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

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Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Darth Walrus posted:

This:

was originally this:

This:

was originally this:

This was the header he initially posted justifying the edit:

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.

Isn't there also a chunk edited because originally it had some lines about a Jewish character being inherently smarter than Dean (who is black) because they "were descended from the peoples who have won more novels than any other, and not a murderous tribe" or something?

# ? Mar 21, 2015 05:45

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# ? May 17, 2024 01:12

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

Fried Chicken posted:

Isn't there also a chunk edited because originally it had some lines about a Jewish character being inherently smarter than Dean (who is black) because they "were descended from the peoples who have won more novels than any other, and not a murderous tribe" or something?

Really, whenever you see someone talking about how the enlightenment is the source of all that's good and holy forever, you should get some warning flags up because odds are good you're in for a spiel about how 'those people' never had an equivalent.

# ? Mar 21, 2015 07:33

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

Night10194 posted:

Really, whenever you see someone talking about how the enlightenment is the source of all that's good and holy forever, you should get some warning flags up because odds are good you're in for a spiel about how 'those people' never had an equivalent.

It seems as if, if you were somehow really invested in making science into a religion, you could claim it as a fundamental sea change that would make things like the Arabic astronomers and math dudes into virtuous pagans. That wouldn't necessarily be inherently ethnocentric - or at least, would only be as ethnocentric as Christianity.

# ? Mar 21, 2015 09:23

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

Night10194 posted:

Really, whenever you see someone talking about how anything is the source of all that's good and holy forever, you should get some warning flags up

Fixed that for you. Dangers of reductionism and so on.

# ? Mar 21, 2015 12:42

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

anilEhilated posted:

Fixed that for you. Dangers of reductionism and so on.

Sure, but when it taps into racial theories that have done a lot of real-world harm, it's especially bad. Someone who says that, say, the Nintendo Gameboy was the beginning of civilisation is probably just silly, not dangerous.

Unless they're a Gamergater.

# ? Mar 21, 2015 14:25

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

anilEhilated posted:

Fixed that for you. Dangers of reductionism and so on.

Well, yes, but I meant for 'You're about to hear some super racist poo poo.'

I had a professor once tell me the Enlightenment was the first time in human history anyone had ever had the idea that maybe rulers should be chosen because they're intelligent, virtuous, and skilled. Seriously. I mean, this poo poo is pretty wide-spread. "All past eras were stupid and we are the best forever." is a very comforting delusion.

# ? Mar 21, 2015 15:28

Seraphic Neoman: Jul 19, 2011

Night10194 posted:

I had a professor once tell me the Enlightenment was the first time in human history anyone had ever had the idea that maybe rulers should be chosen because they're intelligent, virtuous, and skilled. Seriously. I mean, this poo poo is pretty wide-spread. "All past eras were stupid and we are the best forever." is a very comforting delusion.

So basically Philosopher Kings? :v:

# ? Mar 21, 2015 16:55

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

SSNeoman posted:

So basically Philosopher Kings?

Yeah. I was also reading about ancient China and Confucius at the time. It was kind of hilarious to have a guy tell me with a straight face that this was the first time anyone had ever considered this. He also told me Thomas Paine was the first time anyone had ever asked 'Hey, if God is all powerful, why do bad things happen to good people?'

I wrote my Master's Thesis on the Book of Job. That question's been asked as long as there's been monotheism.

# ? Mar 21, 2015 17:11

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

Night10194 posted:

Yeah. I was also reading about ancient China and Confucius at the time. It was kind of hilarious to have a guy tell me with a straight face that this was the first time anyone had ever considered this. He also told me Thomas Paine was the first time anyone had ever asked 'Hey, if God is all powerful, why do bad things happen to good people?'

I wrote my Master's Thesis on the Book of Job. That question's been asked as long as there's been monotheism.

I gather the Chinese kind of stumped racists for a while because while they were clearly squat heathens in thrall to Satan, they'd also built a civilization that clearly rivaled Rome and was in many ways obviously preferable to the average of European civilization. Fortunately for them the sewage got better back home and the Chinese collapsed under British attack, but boy that must've been a squeaker!

# ? Mar 21, 2015 18:04

Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

Night10194 posted:

I had a professor once tell me the Enlightenment was the first time in human history anyone had ever had the idea that maybe rulers should be chosen because they're intelligent, virtuous, and skilled. Seriously. I mean, this poo poo is pretty wide-spread. "All past eras were stupid and we are the best forever." is a very comforting delusion.

Did you mention to him the concept of Roman dictatorship?

