I never got that conclusion that at all. I thought he was supposed to be another character in the vein of Artemis Fowl, Ender, Bean, or Miles Vorkosigan.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 05:02
|
|
|
Nessus posted:It isn't that he 'doesn't respect his place,' it's that he's being presented as this rationalist supermind but he's actually acting like Artemis Fowl or some kind of Randian ubermensch. It makes him seem like an intelligent but barely hinged maniac rather than some kind of uber-rationalist super-optimizer. You could use this as a lesson on how mere scientific rational thinking does not in any way guarantee you won't be a shithead. Ayup. He's not acting rationally. He's acting like a smug douchecanoe. He artificially limits his "rational" inquiries to random bullshit that gets him what he's already decided he wants, and decided he deserves because he's "smart" and "rational." Legacyspy posted:Are you saying that Harry is supposed to be a "uber-rationalist super-optimizer", but fails to do so? I never got that conclusion that at all. I thought he was supposed to be another character in the vein of Artemis Fowl, Ender, Bean, or Miles Vorkosigan. But all four of those characters are 1) written likeably, and 2) act like humans. Yud's Harry is just a douche, constantly, without any conceivable purpose.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 05:03
|
|
|
Arcturas posted:But all four of those characters are 1) written likeably, and 2) act like humans. Yud's Harry is just a douche, constantly, without any conceivable purpose. But what? How is that relevant. Nessus seems to be saying that Harry is was supposed to be a uber-rationalist, and isn't, and is instead is like Artemis Fowl, so this is a failing of the story. I want to understand whether or not that is actually Nessus is saying, because that seems ridiculous. If harry fails at being an uber-rationalist, then obviously he wasn't intended to be an uber-rationalist. Your comment has no bearing on that. Also why is his behavior so upsetting that this term keeps getting used? I want to understand why Harry is so upsetting to people. Repeatability saying he is smug or a douche... just tells me that his behavior is upsetting to you. It doesn't explain why that is the case.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 05:51
|
|
|
Legacyspy posted:If harry fails at being an uber-rationalist, then obviously he wasn't intended to be an uber-rationalist. Your comment has no bearing on that. Ah yes, the old "I meant to do that" defense, Harry fails at being High King of Rational Mountain because a) a lot of his science is lovely, half right, or surface level but is made into the gospel truth in the story b) because he isn't actually motivated by knowledge or exploration, he is motivated by power. You say he might have been intended to be like Artemis Fowl, but that is trivially untrue; Artemis Fowl is never held up as an example, and he certainly isn't meant to convince you that you should follow the Way of Fowl. Harry however is supposed to teach the audience how to be "rationalists" and really is never defeated or outdone in his area of "expertise" in the context of the story. Much of this is achieved by undermining the other characters or by choosing to have the world work the way that harry guesses it will work. I mean Harriezer also fails to be like Artemis Fowl, since Artemis grows as a person and becomes a better human being over the course of the books. Harry stays stagnant. He is supposed to learn some lessons over the course of the book I guess, but a number of them boil down to, "I'm better than everyone around me." Yud's writing is being compared to the level of character development in a children's book and is coming up poorly, it's clear he has failed to craft a character driven narrative. Harry isn't upsetting, but the work as a whole is disgusting, joyless, and written by an rear end in a top hat who believes himself the Machine Messiah. It's failings are so numerous and obvious, and it's author so odious, that the fact that there is a cult that believes this poo poo is gold is stomach turning. Also, it could never have been good, Yud doesn't know science well enough (or really have the mindset of a scientist) to write a convincing investigation of magic through science. His personal politics would turn any attempt to make magical Britain more to his liking into a horror show, and he can't write a relatable character to save his life. All that is probably because when Yud goes to write what he knows all he can do is describe the wall of his large intestine.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 06:19
|
|
|
The Dianetics of fanfic!
