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

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Jazerus: May 24, 2011

NihilCredo posted:

Why are you giving the author so much credit? It's obviously just Big Yud making a really loving terrible analogy because he's a drooling moron.

Seriously, where could you possibly have gotten the idea that Quirrell could be misdirecting here?

it was a joke, yud gets no credit

even if quirrell is misdirecting he gets no credit

Jazerus fucked around with this message at 11:52 on May 17, 2018

# ? May 17, 2018 11:50

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# ? May 18, 2024 04:02

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Xander77 posted:

As an aside - is there anything in cannon to support the notion that SS himself and Slytherin house were ever anything but a bunch of KKK rip-offs? That is, was there anything to be "corrupted" from to begin with?

Slytherin himself seems to have basically agreed with the other founders of Hogwarts except on the issue of Muggle-borns being allowed in. So the "blood purity" thing was in there right from the beginning, but it's not the only thing Slytherin cared about and it stopped being an official criterion when he left. Otherwise the house basically favours leadership traits. Basically he wanted to foster strong leaders for the magical community and he just happened to think that "pure blood" was one of the things a good leader needed. Also, there are several canon examples of good guys who are/were in Slytherin and bad guys who aren't/weren't.

# ? May 17, 2018 12:51

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

Tiggum posted:

Slytherin himself seems to have basically agreed with the other founders of Hogwarts except on the issue of Muggle-borns being allowed in. So the "blood purity" thing was in there right from the beginning, but it's not the only thing Slytherin cared about and it stopped being an official criterion when he left. Otherwise the house basically favours leadership traits. Basically he wanted to foster strong leaders for the magical community and he just happened to think that "pure blood" was one of the things a good leader needed. Also, there are several canon examples of good guys who are/were in Slytherin and bad guys who aren't/weren't.

Death Eaters are just ideologically radicalized wizards.

# ? May 17, 2018 13:29

reignonyourparade: Nov 15, 2012

Canonically I'm actually pretty sure ravenclaw churns out the most dark wizards under circumstances where you don't have terrorists actively recruiting.

Which, given that a lot of dark magic seems to be actively corruptive, kind of makes sense, the 'can't stand not knowing something' house decides THEY won't get corrupted by the corruptive magic. They do.

# ? May 17, 2018 18:26

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

Tiggum posted:

Slytherin himself seems to have basically agreed with the other founders of Hogwarts except on the issue of Muggle-borns being allowed in. So the "blood purity" thing was in there right from the beginning, but it's not the only thing Slytherin cared about and it stopped being an official criterion when he left. Otherwise the house basically favours leadership traits. Basically he wanted to foster strong leaders for the magical community and he just happened to think that "pure blood" was one of the things a good leader needed. Also, there are several canon examples of good guys who are/were in Slytherin and bad guys who aren't/weren't.

So, Wizard KKK from the start, then.

# ? May 17, 2018 19:19

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; коммунизм хранится в яичках

Night10194 posted:

So, Wizard KKK from the start, then.

Less 'Wizard KKK' and more 'secretive wizard circa the 10th Century'. Hogwarts was founded before the Battle of Hastings.

Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 22:41 on May 17, 2018

# ? May 17, 2018 22:22

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Tiggum posted:

This is really dumb. People know how to write. People know what it takes. There's even extensive analysis of what makes books good or bad.

He's not exactly wrong when he says that knowing all those things is not the same thing as being a good writer, though. You can know everything there is to know about writing in a technical sense and still be a garbage writer, because writing is an art, not a science. Technical competence and not having a single creative bone in your entire body is not mutually incompatible, any more than completing a Paint By Numbers picture turns you into Picasso. There's an inexpressible something required for creating true art that the philosophy of aesthetics has been arguing about for as long as the concept of art has existed.

It's not as easy as saying that if you know everything there is to know about a certain type of art then you will be a good artist as well. I think this a valid claim because art has an intrinsic human component, it doesn't exist independent from the observer. Being an artist isn't just about technical skills, it's also about creating something that an independent observer will consider artistically valuable, so there's always something fuzzy and subjective to it. For all that it sounds like a lame clich�, art genuinely is about speaking to people, and you need to understand people and what matters to people if you want to really understand or create art.