# ? Mar 21, 2015 18:12

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

Arcsquad12 posted:

Did you mention to him the concept of Roman dictatorship?

I figured past a point it wasn't worth bothering after he claimed Job just 'wasn't the same level of thinking' as loving Thomas Paine. Like, that was his reasoning for why one of the foundational books on 'why does this poo poo happen' (among many other subjects) didn't 'count'. I'll stop derailing, just the whole goddamn Enlightenment worship thing is something I run into often and it pisses me the hell off.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Mar 21, 2015

# ? Mar 21, 2015 18:23

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

Job was the original jobber. No respect.

# ? Mar 21, 2015 18:34

Deptfordx: Dec 23, 2013

Nessus posted:

I gather the Chinese kind of stumped racists for a while because while they were clearly squat heathens in thrall to Satan, they'd also built a civilization that clearly rivaled Rome and was in many ways obviously preferable to the average of European civilization. Fortunately for them the sewage got better back home and the Chinese collapsed under British attack, but boy that must've been a squeaker!

Britain, once again saving proper civilisation. :britain:

You're welcome.

In fact if you have any other problems.....

Do you have priceless cultural artifacts that you just don't have the museum space for?

Are your lands clogged up with valuable minerals?

Do you just have too much silks and spices and too little opium?

Our operators are standing by, phone in and see if a couple of centuries of colonial oppression are right for you.

Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Mar 21, 2015

# ? Mar 21, 2015 18:42

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Deptfordx posted:

Britain, once again saving proper civilisation.

You're welcome.

In fact if you have any other problems.....

Do you have priceless cultural artifacts that you just don't have the museum space for?

Are your lands clogged up with valuable minerals?

Do you just have too much silks and spices and too little opium?

Our operators are standing by, phone in and see if a couple of centuries of colonial oppression are right for you.

Speaking of which, you really should watch The Mask of Fu Machu.

The cultural changes over the last fifty years have totally inverted who you see as the hero and the villain.

# ? Mar 21, 2015 20:20

Bobbin Threadbare: Jan 2, 2009; I'm looking for a flock of urbanmechs.

Deptfordx posted:

Britain, once again saving proper civilisation.

You're welcome.

The best way I've ever heard it put is in the book title "All the Countries We've Ever Invaded (And the Few We Never Got Round To)."

# ? Mar 21, 2015 20:57

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

Tunicate posted:

Speaking of which, you really should watch The Mask of Fu Machu.

The cultural changes over the last fifty years have totally inverted who you see as the hero and the villain.

Hell, this happened with normal films. I saw a movie in film class which was clearly meant to be showing this tormented white guy being stuck with the fallout from his affair with a villainous Chinese woman, except it came off as "this white guy abandoned his Chinese wife and she legitimately wants to get back at him."

# ? Mar 21, 2015 23:12

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 7 � Reciprocation
Part Thirteen

quote:

There was awe on Draco's face. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Oh... there aren't many people who know how to do true science - understanding something for the very first time, even if it confuses the hell out of you. Help would be helpful."

It�s ironic that Eliezarry uses the phrase �true science� when it seems to be most closely associated with creationism, judging from the first, third, and fifth results from Googling �what is true science�.

quote:

Draco stared at Harry with his mouth open.

"But make no mistake, Draco, true science really isn't like magic, you can't just do it and walk away unchanged like learning how to say the words of a new spell. The power comes with a cost, a cost so high that most people refuse to pay it."

How would Harry know whether or not magic leaves the practitioner unchanged? It�s been barely a couple of weeks since he first became aware of the world of magic, and he hasn�t learnt or cast a single spell yet.

quote:

Draco nodded at this as though, finally, he'd heard something he could understand. "And that cost?"

"Learning to admit you're wrong."

quote:

"Um," Draco said after the dramatic pause had stretched on for a while. "You going to explain that?"

"Trying to figure out how something works on that deep level, the first ninety-nine explanations you come up with are wrong. The hundredth is right. So you have to learn how to admit you're wrong, over and over and over again. It doesn't sound like much, but it's so hard that most people can't do science. Always questioning yourself, always taking another look at things you've always taken for granted," like having a Snitch in Quidditch, "and every time you change your mind, you change yourself.

quote:

But I'm getting way ahead of myself here. Way ahead of myself. I just want you to know... I'm offering to share some of my knowledge. If you want. There's just one condition."

"Uh huh," Draco said. "You know, Father says that when someone says that to you, it is never a good sign, ever."