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 06:44
|
|
|
Legacyspy posted:But what? How is that relevant. Nessus seems to be saying that Harry is was supposed to be a uber-rationalist, and isn't, and is instead is like Artemis Fowl, so this is a failing of the story. I want to understand whether or not that is actually Nessus is saying, because that seems ridiculous. If harry fails at being an uber-rationalist, then obviously he wasn't intended to be an uber-rationalist. Your comment has no bearing on that. Ah, but you see he was! We're supposed to think the science is real. We're supposed to think he is uber-rationalistic. The author pretty much flat our admitted this point. If he fails to deliver, then it's a bad story. And it fails to deliver. Legacyspy posted:Also why is his behavior so upsetting that this term keeps getting used? I want to understand why Harry is so upsetting to people. Repeatability saying he is smug or a douche... just tells me that his behavior is upsetting to you. It doesn't explain why that is the case. His behavior is upsetting because he is portrayed as not intelligent, but insufferable and borderline psychotic. Here is a child whose first idea on how to get more info from a relatively kind adult is to blackmail her. He arrives at this conclusion through his own internal logic and decides he's totally okay with ruining another's life to get information that is not immediately necessary. And the book is on his side. I have read ahead, this incident is pretty much forgotten and forgiven. He cares little for anyone other than himself, except for the few moments Yudkowsky remembers to humanize him. Case in point, here Harry wants to bring justice to this world, but a few chapters ago he was planning to smash their economy. It's madness. Even if he wasn't a sociopath, he is still insufferable. He name drops concepts and goes on  infodumps at the drop of a hat while condescendingly talking down to adults who are remarkably patient with his poo poo. He knows little about this world except when he's suddenly aware of everything and casually using terms (Death Eaters, etc...) as though he knew them for years. And despite priding himself as a rational person, he throws tantrums at the drop of a hat. Even if we weren't meant to like him, he would still be a loving annoying character.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 06:45
|
|
|
Nessus posted:It isn't that he 'doesn't respect his place,' it's that he's being presented as this rationalist supermind but he's actually acting like Artemis Fowl or some kind of Randian ubermensch. SSNeoman posted:
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 07:03
|
|
|
Chapter 7 – Reciprocation Part Ten quote:
Poor Hufflepuff House. No-one ever gives them any respect. quote:
Harry really needs to “dust off some of those history books his father had bought him”. “Muggles” had progressed past “scratching at the dirt” well before the “Enlightenment” or the development of modern science. Has this purportedly well-read boy never heard of al-Khwarizmi’s development of algebra; Avicenna’s contributions to astronomy; or Shen Kuo’s discovery of the true north? quote:
The ancient Egyptians were using wind catchers in their homes; Sergius Orata invented the hypocaust during the time of the Roman Republic; and Ding Huan came up with a rotary fan during the Han Dynasty. Innovation and technical development didn’t begin with the Enlightenment. quote:
Why is Harry so confident that wizards have never been to the Moon? I mean, we know that the world bends over for his every whim, but from his perspective, he’s seen magic on many occasions performing feats that break the most fundamental principles of physics, so there's every possibility that magic can send or already has sent a wizard to the moon. JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Mar 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 07:49
|
|
|
It's hilarious how rarely you see these 'The Enlightenment is the most important thing ever' types ever acknowledge we're all using arabic numerals and that Algebra comes from the middle east. Harry is too unimaginative to remember that the people of past ages were just as smart as the people of current ones, they just didn't have the same level of information yet (which we only have because past generations sought it out).
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 08:04
|
|
|
Calling it "the blood of the Enlightenment" is sort of missing the point in five words or less, isn't it? I know he's trying to play off of Draco's "blood of Merlin" thing, but you've got to be precise about this sort of thing when anti-nepotism is part of the platform.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 08:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 18:12 |
|
|
Legacyspy posted:Also why is his behavior so upsetting that this term keeps getting used? I want to understand why Harry is so upsetting to people. Repeatability saying he is smug or a douche... just tells me that his behavior is upsetting to you. It doesn't explain why that is the case. Personally, I think it's funny. I am only annoyed when this poo poo gets cited, yes, like it's Dianetics or something.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2015 08:46
|
|