The problem here is really that Harrykowsky doesn't know whether he wants magic to work like a science or like an art, so it's a half-arsed mess in either direction. Well, he's also poo poo at the "understanding real people" part, rather than the people that exist only in his imagination, but we already knew that much.

Cardiovorax fucked around with this message at 02:45 on May 19, 2018

# ? May 19, 2018 02:14

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Cardiovorax posted:

He's not exactly wrong when he says that knowing all those things is not the same thing as being a good writer, though. You can know everything there is to know about writing in a technical sense and still be a garbage writer, because writing is an art, not a science.

All that applies equally to golf though. You can understand the science behind it, you can know exactly what you need to do and still not be able to do it. Knowing what to do and practising it will make you better at it but there's an element of basic physical capability as well and some people will never be great no matter how much they practice. That doesn't mean we don't know what makes a good golfer or why someone is good at the game though. It just means that some of those factors aren't as easy to change as others.

# ? May 19, 2018 03:27

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

I don't know jack about golf as a game beyond "put the ball in the hole," so I'm really not in any position to gainsay you there, but I'm still getting the impression that you're oversimplifying it for the sake of making an argument. Golf as a sport and writing as an art are simply too fundamentally different to be compared like that. They're not the same thing and shouldn't be treated as though they work the same way.

I mean, I get it, I don't want to agree with this dipshit about anything either, but where there's a point there's a point.

# ? May 19, 2018 03:40

Crespolini: Mar 9, 2014

if someone comes to you and says they wanna write a book you can point them in the right direction more than just by shrugging your shoulders and saying no one knows how books are made

# ? May 19, 2018 03:44

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Cardiovorax posted:

Golf as a sport and writing as an art are simply too fundamentally different to be compared like that.

They're both just skills for which some people have more natural aptitude than others. There's nothing magical about either.

# ? May 19, 2018 03:52

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

quote:

if someone comes to you and says they wanna write a book you can point them in the right direction more than just by shrugging your shoulders and saying no one knows how books are made

True enough. What I was getting at was more that even though I could do so and even though I know more about good writing in a technical sense than most people ever will, I've still come across books that followed every rule that I knew (and some that I didn't) and still completely sucked rear end somehow, for reasons that I still can't quite figure out even years after reading them. If it was that easy, I know a lot of people who'd be rich, best-selling authors rather than amateurs struggling to make ends meet.

quote:

They're both just skills for which some people have more natural aptitude than others. There's nothing magical about either.

There's nothing magical about anything, but the idea that you could come up with a cookie-cutter Good Writing Machine that always works has more in common with how Yudkowsky thinks about things and is a large part of why I think he's so bad at it - and would never be able to so himself. He has no respect for writing as an art rather than a skill.

Cardiovorax fucked around with this message at 04:05 on May 19, 2018

# ? May 19, 2018 03:58

Crespolini: Mar 9, 2014

yeah but in the end it's an in universe deliberatly terrible and unhelpful explantion becuase the guy doesn't want harry to learn how to do it

# ? May 19, 2018 04:04

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Can't argue with that.

# ? May 19, 2018 04:06

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

What makes a 'good writer' is absolutely more subjective than what makes a 'good golfer'. You can easily make the argument that Yud is a good writer: he can string sentences together and tell a story, there's not many grammar/spelling flaws, he has a big following, etc. But you can also argue that he is a really bad one, too.

You can learn all the rules of writing and write, and I reckon being able to do that with consistency (and a lucky break or two) would make you a Stephen King, Lee Child or Dan Brown. But the more you read, and write, the more you realize that there's more to writing than knowing and applying rules. It's about that voice, that spark, the hard to pin down quality that makes something capture a reader. I read and review a lot of web serials and there's heaps that can turn out functional sentences, plots, characters, and so on -- but they lack that spark.

edit: But then there's Ernest Cline who proves that you don't even need to know or care about the rules of writing, too.

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 04:40 on May 19, 2018

# ? May 19, 2018 04:37

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

I'd say Yud's not a bad writer; he's a bad storyteller and his opinions are crap, but he's technically proficient and he can turn a phrase, He's just unable to create realistic characters who aren't author inserts or stereotypes.