Harry nodded. "Now, don't mistake me and think that I'm trying to drive a wedge between you and your father. It's not about that. It's just about me wanting to deal with someone my own age, rather than having this be between me and Lucius. I think your father would be okay with that too, he knows you have to grow up sometime. But your moves in our game have to be your own. That's my condition - that I'm dealing with you, Draco, not your father."

"I've got to go," Draco said. He stood up. "I've got to go off and think about this."

"Take your time," Harry said.

The sounds of the train platform changed from blurs into murmurs as Draco wandered off.

Harry slowly exhaled the air he'd been holding in without quite realising it, and then looked at the watch on his wrist, a simple mechanical model that his father had bought him in hope it would work in magic's presence. The second-hand was still ticking, and if the minute hand was right, then it wasn't quite eleven just yet. He probably ought to get on the train soon and start looking for whatsherface, but it seemed worth taking a few minutes first to do some breathing exercises and see if his blood warmed up again.

But when Harry looked up from his watch, he saw two figures approaching, looking utterly ridiculous with their faces cloaked by winter scarves.

"Hello, Mr. Bronze," said one of the masked figures. "Can we interest you in joining the Order of Chaos?"

Let me guess � these are Fred and George playing a prank on Harry after Ron told his brothers about his encounter with the Boy Who Lived (thus the use of the pseudonym �Mr Bronze�), because no one could seriously name an actual secret society �Order of Chaos�.

quote:

Aftermath:

Not too long after that, when all that day's fuss had finally subsided, Draco was bent over a desk with quill in hand. He had a private room in the Slytherin dungeons, with its own desk and its own fire - sadly not even he rated a connection to the Floo system, but at least Slytherin didn't buy into that utter nonsense about making everyone sleep in dorms. There weren't many private rooms, you had to be the very best within the House of the better sort, but that could be taken for granted with the House of Malfoy.

Dear Father, Draco wrote.

And then he stopped.

Ink slowly dripped from his quill, staining the parchment near the words.

Draco wasn't stupid. He was young, but his tutors had trained him well.

Of the three assertions in the last paragraph, only �He was young� is unequivocally correct.

Draco�s "Hey this is how I was taught to manipulate people. Is my manipulative technique working? Am I manipulative and cunning?" performance surely means that he is stupid, his tutors had not trained him well, or both.

quote:

Draco knew that Potter probably felt a lot more sympathy towards Dumbledore's faction than Potter was letting on... though Draco did think Potter could be tempted. But it was crystal clear that Potter was trying to tempt Draco just as Draco was trying to tempt him.

And it was also clear that Potter was brilliant, and a whole lot more than just slightly mad, and playing a vast game that Potter himself mostly didn't understand, improvised at top speed with the subtlety of a rampaging nundu.

How was it in any way �clear� that Eliezarry was �brilliant� or �playing a vast game�?

quote:

But Potter had managed to choose a tactic that Draco couldn't just walk away from. He had offered Draco a part of his own power, gambling that Draco couldn't use it without becoming more like him. His father had called this an advanced technique, and had warned Draco that it often didn't work.

Draco knew he hadn't understood everything that had happened... but Potter had offered him the chance to play and right now it was his. And if he blurted the whole thing out, it would become Father's.

In the end it was as simple as that. The lesser techniques require the unawareness of the target, or at least their uncertainty. Flattery has to be plausibly disguised as admiration. ("You should have been in Slytherin" is an old classic, highly effective on a certain type of person who isn't expecting it, and if it works you can repeat it.) But when you find someone's ultimate lever it doesn't matter if they know you know. Potter, in his mad rush, had guessed a key to Draco's soul. And if Draco knew that Potter knew it - even if it had been an obvious sort of guess - that didn't change anything.

So now, for the first time in his life, he had real secrets to keep. He was playing his own game. There was an obscure pain to it, but he knew that Father would be proud, and that made it all right.

Eliezer�s trying so hard to make this seem to be some kind of 10th-dimensional psychological wizard chess gambit, but it just comes off as two melodramatic brats caught up in their own delusions of grandeur.

quote:

Leaving the ink drippings in place - there was a message there, and one that his father would understand, for they had played the game of subtleties more than once - Draco wrote out the one question that really had gnawed at him about the whole affair, the part that it seemed he ought to understand, but he didn't, not at all.

Dear Father:

Suppose I told you that I met a student at Hogwarts, not already part of our circle of acquaintances, who called you a 'flawless instrument of death' and said that I was your 'one weak point'. What would you say about him?

It didn't take long after that for the family owl to bring the reply.

