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Even if immortality could be granted to everyone, not everyone could be guaranteed to receive nor desire it. Anti-vaccers are proof of that. Death is actually p good. Think of the Grim Reaper as ribbed (lol) for her pleasure. It enhances the life experience.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 03:28 |
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# ? May 19, 2024 12:45 |
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Milky Moor posted:Don't ask how society changing would alter things that are actually finite like, say, living space, and let's not get started on things it'd exacerbate like anthropogenic climate change and resource consumption. And the generational shift from when people die? No, wouldn't happen. Democracies of the eternal voter wouldn't result in any problems. Milky Moor posted:More importantly, people getting really mad about the existence of death as a concept wouldn't get even more weirdly Goonish about it when death becomes rarer, assuming the immortality isn't perfect immortality. "If you argue that it is inevitable for robot-body hard drives to crash, then you're arguing pro-death! PRO-DEATHER!" Milky Moor posted:If we lived for two-hundred years or five-hundred or a thousand and if death only came from violence or Super AIDS, it'd still be a mark of immaturity to argue that anyone who accepts death as a concept is pro-death. ungulateman posted:death is bad, which is why we should take the million of dollars yudkowsky wants and invest it in basic healthcare and food/water for the multiple billions of people who still need it, rather than making rich white nerds live forever
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 05:35 |
Tiggum posted:This argument works on literally anything. All you're saying is "progress is bad because bad things might happen and maybe we wouldn't be able to come up with solutions." You remind me of an old man I used to talk with. He was adamant that no matter how bad it got, no matter how much of the permafrost was melted away, no matter how many species went extinct, no matter how much of the oceans were acidified, that "someone, somewhere" was going to develop a golden bullet to fix and even reverse climate change because that's what science does. Like scientists are wizards who will pull humanity from the brink. Same thing here. 'If we all become immortal, society will magically create a solution'. There's this idea that scientists can just magic up utopian strong immortality if enough people believe in it and you're an idiot to argue that it 1. might not be possible and 2. even if it was, there are huge other factors to think about. What, you're so worried about dying and being remembered only as SA Poster Tiggum that you need to get this vehement over it? It's weird! Come up with a solution, then, if I'm being so obstinate and my objections are so obvious. What do you do when people don't die? Let's assume the world up is made up of people who hit their prime and stop aging (let's say 25) and our medical technology has advanced to such an extent that even grievous wounds can be healed immediately and all sickness is a thing of the past, which seems to be the world some posters in this thread will expect to magically happen because it is "progress". As I said, accepting the possibility of death is the sign of a mature person. It's a sign of the immature person that equating someone accepting death as a part of life is arguing for death. It's a very surreal thing to see people insisting that immortality - something that'd utterly alter human nature to an extent that it'd dwarf any other discovery in human history - would just be something like the telephone. Oh, people will just adapt. We'll figure out a "solution" to this, because we believe in the deified Science. We will slay the dragon named death with the weapons granted to us by Science, and I hope no one wonders what it reveals about the author's insecurities that they wrote death up as a terrifying beast that eats people at random. Let me know when they cure entropy, human nature, fix up things so our planet can support the people we have even now, implement progressive social welfare to account for the conditions we're facing with the labor market right now, find some new way of accounting for the generational culture shift that arises from old people at the top dying, and, while we're at it, create some kind of working FTL engine so we can spread our numerous trillions out across the stars and I'll start taking the claims of people who get so hysterical about dying somewhat more seriously. As it is, it's watching like watching people seriously consider a magic bullet that'll end all of society's woes, because that's the root of all evil: people get old and die, people get sick and die, people die and no one's going to remember me. Really, what is this than another form of the Singularity Will Address All Our Issues forever that people adored in the 90s? It's bullshit future-fetishism and to laugh at someone like Yud, despite him being a total idiot, and then turn around and go "Actually, if you argue against immortality you're an idiot" is like the height of irony. edit: haha guys, that Yud and his thanatophobia - but if you don't argue for the immortality cornucopia you actually want to murder people and are a pro-deather who doesn't believe in science like me, the rational goon Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 06:50 |
