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

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JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

WHAT IS "HARRY POTTER AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY"?

http://hpmor.com/chapter/1 posted:

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, and no one owns the methods of rationality.

This fic is widely considered to have really hit its stride starting at around Chapter 5. If you still don't like it after Chapter 10, give up.

Please visit HPMOR DOT COM for:

* Easy email notification system, RSS feed, and Twitter feed for new chapters;
* Current Author's Notes and progress updates;
* Lovely fan-made book-style PDF version;
* Ad-free mirror of the text;
* ePUB and MOBI e-texts;
* Ongoing podcast of the story;
* Fan art in vast quantities;
* Cameo list (characters named after fan artists);
* Fan-fanfiction of this fanfiction;
* Fan music, songs, and animations;
* Fan translations;
* The OKCupid keyword for HPMOR readers;
* Links to TV Tropes page and discussion forum;
* Trigger warnings page (warnings about possible traumatic associations for some readers; to avoid spoilers for most readers, there are no warnings inside the main story);
* How to learn everything the main character knows;
* Open job positions at a related nonprofit;
* And ever so much more.

Reviews make me happy. You can leave reviews on any chapter, no login required, and there's no need to finish reading it all before you start reviewing chapters - but do please leave at most one review per chapter.

This is not a strict single-point-of-departure fic - there exists a primary point of departure, at some point in the past, but also other alterations. The best term I've heard for this fic is "parallel universe".

The text contains many clues: obvious clues, not-so-obvious clues, truly obscure hints which I was shocked to see some readers successfully decode, and massive evidence left out in plain sight. This is a rationalist story; its mysteries are solvable, and meant to be solved.

The pacing of the story is that of serial fiction, i.e., that of a TV show running for a predetermined number of seasons, whose episodes are individually plotted but with an overall arc building to a final conclusion.

The story has been corrected to British English up to Ch. 17, and further Britpicking is currently in progress (see the /HPMOR subreddit).

All science mentioned is real science. But please keep in mind that, beyond the realm of science, the views of the characters may not be those of the author. Not everything the protagonist does is a lesson in wisdom, and advice offered by darker characters may be untrustworthy or dangerously double-edged.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality posted:

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is an on-going Harry Potter rational fanfic by Eliezer Yudkowsky, AI researcher and decision theorist.

This is an Alternate Universe story, where Petunia married a scientist. Now Rationalist!Harry enters the wizarding world armed with Enlightenment ideals and the experimental spirit.

It should also be noted that the author is aware of us and has links to this page on his author's notes for chapter 20.

Recaps of all chapters can be found here (currently under construction).

SPOILER ALERT: Through this article you will find spoilers EVEN if you have read every chapter published by the author (by august 2014), continue at your own peril.

WHO IS THE AUTHOR?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky posted:

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky (born September 11, 1979[citation needed]) is an American blogger, writer, and advocate for friendly artificial intelligence.

Biography

Yudkowsky is a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area.[1] Largely self-educated,[2]:38 he co-founded the nonprofit Machine Intelligence Research Institute (formerly the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence) in 2000 and continues to be employed there as a full-time Research Fellow.[3]:599

Work

Yudkowsky's interests focus on Artificial Intelligence theory for self-awareness, self-modification, and recursive self-improvement, and on artificial-intelligence architectures and decision theories for stable motivational structures (Friendly AI and Coherent Extrapolated Volition in particular).[3]:420 Yudkowsky's most recent work is on decision theory for problems of self-modification and Newcomblike problems.

Yudkowsky was, along with Robin Hanson, one of the principal contributors to the blog Overcoming Bias[4] sponsored by the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. In February 2009, he helped to found LessWrong,[5] a "community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality".[2]:37 LessWrong has been covered in depth in Business Insider.[6] Core concepts from LessWrong have been referenced in columns in The Guardian.[7][8] LessWrong has been mentioned briefly in articles related to the technological singularity and the work of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (formerly called the Singularity Institute).[9]

Yudkowsky contributed two chapters to Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's and Milan Ćirković's edited volume Global Catastrophic Risks.[10]

Fan fiction

Yudkowsky has also written several works[11] of science fiction and other fiction. His wide-ranging Harry Potter fan fiction story Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality illustrates topics in cognitive science and rationality.[2]:37[12][13][14][15][16][17] The New Yorker described it as "recast[ing] the original story in an attempt to explain Harry's wizardry through the scientific method."[18]

Publications

Creating Friendly AI (2001)
Levels of Organization in General Intelligence(2002)
Coherent Extrapolated Volition(2004)
Timeless Decision Theory (2010)
Complex Value Systems are Required to Realize Valuable Futures (2011)
Tiling Agents for Self-Modifying AI, and the L�bian Obstacle (2013)
A Comparison of Decision Algorithms on Newcomblike Problems (2013)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/EliezerYudkowsky posted:

Creator: Eliezer Yudkowsky

Author of Three Worlds Collide and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, the shorter works Trust in God/The Riddle of Kyon and The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover, and various other fiction. Helped found and is probably the most prolific poster to the blog/discussion site Less Wrong, and is currently writing a book on rationality.