My beloved son:
I would say that you had been so fortunate as to meet someone who enjoys the intimate confidence of our friend and valuable ally, Severus Snape.

Draco stared at the letter for a while, and finally threw it into the fire.

Is Eliezer saying that Harry has the same kind of thought processes and/or mindset as Snape? Are we supposed to be impressed by that?

# ? Mar 23, 2015 02:56

Bobbin Threadbare: Jan 2, 2009; I'm looking for a flock of urbanmechs.

I'll admit that science is partly about a willingness to be wrong, but it's not really about "understanding something for the very first time" so much as it's about performing an experiment over and over and over again until you're so certain of your results that you can use it to reliably predict the future.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 05:12

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

I went to the Oracle and asked her, "O, seer of things unseen, who is the wisest among the muggles?"

She paused for a moment and then replied, "you are, ~~Eliezer~~Harry, for you alone know that you know nothing."

# ? Mar 23, 2015 05:30

Seraphic Neoman: Jul 19, 2011

Yeah this part is Yud's hypocrisy at full force. He sort of understands that science doesn't have instant answers. He just expects science to have instant access to answers. Just do a few experiment and arrive at your conclusion? Why is it so hard, right? :smug:

And holy hell am I reminded of this rant whenever he opens his mouth: http://www.zippcast.com/video/2c5c07ff61c33b4a05a

# ? Mar 23, 2015 05:38

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

SSNeoman posted:

Yeah this part is Yud's hypocrisy at full force. He sort of understands that science doesn't have instant answers. He just expects science to have instant access to answers. Just do a few experiment and arrive at your conclusion? Why is it so hard, right?

And holy hell am I reminded of this rant whenever he opens his mouth: http://www.zippcast.com/video/2c5c07ff61c33b4a05a

Yud is the science Ideas Guy.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 06:03

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Chapter 8: Positive Bias
Part One

quote:

All these worlds are J. K. Rowling's, except Europa. Attempt no fanfics there.

___________________________________________________

One alert reviewer asked whether, if Luna is a seer, that means this is going to be an HPDM bottom!Draco mpreg fic.

I�m ashamed that I know what all those terms mean.

quote:

I regret that FFN does not allow me any larger font size in which to say NO. It honestly hadn't occurred to me that Luna might be a real seer - I'll have to decide whether to run with that or not - but I think we can all safely assume that if Luna is a seer, she said something about "light planting a seed in darkness", and Xenophilius, as always, interpreted this in rather the wrong way.

___________________________________________________

"Allow me to warn you that challenging my ingenuity is a dangerous sort of project, and may tend to make your life a lot more surreal."

___________________________________________________

No one had asked for help, that was the problem. They'd just gone around talking, eating, or staring into the air while their parents exchanged gossip. For whatever odd reason, no one had been sitting down reading a book, which meant she couldn't just sit down next to them and take out her own book. And even when she'd boldly taken the initiative by sitting down and continuing her third read-through of Hogwarts: A History, no one had seemed inclined to sit down next to her.

Aside from helping people with their homework, or anything else they needed, she really didn't know how to meet people. She didn't feel like she was a shy person. She thought of herself as a take-charge sort of girl. And yet, somehow, if there wasn't some request along the lines of "I can't remember how to do long division" then it was just too awkward to go up to someone and say... what? She'd never been able to figure out what. And there didn't seem to be a standard information sheet, which was ridiculous. The whole business of meeting people had never seemed sensible to her. Why did she have to take all the responsibility herself when there were two people involved? Why didn't adults ever help? She wished some other girl would just walk up to her and say, "Hermione, the teacher told me to be friends with you."

But let it be quite clear that Hermione Granger, sitting alone on the first day of school in one of the few compartments that had been empty, in the last carriage of the train, with the compartment door left open just in case anyone for any reason wanted to talk to her, was not sad, lonely, gloomy, depressed, despairing, or obsessing about her problems. She was, rather, rereading Hogwarts: A History for the third time and quite enjoying it, with only a faint tinge of annoyance in the back of her mind at the general unreasonableness of the world.

A reasonably close-to-canon portrayal of Hermione so far. Can�t wait to see how she gets caricatured or straw-womanned in the service of showing off Eliezarry�s wit and wisdom.

quote:

There was the sound of an inter-train door opening, and then footsteps and an odd slithering sound coming down the hallway of the train. Hermione laid aside Hogwarts: A History and stood up and stuck her head outside - just in case someone needed help - and saw a young boy in a wizard's dress robes, probably first or second year going by his height, and looking quite silly with a scarf wrapped around his head. A small trunk stood on the floor next to him. Even as she saw him, he knocked on the door of another, closed compartment, and he said in a voice only slightly muffled by the scarf, "Excuse me, can I ask a quick question?"