Milky Moor posted:You remind me of an old man I used to talk with. He was adamant that no matter how bad it got, no matter how much of the permafrost was melted away, no matter how many species went extinct, no matter how much of the oceans were acidified, that "someone, somewhere" was going to develop a golden bullet to fix and even reverse climate change because that's what science does. Like scientists are wizards who will pull humanity from the brink. you're the one being bizarrely vehement hth
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 06:53 |
Jazerus posted:you're the one being bizarrely vehement hth
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 06:55 |
it's the tone mostly, it makes it seem like you think you're arguing against a childish yud-like position that worships science without understanding it at all. also the personal insults are weird. like obviously life extension presents tremendous societal challenges. we're definitely not guaranteed to navigate them in a way that isn't full of suffering. significant life extension is, however, inevitable. medical immortality in the sense of being effectively unable to die unless severely injured or cut off from civilization for a prolonged period is plausible. as a species these are things we've got to consider and try to plan for in some way.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 07:06 |
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No one is arguing for But don't let that stop you from proclaiming your superior maturity, and projecting your specific fears of death onto others.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 07:08 |
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And on a more snide note, perhaps granting rich white guys immortality would be how we can make them give a poo poo about the fate of the planet.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 07:12 |
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Milky Moor posted:Same thing here. 'If we all become immortal, society will magically create a solution'. There's this idea that scientists can just magic up utopian strong immortality if enough people believe in it and you're an idiot to argue that it 1. might not be possible and 2. even if it was, there are huge other factors to think about. What, you're so worried about dying and being remembered only as SA Poster Tiggum that you need to get this vehement over it? It's weird! Milky Moor posted:As I said, accepting the possibility of death is the sign of a mature person.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 08:22 |
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Tiggum posted:I don't know where you're getting this "magic solution" idea from because no one (not even Yudkowsky) is suggesting that that will be a thing. Yud totally does, it's one of the fundamental tenets of his organization. Both that it will magically happen (better software/ai makes it progressively easier to make even better software/ai -> at some point "the AI goes foom" as the graph asymptotes), and that it will magically solve everything (a god-AI able to reason from first principles the best solution for absolutely everything, and able to manipulate humans into carrying out its plans). He imagines their role as ensuring that this AI god comes to pass, and that it is "friendly". Telarra fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Apr 10, 2017 |
# ? Apr 10, 2017 08:37 |
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Jazerus posted:it's the tone mostly, it makes it seem like you think you're arguing against a child I mean, he's arguing with Tiggum, so... Tiggum posted:
Case in point; Yud believes that sufficiently powerful AI will overcome thermodynamics, so the heat death of the universe is not an endpoint for his hyperimmortality afterlife
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 09:10 |
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Tunicate posted:Case in point; Yud believes that sufficiently powerful AI will overcome thermodynamics, so the heat death of the universe is not an endpoint for his hyperimmortality afterlife It will also overcome entropy, so he can see his father again.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 09:17 |
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Xander77 posted:This is a relatively interesting point of view I have not encountered in the past. It's just Yud's usual shtick. He's of the breed of transhumanist like Peter Thiel that's terrified of getting old and the nature of mortality. The idea that his precious consciousness might someday not exist keeps him up at night... just not enough to actually do any real AI research. Pvt.Scott posted:Even if immortality could be granted to everyone, not everyone could be guaranteed to receive nor desire it. Anti-vaccers are proof of that. Hell, maybe I'm in the minority, but I look forward to death. Eventually, everything I know and love will be gone or changed beyond all recognition, and I won't want to engage with a world I can't understand in a body that's failing me anymore.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 09:30 |