# ? May 19, 2018 05:33

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Personally, I'd call that "bad writing," but in a sense that isn't necessarily covered by technical proficiency, which really just proves the point.

# ? May 19, 2018 05:36

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Cardiovorax posted:

Personally, I'd call that "bad writing," but in a sense that isn't necessarily covered by technical proficiency, which really just proves the point.

Well, if he were writing, say, technical manuals....

# ? May 19, 2018 05:37

21 Muns: Dec 10, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

For whatever it's worth, I think he's persuasive.

It's just that the things he's persuading people of are bad, and therefore it's bad that he's persuasive.

# ? May 19, 2018 05:51

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

regardless, it reflects poorly on yud!harry that he accepts this as an explanation, and poorer on everyone else that this is common enough to be a reliable explanation

# ? May 19, 2018 05:51

TheGreatEvilKing: Mar 28, 2016

Apparently that dumb basilisk thing got Elon Musk laid.

Perhaps I should formally swear allegiance to the Future AI overlords.

# ? May 19, 2018 06:04

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Apparently that dumb basilisk thing got Elon Musk laid.

Perhaps I should formally swear allegiance to the Future AI overlords.

apparently he was making fun of it with a dumb pun

# ? May 19, 2018 06:10

divabot: Jun 17, 2015; A polite little mouse!

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Apparently that dumb basilisk thing got Elon Musk laid.

Perhaps I should formally swear allegiance to the Future AI overlords.

I only just realised recently that Musk is named in the original basilisk post:

Roko posted:

A more exciting (and to my mind more preferable) way to overcome the problem is to quickly become so rich that you can turn charity into business by single-handedly changing the faces of high-impact industries. Elon Musk is probably the best example of this. I swear that man will single-handedly colonize mars, as well as bringing cheap, reliable electric vehicles to the consumer. And he'll do it at the same time as making even more money.

The Prophet Roko named Musk as one who was already saved and in a state of grace!

# ? May 19, 2018 08:25

Fajita Queen: Jun 21, 2012

Tunicate posted:

apparently he was making fun of it with a dumb pun

They both independently made the same dumb obscure pun and bonded over it on Twitter.

That's gotta be a metaphor for something.

# ? May 19, 2018 14:57

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

The Shortest Path posted:

They both independently made the same dumb obscure pun and bonded over it on Twitter.

That's gotta be a metaphor for something.

It�s a metaphor for wanting to bone Grimes.

# ? May 20, 2018 18:48

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Chapter 91: Roles, Pt 2

quote:

"Seriously?" the boy said flatly.

The door closed and clicked behind Severus Snape.

The Potions Master of Hogwarts wore none of his customary arrogance, or even the dispassionate guise that he ordinarily took in the Headmaster's office; his gaze was strange, as he looked down upon the boy guarding that door; his thoughts unfathomable.

"I also cannot imagine what the Deputy Headmistress is thinking," said the Potions Master of Hogwarts. "Unless I am meant to serve as a warning of where it will lead you, if you decide to take the blame for her death upon yourself."

The boy's lips pressed together. "Fine. Let's just skip ahead to the end of this conversation. You win, Professor Snape. I concede that you were more responsible for Lily Potter's death than I was responsible for Hermione Granger's death, and that my guilt can't stack up to your guilt. And then I ask you to go, and you tell them that it would probably be best to let me alone for a while. Are we done?"

"Almost," the Potions Master said. "I am the one who put the notes under Miss Granger's pillow, telling her where to find the fights in which she intervened."

The boy did not react to this at all. Finally he spoke. "Because you dislike bullying."

...

"I should have realized it... very much earlier, I suppose, and yet I did not see it at all, being entirely absorbed in myself. For me to be placed as Head of Slytherin... it means that Albus Dumbledore has entirely lost hope that Slytherin House can be helped."

quote:

Though if spells were always being invented in some mysterious way, new rituals being carved as new levers upon the unknown machine, it might just be that people just kept inventing rituals that involved wands, just like they invented phrases like 'Wingardium Leviosa'. It really seemed like magic ought to be, in some sense, almost arbitrarily powerful, and it certainly would be convenient if Harry could just bypass whatever conceptual limitation prevented people from inventing spells like 'Just Fix Everything Forever', but somehow nothing was ever that easy where magic was concerned.