She didn't hear the answer from inside the compartment, but after the boy opened the door, she did think she heard him say - unless she'd somehow misheard - "Does anyone here know the six quarks or where I can find a first-year girl named Hermione Granger?"

After the boy had closed that compartment door, Hermione said, "Can I help you with something?"

The scarfed face turned to look at her, and the voice said, "Not unless you can name the six quarks or tell me where to find Hermione Granger."

"Up, down, strange, charm, truth, beauty, and why are you looking for her?"

It was hard to tell from this distance, but she thought she saw the boy grin widely under his scarf. "Ah, so you're a first-year girl named Hermione Granger," said that young, muffled voice. "On the train to Hogwarts, no less." The boy started to walk towards her and her compartment, and his trunk slithered along after him. "Technically, all I needed to do was look for you, but it seems likely that I'm meant to talk to you or invite you to join my party or get a key magical item from you or find out that Hogwarts was built over the ruins of an ancient temple or something. PC or NPC, that is the question?"

Wow, Harry really needs some decent mentors in how to talk to people without coming across as an incredible weirdo at the first encounter. Or is this supposed to be a portrayal of how home-schooling slows the development of the child�s social skills?

# ? Mar 23, 2015 06:53

Rosalie_A: Oct 30, 2011

JosephWongKS posted:

Wow, Harry really needs some decent mentors in how to talk to people without coming across as an incredible weirdo at the first encounter. Or is this supposed to be a portrayal of how home-schooling slows the development of the child�s social skills?

As someone who's friends with a guy who was home schooled, I can add a data point that this might be the case.

As someone who has shamefully read the first part of this story and has been following along, I can also add that it's way more likely that the author thinks this is How Society Should Be with intelligent, rational people.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 06:59

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

Remember, Harry has only known about the existence of magic for a week and only knows about Lucius from accosting some bystander at Madam Malkin's robe shop while everyone else was incapacitated with laughter over the Harry and Draco comedy routine. The letter from Lucius reveals the bystander to be Snape.

You don't remember this scene because it happened offscreen and we are only told it happened by Harry in passing.

I would also point out that Yud stopped his formal education at age 12... so the homeschooling comparison is perhaps apropos.

This dialog is pretty amazingly terrible.

i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Mar 23, 2015

# ? Mar 23, 2015 07:42

Sighence: Aug 26, 2009

JosephWongKS posted:

Wow, Harry really needs some decent mentors in how to talk to people without coming across as an incredible weirdo at the first encounter. Or is this supposed to be a portrayal of how home-schooling slows the development of the child’s social skills?

As a home schooled only child, I can say I was never this bad. I was/am a giant nerd, but even the most insular home schooler learns how not to be the worst conversationalist ever.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 19:35

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Seriously, I really want to see some Lesswrong posts on Aristotle. I mean, they have every reason to be :smug:

about how he's a pre-Enlightenment guy who got a vast amount of stuff comically wrong, and yet his scientific method is an ideal fit for Yudkowsky, and HPMOR really does seem to be championing it in practice if not necessarily in theory.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 19:44

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

i81icu812 posted:

I would also point out that Yud stopped his formal education at age 12

What's the story there?

# ? Mar 23, 2015 20:15

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

Ironically, his parents took him out of school so they could lock him in a closet under the stairs.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 20:24

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

Fried Chicken posted:

What's the story there?

Behold. Yudkowsky's autobiography, written in 2000. http://web.archive.org/web/20010205221413/http://sysopmind.com/eliezer.html

Highly recommended reading, very entertaining.

I note that Yud doesn't like people poking fun at his autobiography and doesn't understand fair use. Opening disclaimer is:

quote:

NOTE: I don't want people quoting sections of this page out of context, so, as copyright holder, I specifically deny permission to quote this page in whole or in part. If you want to reproduce so much as a sentence, then please just ask me. Likewise, please do not mirror or duplicate this page.

Therefore I present the relevant quote to answer your question. Thank you modern US copyright laws.

quote:

At the end of seventh grade (14), when I was around eleven and a half, I suddenly lost the ability to handle school. I stopped doing my homework. Instead of going to classes, I would sit in the school office, crying, until my mother picked me up. I am told that I made it through eighth grade and graduation, but I remember little or nothing of it. I don't recall it as a period of intense misery, except when I was actually in the classrooms (15); I do recall it as a period when I spent a lot of time crying.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 20:28

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

i81icu812 posted:

Behold. Yudkowsky's autobiography, written in 2000. http://web.archive.org/web/20010205221413/http://sysopmind.com/eliezer.html

Highly recommended reading, very entertaining.