Tiggum posted:It's not about not accepting the possibility of death, it's about not accepting the inevitability of death. Saying that death is actually good and necessary implies that there is a good and right time to die. If so, when is it? What's the cut-off age at which we no longer offer medial care? When do you want to die? Death is inevitable, though? You are going to die. Everyone you know is going to die. Whether that's tomorrow in a freak car accident, in ten years from heart disease, in sixty in your sleep, or a hundred when a hard drive consciousness backup fails, a thousand when a freak Gamma Ray burst takes out the Earth, a few million when the Sun goes nova... Everything dies. Even if we had 99.99% perfect hard drive backups, like you raised earlier, that's still 0.01% of people who are going to 'die'. And, given enough time, all things resolve to one. Sure, if you think we're going to solve the laws of physics to render death no longer inevitable then, okay, whatever, I guess we'll say death is no longer inevitable. But at that point you're indulging in fantasy, not hoping for any real sort of conversation or dialogue. Pretty weak 'gotcha' questions, though. Again, like I said, apparently if you accept death, you either want to kill people or want to die yourself. It's just as ridiculous as Yud's notion that if you believe in the afterlife you should kill people.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 15:48 |
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Milky Moor posted:Death is inevitable, though? If the heat death of the universe is due in ten minutes and I still can't think of anything to fix it then I will accept that my death is probably inevitable
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 16:08 |
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Even if you cured all sickness and disease and aging people would still be dying all the time from accidents.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 16:19 |
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This is a weird convo to have in a series where the first book ends with a guy taking the secret to guilt free immortality to the grave and Dumbledore just kinda says "living forever is a silly human wish"
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 16:44 |
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Death Bot posted:This is a weird convo to have in a series where the first book ends with a guy taking the secret to guilt free immortality to the grave and Dumbledore just kinda says "living forever is a silly human wish" Yeah uh, I didn't realize "death being inevitable is a theme of the series" (I'd even expand that to include "also, death sometimes happens, and that's okay") and "dude and his cult seem terrified of the idea they might one day die" would be such controversial statements.
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 17:43 |
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Death Bot posted:This is a weird convo to have in a series where the first book ends with a guy taking the secret to guilt free immortality to the grave and Dumbledore just kinda says "living forever is a silly human wish" Perplexing indeed, this deviation from the original. Why, at this rate I'm beginning to suspect that in HPMOR Voldemort isn't defeated by the power of love either!
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 18:29 |
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NihilCredo posted:Perplexing indeed, this deviation from the original. Why, at this rate I'm beginning to suspect that in HPMOR Voldemort isn't defeated by the power of love either! I mean I know this is nothing new but it is constantly surprising to me the amount of work put into this even though the author hasn't read the books, doesn't know much about them, doesn't understand and even doesn't agree with the morals put forward, and on top of that doesn't seem to particularly like the setting or the characters at all? Really the whole "death is inevitable" theme in the books does feel a little weak with the first Macguffin in the series being a direct refutation. Having a guy who actually knows a guilt-free path to immortality decide to keep that to himself and take it to the grave is a little wild
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# ? Apr 10, 2017 19:10 |
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21 Muns posted:I genuinely recommend that if this thread ever finishes Methods Of Rationality, it moves onto "Ginny Weasley And The Sealed Intelligence". It appears to be sucking Methods' cock at first but gradually reveals itself as a Christian tract wherein 90s Cringe Rock posted:I'd read that if it had some sick big yud burns and was 9700 words long. I'm not quite stupid enough to read 97000 words of it though. The story. It's written to fanfic density (9700 words' substance in 97000), so you can skim real fast. The conceit is that Ginny is a Christian. The first several chapters could be any HP fic, chapter 8 is when it starts taking the piss. It was one of the first HPMOR spinoffs after its completion, and the rationalists were not very happy. The comments are a delight. "Re-read MoR again, but pay attention this time. Then read the supplemental materials that the author linked to." You can live without reading it (unlike e.g. Harry Potter Becomes A Communist, which is mandatory) but if you're in this thread it may amuse. divabot fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Apr 10, 2017 |
# ? Apr 10, 2017 21:04 |
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Milky Moor posted:Death is inevitable, though? You can acknowledge that death is extremely likely without going to the crazy extreme of accepting it as inevitable. If you think death's inevitable then you may as well just kill yourself right now, there's no point in prolonging it.
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 07:04 |
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You should just accept death if the alternative is hoping Science invents magic.