So we can spend chapters upon chapters with the dumbest and most arbitrary selection of rules and how to bend regarding one sub-specialization of magic, but we're never going to get a handle on how magic works as a whole, nor a scientific revolution in magical principles. Wasted opportunity number whatever.

quote:

"Dad," the boy said thinly. "Mum. Yes, she's dead. They didn't tell you anything else?"

"No! Harry, what's happening?"

There was a pause.

The boy slumped back against the wall. "I c-can't, I can't, I can't do this."

"What?"

"I can't pretend to be a little boy, I j-just don't have the energy right now."

"Harry," the woman said falteringly. "Harry -"

"Dad, you know those fantasy books where the hero has to hide everything from his parents because they, they wouldn't understand, they'd react stupidly and get in the hero's way? It's a plot device, right, so that the hero has to solve everything himself instead of telling his parents. P-please don't be that plot device, Dad, or you either, Mum. Just... just don't play that role. Don't be the parents who won't understand. D-don't yell at me and give me parental demands I can't follow. Because I've wandered into a bloody stupid fantasy novel and now Hermione's - I j-just don't have the energy to deal with it."

Slowly, as though his limbs were only half-animated, the man in the black vest kneeled down to where Harry was standing, so that his eyes were level with his son's. "Harry," the man said. "I need you to tell me everything that has happened, right now."

The boy took a deep breath, swallowed. "They t-tell me the Dark Lord I defeated may still be alive. Like that's not the p-plot of a hundred sodding books, right? So, it could also be that the Headmaster of my school, who's the most powerful wizard in the world, has gone insane. And, and Hermione was framed for an attempted murder just before this, not that anyone would've told her parents about it or anything. The student she was framed for attempted-murdering was the son of Lucius Malfoy, who's the most powerful politician in magical Britain, and used to be the Dark Lord's number two. The Defense Professor position at this school has a curse on it, nobody ever lasts more than a year, they have a saying that the Defense Professor is always a suspect. This year the Defense Professor is secretly a mysterious wizard who opposed the Dark Lord during the last war and may or may not be evil himself. Also the Potions Master has been pining after Lily Potter for years and might be behind this whole thing for some twisted psychological reason." The boy's lips pressed together bitterly. "I think that's most of the bloody stupid plot."

The man, who had listened to all this quietly, stood up. He put a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "That's enough, Harry," he said. "I've heard enough. We're leaving this school right now and taking you with us."

The woman was looking at the boy, her face asking a question.

The boy gazed back at her and nodded.

The woman's voice was thin when she spoke. "They won't let us, Michael."

"They have no legal right to stop us -"

"Right? You're Muggles," said the boy. He smiled twistedly. "You have as much standing in the magical British legal system as mice. No wizard is going to care about any arguments you make about rights, about fairness, they won't even take the time to listen. You don't have any power, see, so they don't have to bother. No, Mum, I'm not smiling like this because I agree with their Muggle policies, I'm smiling because I disagree with your children policies."

...

"Don't," the boy said warningly. "I mean it, Dad. The Ministry of Magic isn't something you can stand up to. Pretend they're the tax office or the dean or something else that won't brook any challenge to their dominance. In magical Britain you're only allowed to remember what the government thinks you should remember, and remembering the existence of magic or that you have a son named Harry is a privilege, not a right. And if they did that I'd crack and turn the Ministry into a giant flaming crater. Mum, you know the score, you absolutely have to stop Dad from trying anything stupid."

Again, the extent of Harry's action or care about the subject (or, the very rot at the heart of wizard society) thus was trying to get Hermione and Draco to get along.

quote:

"I think we are now well past Ender and on to Ender after the buggers kill Valentine."

"Language!" said the woman, and then her hand flew to cover her mouth.

The boy spoke wearily. "Not that kind of bugger, Mum. They're insectoid aliens - never mind."

Is that even a thing? I don't remember that being a thing (unless in a dream sequence or one of the sequels?)

quote:

"You brought my parents here," the Boy-Who-Lived said. "To Hogwarts. Where You-Know-Who or someone is lurking around, targeting my friends. What exactly were you thinking?"

She did not reply that she had been thinking about Harry sitting in front of the door to the storeroom containing Hermione's body, refusing to move.