I note that Yud doesn't like people poking fun at his autobiography and doesn't understand fair use. Opening disclaimer is:

Therefore I present the relevant quote to answer your question. Thank you modern US copyright laws.

You know, I can sort of sympathize. A combination of bullying and difficulty with anxiety issues had roughly the same happen to me when I was that age. The difference is my parents got me a good psychologist (to whom I am eternally grateful) and moved me to a different school (very glad we had the money for that) and I worked it out. Still, having been there, I can at least see how that could happen.

E: Reading further: "I latched onto evolutionary psychology like a starving suction cup." -Sympathy gone.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Mar 23, 2015

# ? Mar 23, 2015 20:33

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

You forget the other big difference: I'm assuming you didn't post your biography online.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 20:58

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

I also didn't, you know, end my formal education at 8th Grade.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 22:00

A3th3r: Jul 27, 2013; success is a dream & achievements are the cream

I feel like the people who get a kick out of Eliezer Yudhowsky's academic antics would like Seth Godin.
http://www.yourturn.link/
Don't they just seem like they are cut from the same cloth?

# ? Mar 23, 2015 23:34

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

A3th3r posted:

I feel like the people who get a kick out of Eliezer Yudhowsky's academic antics would like Seth Godin.
http://www.yourturn.link/
Don't they just seem like they are cut from the same cloth?

Well, aside from the fact that Godin has a Stanford MBA and is a successful entrepreneur. And his educaitonal background doesn't look like this:

quote:

In second grade, I was shocked to learn that my math teacher didn't know what a logarithm was. (Not to give you the wrong impression, at the time, I didn't know what an "exponent" was. My parents called them logarithms, so that's what they were.) I permanently lost all respect for my teachers, and for the entire institution of school, and started pleading to be taken out. My parents told me that I had to go to school, even if I wasn't learning, to learn how to interact with the other kids. I said that if that was the case, they should send me to a specialized institution for learning how to interact with other kids, because I certainly wasn't learning any social skills in school. (4). In retrospect, I would still have to say that I was right about this (5).

It was during second grade that I bit a teacher. But it was just the one time.

In third grade, things continued onward in the same old pattern. I didn't interact much with the other kids, but I was the class genius, and I was always in trouble with the school authorities, so nobody picked on me, except for individual-to-individual teasing.

I continued reading adult-level books. It was in fourth grade, at the age of nine, that I read Richard Feynman's QED. (And, may I note, understood most of it.) At the time, I thought I would grow up to be a physicist. Dad was a physicist; I'd liked reading QED and the physics books I'd gotten hold of before that; I liked knowing what a quark was (one of only two fourth graders to do so); therefore, my default assumption was that I would be a physicist.

It was also at the age of nine that I tried to write a science-fiction novel, producing sixty pages of appalling garbage (6) which I recently managed to find on an old floppy disk. (My other computer files - all my old school papers, and so on - were lost when my father accidentally destroyed them. No backups. I can still feel the hole.)

In fifth grade, my parents first tried out the concept of accelerated classes; I took a sixth grade math course. It wasn't any different from previous math courses, in the sense of being yet another review of knowledge I'd had since first grade, but I supposed it was better than nothing. So, next year, my parents agreed to let me skip sixth grade and go directly to seventh. I was enthusiastic about the idea because it'd get me out a year earlier; also, I had three friends in that grade.

In seventh grade, the other kids picked on me, which was a new experience. They didn't know me, and they didn't know better, and - unlike kids my own age - I couldn't hold my own against them in a fight. But for the first few months, I managed.

Also in seventh grade, I learned about the concept of rising and falling tension, and realized what was wrong with my fourth-grade novel; it didn't have a plot. This is literally the only significant thing I learned in school, from pre-nursery to eighth grade. Was it worth ten years? No.

EDIT

Things directly from Yud's bio appearing in HPMoR:
-Physicist father
-Bit teacher
-Screwed up sleep cycle
-Homeschooled
-Bitter about gifted children's math testing

Recommend reading the bio, particularly section 4.6: What's it like to be you? in the strongest possible terms. http://web.archive.org/web/20010205221413/http://sysopmind.com/eliezer.html

Opening paragraph:

quote:

I am sufficiently intelligent to have completely avoided most or all of the pitfalls of youth, and I've cleaned enough dirt out of my mind that the thought of living in a completely open telepathic society doesn't disturb me. And yet I still fall short of moral perfection, because I have far less mental energy than an ordinary human.

i81icu812 fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Mar 23, 2015

# ? Mar 23, 2015 23:45

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

It isn't surprising to me that he's a poor learner. Man seems like the mental equivalent of a picky eater. "If it's not precisely the thing I already told myself I wanted to learn and that I can learn easily, it's not worth learning." is a depressing attitude to have.