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 07:16 |
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Death Bot posted:I mean I know this is nothing new but it is constantly surprising to me the amount of work put into this even though the author hasn't read the books, doesn't know much about them, doesn't understand and even doesn't agree with the morals put forward, and on top of that doesn't seem to particularly like the setting or the characters at all?
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 07:19 |
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There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with a theme of a series, and in fact I would consider "fanfiction as a way to explore your philosophical disagreement with a theme of a series" about as literary as fanfiction can get. Big Yud is clearly bad at it but all this "heh clearly he doesn't GET the series " is dumb as gently caress.
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 07:35 |
Tiggum posted:You can acknowledge that death is extremely likely without going to the crazy extreme of accepting it as inevitable. If you think death's inevitable then you may as well just kill yourself right now, there's no point in prolonging it. Who gave Harry Potter an account?
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 07:46 |
I exercise 2-3 times a week and eat as healthy as I can and I can safely say that doing it out of 'not wanting to die' has never entered my thought process. I'm not Chris Traeger. Doing it because it means I might enjoy a better, longer life at my prime? Sure. Doing it because it makes me look better? Okay. Doing it because it makes me feel better? Yeah. But that's the thing, Tiggums. You don't understand that extending age/lifespan isn't extending healthspan isn't immortality. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 07:51 |
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reignonyourparade posted:There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with a theme of a series, and in fact I would consider "fanfiction as a way to explore your philosophical disagreement with a theme of a series" about as literary as fanfiction can get. Big Yud is clearly bad at it but all this "heh clearly he doesn't GET the series " is dumb as gently caress. He didn't bother to read the final 4 books before starting to write the series (and instead relied on the movies and fanfic), I think it's safe to mock him for not getting it. E: Troper Yud posted:So... that line about Did Not Do The Research hurts a bit. I tried to read the later books after Prisoner Of Azkaban, I just couldn't make my brain to it. The problem might have been that I already knew the plot from having read fanfiction and seen the movie, and that took out the tension. Or it could just be that the series lost whatever mysterious factor made it fun for me personally to read before then. The point is, I tried to read it, and when I couldn't, I read the Harry Potter Wikia and did the research as best I could. I admit that I made a mistake with Snape, and now that I know what it was, and look back at the Wikia entry on him, I don't even know how I got the impression that Snape was Lily's boyfriend... but I did read it and managed to keep the misapprehension anyway. If there's some kind of appropriate trope for that sort of dumb screwup, I guess I deserve it... Deathly Hallow is too childish for me to enjoy, now watch me write a million word long Ender's Game / Harry Potter mashup. Doctor Spaceman fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Apr 11, 2017 |
# ? Apr 11, 2017 08:01 |
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Don't need to read the final four books when it's right there in book one. He even makes a decent explanation of it from Dumbledore's viewpoint here! I really don't see how you can think he doesn't get it, he just disagrees. He is in fact, bad at what he wants to do, but that doesn't mean its wrong to do it all.
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 08:08 |
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Chapter 40: Pretending to be Wise, Pt 2 Harriezer is having fancy Oriental (entirely intentional word choice) tea with Quirrelmort. quote:The tea itself was something whose name Harry couldn't even pronounce, or at least, every time Harry had tried to repeat the Chinese words, Professor Quirrell had corrected him, until finally Harry had given up. quote:"Lord Malfoy is Albus Dumbledore's opponent," said Professor Quirrell. "At least for this present time. All Britain is their chessboard, all wizards their pieces. quote:Consider: Lord Malfoy threatened to throw away everything, abandon his game, to take vengeance on you if Mr. Malfoy was hurt. In which case, Mr. Potter...?" quote:"The Headmaster can be very persuasive, Mr. Potter. I hope he has not persuaded you." quote:"One last question," Harry said, as Professor Quirrell's coat lifted itself off the coatrack and went floating toward the Defense Professor. "Magic is loose in the world, and I no longer trust my guesses so much as I once did. So in your own best guess and without any wishful thinking, do you believe there's an afterlife?"