"Who else knows about this?" Harry Potter demanded. "Did anyone see them with you?"

"The Headmaster brought them here -"

"I want them out of here immediately before anyone else notices, especially You-Know-Who, but also including Professor Quirrell or Professor Snape. Please send your Patronus to the Headmaster and tell him that he needs to bring it back at once. Do not mention my parents by name, or as people, in case somebody else is listening."

...

"You know perfectly well what I'm doing," Harry Potter said. "You read those comic books long before you gave them to me. I've been through a bunch of crap, matured a bit, and now I'm protecting my relatives. Actually, it's simpler than that, you know what I'm doing because you tried to do the same thing. I'm having my loved ones taken out of Hogwarts immediately, that's what I'm doing. Headmaster, please get them out of here before You-Know-Who discovers their presence and marks them for death."

quote:

"Clever move, bringing them here," Harry Potter said. "Probably damaged our relationship permanently. All I wanted was to be bloody left alone until bloody dinnertime. Which," the boy looked at his wristwatch, "it now is anyway. I'm going to go say goodbye to Hermione by myself, which I promise will take less than two minutes, and then after that I'll come out and go eat something like I would have done regardless. Do not disturb me for those two bloody minutes or I will snap and try to kill someone, I mean it, Professor."

The boy turned and strode into the small room, opened the rear door to where Hermione Granger's body was being kept, and strode inside before she could think to speak. Through the doorway she saw a flash of a sight she knew no child ought to see -

The door slammed shut.

She started forwards, unthinking.

Halfway to the door, she stopped herself.

Her mind was still slow, and hurting, and the part of her that Harry Potter would have called the picture of a stern disciplinarian was lifelessly mouthing words about inappropriate behavior from children. The rest of her didn't think it was a good idea to leave any child, even Harry Potter, alone in a room with the bloody corpse of his best friend. But the act of opening the door, or asserting any sort of authority, did not seem to her wise. There was no right thing to do, and no right thing to say; or if there was any right path, she did not know it.

Very slowly, a minute and a half passed.

gently caress you Yud. This is just so goddamned dumb and pointless, you can't leave your straw-woman alone even when it would best suit the story to do so.

# ? May 22, 2018 08:32

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

As far as I know, Valentine survives to the end of the Ender's Game series.

# ? May 22, 2018 11:34

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Epicurius posted:

As far as I know, Valentine survives to the end of the Ender's Game series.

if you count dying of old age and then being revived by mormon space magic, anyway

wait, was that peter? i can't recall really

# ? May 22, 2018 11:39

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

Jazerus posted:

if you count dying of old age and then being revived by mormon space magic, anyway

wait, was that peter? i can't recall really

Eoth, Ender like, splits off via Mormon space magic into a young version of each and then withers away and dies or something.

# ? May 22, 2018 12:54

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

What is it with seemingly half the science fiction authors of the last 30 years being Mormons, anyway? Well, not half, but is seems to be a disproportionately large number. Is this some kind of cultural thing? I'm European and I've never even met a Mormon, so I honestly wouldn't know.

# ? May 22, 2018 13:04

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The only big Mormon sf/fantasy authors I can think of are OSC, Tracy Hickman, and Brandon Sanderson, and Hickman hasn't done much lately. Are there more big names?

# ? May 22, 2018 13:35

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Wikipedia says that a quarter of all Hugo awards have gone to Mormons, so I assume there would be, unless the same people got a whole ton of them over and over again. It just seems a strange number for how small of a religious minority they are, at least to my knowledge.

# ? May 22, 2018 13:50

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Cardiovorax posted:

Wikipedia says that a quarter of all Hugo awards have gone to Mormons, so I assume there would be, unless the same people got a whole ton of them over and over again.

if you and I are looking at the same Wikipedia page (the one about LDS fiction), that's not what it says. It says

quote:

According to Preston Hunter at adherents.com, a quarter of novels that won Hugo or Nebula awards had an LDS author or references to Latter-day Saints and Utah.

which is obviously a different thing. The thing is, I don't know if that's even true. Going to the adherents.com website, there's a list of works and authors that reference Mormons or Utah., and a lot of Hugo and Nebula authors are on that list, but...