His day job is with the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, specifically working on how to make an A.I. that won't just kill us all accidentally, and make AI less of a crapshoot.

Tropes describing Yudkowsky's work:

Author Tract: His theories and avatars crop up a fair bit in his fictional works.

Genre Adultery: Almost all of his works, whether fanfic or original, are highly philosophical Author Tracts. And then there's Peggy Susie, which is merely a Calvin and Hobbes fic and parody of The Terminator... with no philosophical elements whatsoever.

Living Forever Is Awesome: Eliezer's hatred of death appears as a recurring theme in his stories.

Mind Screwdriver: "The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover" is this for the ending of Permutation City by Greg Egan. On the other hand, the explanation involves quite a bit of theoretical computer science.

Reference Overdosed: Eliezer loves his ShoutOuts. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality has at least one in most chapters, while the first half of "The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover" has several per paragraph. Even Three Worlds Collide includes Fate/stay night in a list of "classic" literature.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 16:39

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 19:28

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

TABLE OF CONTENTS

# ? Feb 21, 2015 16:41

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

CHAPTER 1 - A DAY OF VERY LOW PROBABILITY

quote:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line...

(black robes, falling)

... blood spills out in litres, and someone screams a word.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every inch of wall space is covered by a bookcase. Each bookcase has six shelves, going almost to the ceiling. Some bookshelves are stacked to the brim with hardback books: science, maths, history, and everything else. Other shelves have two layers of paperback science fiction, with the back layer of books propped up on old tissue boxes or lengths of wood, so that you can see the back layer of books above the books in front. And it still isn't enough. Books are overflowing onto the tables and the sofas and making little heaps under the windows.

This is the living-room of the house occupied by the eminent Professor Michael Verres-Evans, and his wife, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Verres, and their adopted son, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres.

The story has barely begun and I already feel like punching these people. Triple-barrelled last names? Really?

And why's the husband "Verres-Evans" and the wife "Evans-Verres"? Are they cousins? That's not very rational, given the increased chances of genetic disorders in their offspring arising from such inbreeding.

quote:

There is a letter lying on the living-room table, and an unstamped envelope of yellowish parchment, addressed to Mr. H. Potter in emerald-green ink.

The Professor and his wife are speaking sharply at each other, but they are not shouting. The Professor considers shouting to be uncivilised.

Shouldn't a "rational" person not be bothered about shouting? After all, the tone and volume of a statement is independent of the content of the statement in question, and calling attention to it distracts from the issue being discussed. Dismissing / Devaluing an argument or statement because it is "shouted" would therefore be less rather than more "rational".

quote:

"You're joking," Michael said to Petunia. His tone indicated that he was very much afraid that she was serious.

"My sister was a witch," Petunia repeated. She looked frightened, but stood her ground. "Her husband was a wizard."

"This is absurd!" Michael said sharply. "They were at our wedding - they visited for Christmas -"

"I told them you weren't to know," Petunia whispered. "But it's true. I've seen things -"

The Professor rolled his eyes. "Dear, I understand that you're not familiar with the sceptical literature. You may not realise how easy it is for a trained magician to fake the seemingly impossible. Remember how I taught Harry to bend spoons? If it seemed like they could always guess what you were thinking, that's called cold reading -"

Ah, I see why "the Professor" was burdened with irrationality in that earlier passage. He's such a pompous, condescending rear end in a top hat that we are clearly not meant to like or admire him.

quote:

"It wasn't bending spoons -"

"What was it, then?"

Petunia bit her lip. "I can't just tell you. You'll think I'm -" She swallowed. "Listen. Michael. I wasn't - always like this -" She gestured at herself, as though to indicate her lithe form. "Lily did this. Because I - because I begged her. For years, I begged her. Lily had always been prettier than me, and I'd... been mean to her, because of that, and then she got magic, can you imagine how I felt? And I begged her to use some of that magic on me so that I could be pretty too, even if I couldn't have her magic, at least I could be pretty."

Tears were gathering in Petunia's eyes.

"And Lily would tell me no, and make up the most ridiculous excuses, like the world would end if she were nice to her sister, or a centaur told her not to - the most ridiculous things, and I hated her for it. And when I had just graduated from university, I was going out with this boy, Vernon Dursley, he was fat and he was the only boy who would talk to me. And he said he wanted children, and that his first son would be named Dudley. And I thought to myself, what kind of parent names their child Dudley Dursley?

What kind of adoptive parents gives their child a triple-barrelled last name?

quote:

It was like I saw my whole future life stretching out in front of me, and I couldn't stand it. And I wrote to my sister and told her that if she didn't help me I'd rather just -"

Petunia stopped.

"Anyway," Petunia said, her voice small, "she gave in. She told me it was dangerous, and I said I didn't care any more, and I drank this potion and I was sick for weeks, but when I got better my skin cleared up and I finally filled out and... I was beautiful, people were nice to me," her voice broke, "and after that I couldn't hate my sister any more, especially when I learned what her magic brought her in the end -"

"Darling," Michael said gently, "you got sick, you gained some weight while resting in bed, and your skin cleared up on its own. Or being sick made you change your diet -"

"She was a witch," Petunia repeated. "I saw it."