# ? Mar 23, 2015 23:54

Loel: Jun 4, 2012; "For the Emperor."

There was a terrible noise.
There was a terrible silence.

Weird, its like reading my mentality when I was 12. 'I'm smarter then you and I know it, but if it takes effort I don't want to show it.'

I can't find the article, but there is a school of thought in which telling kids they are smart actually does harm, as opposed to saying they worked hard. If they find something hard, they think its cuz they aren't smart (which is the source of their validation), so they avoid it. If they are told they succeed through work, they think they just need to work harder to understand the material.

He seems... oddly underdeveloped in a lot of ways.

# ? Mar 24, 2015 00:06

i81icu812: Dec 5, 2006

LowellDND posted:

Weird, its like reading my mentality when I was 12. 'I'm smarter then you and I know it, but if it takes effort I don't want to show it.'

I can't find the article, but there is a school of thought in which telling kids they are smart actually does harm, as opposed to saying they worked hard. If they find something hard, they think its cuz they aren't smart (which is the source of their validation), so they avoid it. If they are told they succeed through work, they think they just need to work harder to understand the material.

He seems... oddly underdeveloped in a lot of ways.

Right. But that was him as a 21 year old, not a 12 year old. Incidentally the page was up for under a year before Yud had a fit after someone quoted it and took it down.

# ? Mar 24, 2015 00:18

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

LowellDND posted:

Weird, its like reading my mentality when I was 12. 'I'm smarter then you and I know it, but if it takes effort I don't want to show it.'

I can't find the article, but there is a school of thought in which telling kids they are smart actually does harm, as opposed to saying they worked hard. If they find something hard, they think its cuz they aren't smart (which is the source of their validation), so they avoid it. If they are told they succeed through work, they think they just need to work harder to understand the material.

He seems... oddly underdeveloped in a lot of ways.

This is me IRL.

# ? Mar 24, 2015 00:29

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

i81icu812 posted:

Well, aside from the fact that Godin has a Stanford MBA and is a successful entrepreneur. And his educaitonal background doesn't look like this:

EDIT

Things directly from Yud's bio appearing in HPMoR:
-Physicist father
-Bit teacher
-Screwed up sleep cycle
-Homeschooled
-Bitter about gifted children's math testing

Recommend reading the bio, particularly section 4.6: What's it like to be you? in the strongest possible terms. http://web.archive.org/web/20010205221413/http://sysopmind.com/eliezer.html

Opening paragraph:

Well I was expecting something weird and arrogant based off everything else, but instead that's really sad. I dunno, I can recognize the pain there, but at a certain point you need to rise above and not be a complete poo poo like he is as an adult

LowellDND posted:

Weird, its like reading my mentality when I was 12. 'I'm smarter then you and I know it, but if it takes effort I don't want to show it.'

I can't find the article, but there is a school of thought in which telling kids they are smart actually does harm, as opposed to saying they worked hard. If they find something hard, they think its cuz they aren't smart (which is the source of their validation), so they avoid it. If they are told they succeed through work, they think they just need to work harder to understand the material.

He seems... oddly underdeveloped in a lot of ways.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids1/

# ? Mar 24, 2015 00:46

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# ? May 17, 2024 01:12

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

I haven't done the "list of glowing reviews" for the past couple of chapters, but I think it's worth doing for Chapter 7.

quote:

kimchi759 chapter 7 . Nov 4, 2014

Thoughts: I was saddened and a bit irritated by Harry referring to Lily as "your sister" when reassuring Petunia. Lily did not "let" magic get between them, Petunia pushed her away due th ejealousy she herself addressed earlier. I just found myself taking offense to not that scene, but rather the words you used. Petunia and Michael have an amusing relationship with our protagonist. I understood what you meant by anvils when you nixed Ron as a main character.