Issac Asimov won the Hugo for The Gods Themselves (No identified Mormons). If you click through to the list, it Asimov, it quotes two books by him...one an autobiography where he says he and his wife have always been interested in Mormonism, because she had Mormon ancestors and he thinks any religion that considers him a gentile, and the second a joke book that has a joke about the Pope talking to God on the telephone and ending with the punchline, "The bad news is, he's calling from Salt Lake City."

David Brin won Hugos for both Startide Rising and The Uplift War (neither of which have Mormons), but the link it has for him is that, while his novel The Postman doesn't specify a location for the novel beyond the post apocalyptic US, the film adaptation sets part of it in Utah. So...

# ? May 22, 2018 16:15

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Well, I suppose that either means the Wikipedia article is misleading about what it means or it's my own fault for not being able to recognize a reference to Mormonism even when I see it. I've seen other people talk about the strange prevalence of Mormon authors in scifi and fantasy, though, even if I can't personally point a finger at very many of them in particular, so I just figured I'd ask since this thread seems like the place to do it.

# ? May 22, 2018 17:41

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Cardiovorax posted:

Well, I suppose that either means the Wikipedia article is misleading about what it means or it's my own fault for not being able to recognize a reference to Mormonism even when I see it. I've seen other people talk about the strange prevalence of Mormon authors in scifi and fantasy, though, even if I can't personally point a finger at very many of them in particular, so I just figured I'd ask since this thread seems like the place to do it.

I think it's just that the Wikipedia article was misleading or wrong. I've also heard people talk about the number of Mormons who are science fiction writers, but I don't see it either, at least not as big ones. Oh, I guess I'd add Stephanie Meyer, author of Twilight, to the list.

# ? May 22, 2018 19:06

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; коммунизм хранится в яичках

Epicurius posted:

David Brin won Hugos for both Startide Rising and The Uplift War (neither of which have Mormons), but the link it has for him is that, while his novel The Postman doesn't specify a location for the novel beyond the post apocalyptic US, the film adaptation sets part of it in Utah. So...

Except The Postman's novel version is specifically set in Oregon. :psyduck:

The AI he meets is at Oregon State in Corvallis, even, and the whole thing is set in the Williamette Valley. The antagonist militia are out of northern California and using the California 'Bear Flag' as their standard.

Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 01:54 on May 23, 2018

# ? May 23, 2018 01:51

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Liquid Communism posted:

Except The Postman's novel version is specifically set in Oregon. The AI he meets is at Oregon State in Corvallis, even, and the whole thing is set in the Williamette Valley. The antagonist militia are out of northern California and using the California 'Bear Flag' as their standard.

Sure, but the movie starts with the Postman leaving Utah and entering Idaho on his way to Oregon, so because the movie adaptation of the novel lists Utah, it counts it. It also lists Phillip Joseph Farmer's novella "Riders of the Purple Wage", because the title is a play on Zane Grey's "Riders of the Purple Sage", which is a western about Mormon settlers.

It's a stupid list, in other words.

# ? May 23, 2018 02:45

divabot: Jun 17, 2015; A polite little mouse!

Dark Lord's Answer by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Yudkowsky�s first attempt at the Light Novel form, from which he says he learnt many lessons for Red Tidday Up.

�Content warning: sexual abuse, economics.�

A didactic economics parable in novella form, on the value of monetary policy rather than a rigid gold standard - �So you see, Prince, that you�re not being told to steal from your country of Santal. Even if, to save it, you must transgress the righteous rules against usury and adulterated coinage.�

The S&M slave girl is the author mouthpiece, and the viewpoint character is handed an idiot ball to make the mouthpiece look smart.

Gratuitous S&M for flavouring, and to provide Yudkowsky�s favoured Philosophy Tough Guy ethics tests. A porned-up version of the Sequences. At least the plot is coherent and not stupid. Not worth 99p and I won�t be reading it a second time, but at least the author admits its deficiencies.

the joys of doing your research, eh. An hour reading this thing and I get 0 useful words out of it. Oh well. 2 stars on Amazon, �cos it�s not quite 1-star bad.