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# ? Apr 11, 2017 08:33 |
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Tiggum posted:Just because something appears to be inevitable doesn't mean you shouldn't try to stop it. Maybe we can't stop it, but neither you nor I nor anyone else knows that for a fact, and it is a crazy radical idea to say that we shouldn't be trying. It's basically the whole purpose of medicine. There's stuff like palliative care and cosmetic surgery that's not about keeping people alive, but the vast majority of medicine is about staying healthy, ie. holding off death. Why do we worry about diet and exercise and not smoking and making safer cars and so many other things? Because we don't want to die. As for the latter paragraph, that's loving dumb and really needs no refutation because it's just...loving dumb. We can accept that something is inevitable but can be delayed andthat acceptance of the first is good but efforts to delay it can also be good. I don't see how that's a contradiction at all.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 14:08 |
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Ravenfood posted:No, we do all ofthat so that we can live well. I've been in a position to talk to people about their wishes at the end of life, or their family's, and there are huge numbers of people who chose to let their loved ones or themselves die based on their expected quality of life despite the technical ability to keep them alive. I think there's a difference between accepting that death is inevitable in our current situation and accepting that death is cosmically inevitable. The odds that your grandpa with a terminal illness can be prevented from dying are about nil, but accepting that doesn't mean accepting that that's the ultimate destiny of everyone. Even a lot of important world religions satiate the natural human desire to live forever; they just do so with supernatural aid that even works after you're dead. Eliezer Yudkowsky thinks Christians don't really expect to live forever, but I don't think a devout Christian would agree with him at all. "Here's how you can live forever" is one of the most common pitches religions make.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 18:37 |
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It's remarkably Yud-esque to turn around from the common atheist argument of "you can't actually picture forever, and it would get hella boring anyways" to "yeah, when I say I want to live forever, I mean forever" without any segue or awareness of the contradiction involved.
Xander77 fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Apr 16, 2017 |
# ? Apr 16, 2017 13:51 |
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21 Muns posted:I think there's a difference between accepting that death is inevitable in our current situation and accepting that death is cosmically inevitable. The odds that your grandpa with a terminal illness can be prevented from dying are about nil, but accepting that doesn't mean accepting that that's the ultimate destiny of everyone. Either here's how to live forever, or you have lived forever and will continue doing so, this is just a brief stop that determines the next leg of your journey. It's not really incorrect do a Christian to hold the view that the spirit of a particular human has existed from Creation. He knew you before you were conceived, after all. It's just lovely that you only get one blind stumbling chance out of eternity to make the right choices in the Christian mythos. Some rare few have no real concept of time beyond a couple generations back, though. You didn't see it, nobody you know saw it and same goes for your parents and grandparents, so it doesn't exist. The future extends about as far, conceptually. Eternity has no purpose there.
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# ? Apr 17, 2017 03:52 |
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Chapter 41: Frontal Overridequote:A sudden gust made Draco flinch, and try, impossibly, to press his body even closer to the stone, which felt like ice and smelled like ice. Some utterly pointless instinct seemed convinced that he was about to be blown off the outer wall of Hogwarts, and that the best way to prevent this was to jerk around in helpless reflex and possibly throw up. quote:Despite the surprised protests of both generals, the soldiers of the combined army had insisted on calling themselves Dramione's Sungon Argiment, and produced patches for their insignia of a smiling face wreathed in flames. They corner Harriezer, and he leaps out the window. quote:It had developed that, yesterday, Harry had carefully demonstrated to Granger exactly how to Transfigure the gloves he was currently wearing, which used something called 'gecko setae'; and how to glue Transfigured patches of the same material to the toes of their shoes; and Harry and Granger had, in innocent childish play, tried climbing around the walls and ceiling a little quote:And that, also yesterday, Harry had supplied Granger with a grand total of exactly two doses of Feather-Falling Potion to carry around in her pouch, "just in case". quote:"Draco," whispered Granger's voice, and Draco looked down. quote:It was taking a bit of an effort for Daphne Greengrass to keep herself quiet, as Millicent Bulstrode retold the story in the Slytherin girls' common room (a cozy cool place in the dungeons running beneath the Hogwarts Lake, with fish swimming past every window, and couches you could lie down in if you wanted). Mostly because, in Daphne's opinion, it was a perfectly good story already without all of Millicent's improvements. (Ok, I'm enough of a goon to groan appreciatively at "heir of Slipperin") quote:"I, ah... I don't have much experience apologizing, I'll fall to my knees if you want, or buy you something expensive, Hermione I don't know how to apologize to you for this what can I do just tell me? " I'll sound as a broken record here for a moment - who here is optimistic enough to assume that the plot thread regarding Hermione and Draco ever amounts to anything?