I laughed, then frowned, then was upset/horrified/furious, then was mollified, then was fascinated by Draco's nonchalant rape suggestion and the deductions that followed. Mad giggles escaped me when I read your Darth Vader reference. Every event that resulted from drinking the Comed-tea had me, at the very least, looking like the Chesire Cat, except for the "Orde rof Chaos" one, which I'm sad to say I didn't understand. Lastly, the game of psychological manipulations between the two boys was absolutely fantastic and extremely fun to read.

quote:

ladydanni chapter 7 . Jul 22, 2014

Wow. That's powerful. I would never expect a child to brazenly say they could rape someone and mean it. It cut through all through everything.
This Harry brilliant.

quote:

G Fawkes chapter 7 . Dec 31, 2013

OK, "as soon as I'm old enough, I'm going to rape her!", is just so deliciously WRONG (!) . (sick bastard! they are eleven!)

I gotta go and try to sleep, now. Good thing I had just peed BEFORE I read that... really... I was crying and (attempting) to not laugh out loud for, like, a minute.
_

Is the hot girl in the add for the bridal dresses, next to this box, SUPPOSED to look like Hermione?! (if that was intentional... Well done!)

quote:

cross-over-lover232 chapter 7 . Aug 15, 2013

ahh...Luna and Harry, this should provide some fun!

Also, what if Luna became pregent from the rape? surely the purebloods have a spell or potion, to prevent line theft?

quote:

Kendra chapter 7 . Jun 8, 2012
Firstly, I wish to submit one heartfelt AAAAAAAAAGHH about the person whispering Hermione's name at the end of last chapter. What the frak.

I think you might want to make the play on words clearer in the sentence "Magic ran in families, and Michael Verres-Evans couldn't even walk." Took me three puzzled rereadings the first time to get that - illusion of transparency, y'know.

This might be the only story I've read with Ron-is-stupid character bashing that actually works. He's not *that* stupid, certainly not as much as most bashers portray, but he's just so very far out of MOR-Harry's league that he doesn't fit any more. So, um, props for what should be a serious fault and actually isn't.

I find it odd that perpetually curious Harry has managed to not inquire after "*the best pet story ever*" in seventy-eight chapters. Plot reasons, I'm guessing, possibly relating to "the best way to escape Azkaban is not to be there," but it's rather interesting.

Harry thinking that Lucius was going to "c-crucify" Draco is an oddly specific idea of punishment. (The stuttering is odd, unless he's LastSecondWordSwap-ing something I don't get.)

I'm one of those people who actually understand what you were going for with the rape thing. There's really no better way to convey "vastly different value system where this kid is *not* a psychopath" - witness the varied attempts of the current Reddit thread. I get why people ragequit over this, but it makes narrative sense to me.

I know I'm supposed to be finding the bad parts here, but I've got to compliment the Muggles-on-the-moon scene. *Awesome*.

quote:

cherapin chapter 7 . May 4, 2012

The horror of the world of children - it's been long since I thought upon it. Casual talk of rape and murder is a cold reality that children must include in sense-making, and it hurts to recall the context around such chatter.

Now, on to the criticism: thank you, author, for taking the time in this long conversation to inject me, your reader, with this barium of cold reality so I may watch the screen as it courses through my circulatory system and highlights the cancerous cells that remain, undiagnosed and untreated, from my mid-childhood. I would curse you for requiring such introspection within mere fan-fic, but that's the nature of cruel writing, isn't it? I wander in seeking entertainment and find a mirror that reveals not only physical maladies but social and psychological issues I have yet to settle with parents, siblings and a 'friend' or two. Again, thanks.

quote:

Katy Williams chapter 7 . Jul 8, 2011

Marry me?

(I thought there was an error at one point - 'Has Harry actually heard of/does he know what the Imperius curse is, before he uses it in his example to illustrate to Draco what science is/does? But, then, I do believe he's heard of it; it was mentioned in reference to Lucius, saying his allegiance to Voldemort was due to having been cursed. Carry on, and jolly well done!

Oh, and you needn't marry me - I'm not in immanent peril of being raped by a Malfoy, to the best of my knowledge - but that *would* help explain to everyone around me while I was reading the first several chapters just why I was laughing out loud with such irregularity. And squirming, too, actually.)

Thanks much for this wonderful story - and the LessWrong site, too, if you're more than passingly affiliated with it,

k

quote:

iphis15 chapter 7 . May 1, 2011

I think that there is something severely wrong with me. This hypothesis is based on the fact that I found a conversation about rape versus murder amusing. In the extreme.

If this is not my fault, then I blame Society.

Mademise Morte

quote:

Lucille chapter 7 . Jul 27, 2010

"As soon as I'm old enough to get an erection I'm going to rape that bitch."

I think I just died.

# ? Mar 24, 2015 01:32

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

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