# ? May 26, 2018 15:09

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Chapter 92: Roles, Pt 3

quote:

The Boy-Who-Lived-Unlike-His-Best-Friend trudged the long, echoing corridors toward the Great Hall. With all his energies of thought exhausted, his mind was starting to throw out thoughts like an image of Hermione walking beside him and wordless concepts like That will never happen again until another part yelled No and shouted it down with determination to bring her back, only that part's voice was getting tired and the other part seemed tireless. Another part of his mind insisted on reviewing what he'd said to Professor McGonagall and Dad and Mum, even though he'd only been trying to get them out of there as quickly as possible and had been running on limited mental energy. As though somehow he could have done better, by an act of his defective will. What would be left of his relationship with his parents now, Harry couldn't guess.

He came finally to a junction where there waited a older boy in green-fringed black robes, silently reading a textbook, on the path that anyone would pick if they wanted to intercept someone going from the healer's chambers to the Great Hall.

It's Lesath Lestrange, who didn't volunteer to accompany Harriezer out of the hall, and wasn't called upon.

quote:

Do we understand what we did wrong? his Slytherin side said coldly.

Yes, Harry thought.

Your ethical qualms don't even make sense. You're not tricking Lesath. You did exactly what Lesath thinks you did. You wouldn't have to make excuses for why Lesath was helping you, you could just say you were calling in the debt from rescuing him from bullies, there were six witnesses to that. Hermione died because you forgot about an extremely valuable resource, and you forgot about Lesath because... why?

Because having Lesath Lestrange for a minion seemed sort of Dark-Lordish? Hufflepuff said in a small mental voice. I mean... that decision was probably mostly me...

Lesanth not actually volunteering when Harry called upon anyone is a bit of a stretch, but overall this is ok - actually pursuing a theme (and a significant theme of descent into darkness, at that) is a welcome change.

quote:

Harry was starting to worry that he was going insane. The conversations he had with the voices in his head weren't usually like this.

The Boy-Who-Lived

pain

Harry Verres trudged on alone

hurts

Harry walked on through the silent corridors.

Far too overwritten.

And now it's for Quirrelmort to dunk on McGonnagal, because lord knows that's what we need some more of.

quote:

"I am David Monroe, who fought Voldemort," the man said, still in mild tones. "Heed my words. The boy cannot be allowed to continue in this state of mind. He will become dangerous. It is possible that you have already done everything you can. Yet I find this a very rare event indeed, and more often said than done. I suspect rather that you have only done what you customarily do. I cannot truly comprehend what drives others to break their bounds, since I never had them. People remain surprisingly passive when faced with the prospect of death. Fear of public ridicule or losing one's livelihood is more likely to drive men to extremes and the breaking of their customary habits. On the other side of the war, the Dark Lord had excellent results from the Cruciatus Curse, judiciously used on Marked servants who cannot escape punishment except by success, with no reasonable efforts accepted. Imagine their state of mind within yourself, and ask yourself whether you have truly done all that you can to wrench Harry Potter from his course."

"I am a Gryffindor and not much given to being moved by fear," she snapped back. "You will exercise courtesy within my office!"

"I find fear an excellent motivation, and indeed it is fear that moves me now. You-Know-Who, for all his horror, still abided by certain boundaries. It is my professional judgment, speaking as a learned wizard almost on par with Dumbledore or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that the boy could join the ranks of those whose rituals are inscribed upon the tombstones of countries. This is not an idle worry, McGonagall, I have already heard words to produce the gravest apprehensions."

...

"Dumbledore cannot reach the boy. At best he is wise enough to know this and make things no worse. I lack the requisite frame of mind. You are the one who - but I see that you still look for others to save you." The Defense Professor turned from her, and strode to the door. "I think I shall consult with Severus Snape. The man may be a walking disaster, but he knows the fact, and he may possess a greater understanding of that boy's mood. As for you, madam, imagine yourself at the end of your life, knowing that Britain - but no, Britain is not your true country, is it? Imagine yourself at the end of your life as the darkness eats through the fading walls of Hogwarts, knowing that your students will die with you, remembering this day and realizing there was something else you could have done."

# ? May 30, 2018 11:15

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# ? May 18, 2024 04:02

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Somehow I doubt that torturing the people who work for you for the slightest failure is actually a great way to get them to give you their best efforts and unwavering loyalty.

# ? May 30, 2018 13:05

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

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