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# ? Apr 20, 2017 11:28 |
Xander77 posted:I'll sound as a broken record here for a moment - who here is optimistic enough to assume that the plot thread regarding Hermione and Draco ever amounts to anything? I had checked out before this point when I stumbled on it myself. Does it really go nowhere?
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# ? Apr 20, 2017 17:20 |
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Cavelcade posted:I had checked out before this point when I stumbled on it myself.
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# ? Apr 20, 2017 18:37 |
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Still doing this. Update... soon. Meanwhile, if you're into writeups of artistically bankrupt morons with terrible political opinions, you may want to check out my Profiles in political cartooning and / or Ted Rall's "My war with Brian". Xander77 fucked around with this message at 14:03 on May 4, 2017 |
# ? May 3, 2017 06:08 |
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Is it possible in theory for someone to have an interaction with Ted Rall in which he's not an rear end in a top hat. (a: doubtful)
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# ? May 3, 2017 20:41 |
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# ? May 19, 2024 12:45 |
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Chapter 42: Couragequote:"Romantic? " Hermione said. "They're both boys! " quote:She'd kept on reading quietly, and Harry Potter had kept on trying to apologize, and it had soon dawned on Hermione that Harry had realized, possibly for the first time in his life, that he'd done something annoying; and that Harry, definitely for the first time in his life, was terrified that he'd lost her as a friend; and she'd started to feel (a) guilty and (b) worried about the direction Harry's increasingly desperate offers were going. But she still had no idea what sort of apology was appropriate, so she'd said that the Ravenclaw girls should vote on it - and this time she wouldn't fix the outcome, though she hadn't mentioned that part - to which Harry had instantly agreed. quote:Harry's other hand held the roof in a reflexively terrified grip, his fingers white on the cold, cold stone. quote:"I should have foreseen it myself," Professor Quirrell said, his voice crisp with disapproval. "Some number of girls tried to summon Mr. Potter to their own, particular arms. Individually, I suppose, they all thought they were being gentle." quote:"Consider it a lesson in preparedness, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell. "Had I not insisted that there be more than one adult witness to this little event, and that both of us have our wands out, Mr. Lupin would not have been available to slow your fall afterward, and you would have been gravely injured." quote:Lupin's temporary office was a small stone room with a small wooden desk, and Harry couldn't see anything of what Mr. Lupin was sitting on, suggesting that it was a small stool just like the one in front of his desk. Harry guessed that Mr. Lupin wouldn't be at Hogwarts for long, or use this office much, and so he'd told the house elves not to waste the effort. It said something about a person that he tried not to bother house elves. Specifically, it said that he'd been Sorted into Hufflepuff, since, to the best of Harry's knowledge, Hermione was the only non-Hufflepuff who worried about bothering house elves. quote:(Harry himself thought her qualms rather silly. Whoever had created house elves in the first place had been unspeakably evil, obviously; but that didn't mean Hermione was doing the right thing now by denying sentient beings the drudgery they had been shaped to enjoy.) quote:"What about my..." Harry searched for a word that didn't raise them higher or put them lower... "other parents? I want to know, well, everything." quote:"It was the thing to do if you were in Gryffindor," Remus said, slowly, reluctantly. "And... I didn't think so back then, I thought it was the other way around, but... it might have been Black who got James into it, really... Black wanted so much to show everyone that he was against Slytherin, you see, we all wanted to believe that blood wasn't destiny -"
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# ? May 8, 2017 08:45 |