"Petunia," Michael said. The annoyance was creeping into his voice. "You know that can't be true. Do I really have to explain why?"

It took me until the second chapter of Twisted before I started hating "Railrunner". I'm already hating "the Professor" and we're not even half-way through the first chapter of "Methods of Rationality" yet. Eliezer did a good job on making Harry's adoptive father as loathsome and contemptible as Vernon Dursley in the canon series.

quote:

Petunia wrung her hands. She seemed to be on the verge of tears. "My love, I know I can't win arguments with you, but please, you have to trust me on this -"

This poor, broken woman needs to check into a domestic violence shelter soon.

Also, the Professor clearly doesn't, and never has, respected Petunia. Why then did he marry her? Is it "rational" to marry someone you have so much contempt for?

quote:

"Dad! Mum! "

The two of them stopped and looked at Harry as though they'd forgotten there was a third person in the room.

Harry took a deep breath. "Mum, your parents didn't have magic, did they?"

"No," Petunia said, looking puzzled.

"Then no one in your family knew about magic when Lily got her letter. How did they get convinced?"

"Ah..." Petunia said. "They didn't just send a letter. They sent a professor from Hogwarts. He -" Petunia's eyes flicked to Michael. "He showed us some magic."

"Then you don't have to fight over this," Harry said firmly. Hoping against hope that this time, just this once, they would listen to him.

His adoptive father is a self-absorbed, arrogant, condescending, pompous rear end and his adoptive mother is too drained and shattered to stand up to her husband. It's no wonder they never listen to Harry.

quote:

"If it's true, we can just get a Hogwarts professor here and see the magic for ourselves, and Dad will admit that it's true. And if not, then Mum will admit that it's false. That's what the experimental method is for, so that we don't have to resolve things just by arguing."

The Professor turned and looked down at him, dismissive as usual. "Oh, come now, Harry. Really, magic? I thought you'd know better than to take this seriously, son, even if you're only ten. Magic is just about the most unscientific thing there is!"

Harry's mouth twisted bitterly. He was treated well, probably better than most genetic fathers treated their own children. Harry had been sent to the best primary schools - and when that didn't work out, he was provided with tutors from the endless pool of starving students. Always Harry had been encouraged to study whatever caught his attention, bought all the books that caught his fancy, sponsored in whatever maths or science competitions he entered. He was given anything reasonable that he wanted, except, maybe, the slightest shred of respect. A Doctor teaching biochemistry at Oxford could hardly be expected to listen to the advice of a little boy. You would listen to Show Interest, of course; that's what a Good Parent would do, and so, if you conceived of yourself as a Good Parent, you would do it. But take a ten-year-old seriously? Hardly.

To be fair, most adults don't take ten year olds "seriously".

quote:

Sometimes Harry wanted to scream at his father.

"Mum," Harry said. "If you want to win this argument with Dad, look in chapter two of the first book of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. There's a quote there about how philosophers say a great deal about what science absolutely requires, and it is all wrong, because the only rule in science is that the final arbiter is observation - that you just have to look at the world and report what you see. Um... off the top of my head I can't think of where to find something about how it's an ideal of science to settle things by experiment instead of arguments -"

WTF is this? Which ten year old in all of history has ever, ever spoken like this? The dialogue in "Twisted" feels natural in comparison to this.

quote:

His mother looked down at him and smiled. "Thank you, Harry. But -" her head rose back up to stare at her husband. "I don't want to win an argument with your father. I want my husband to, to listen to his wife who loves him, and trust her just this once -"

Harry closed his eyes briefly. Hopeless. Both of his parents were just hopeless.

Okay, at least that's a realistic portrayal of a child's thought processes. All children and teenagers have at some point thought their parents were totally hopeless.

quote:

Now his parents were getting into one of those arguments again, one where his mother tried to make his father feel guilty, and his father tried to make his mother feel stupid.

"I'm going to go to my room," Harry announced. His voice trembled a little. "Please try not to fight too much about this, Mum, Dad, we'll know soon enough how it comes out, right?"

"Of course, Harry," said his father, and his mother gave him a reassuring kiss, and then they went on fighting while Harry climbed the stairs to his bedroom.

He shut the door behind him and tried to think.

The funny thing was, he should have agreed with Dad. No one had ever seen any evidence of magic, and according to Mum, there was a whole magical world out there. How could anyone keep something like that a secret? More magic? That seemed like a rather suspicious sort of excuse.

It should have been a clean case for Mum joking, lying or being insane, in ascending order of awfulness. If Mum had sent the letter herself, that would explain how it arrived at the letterbox without a stamp. A little insanity was far, far less improbable than the universe really working like that.

Except that some part of Harry was utterly convinced that magic was real, and had been since the instant he saw the putative letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry rubbed his forehead, grimacing. Don't believe everything you think, one of his books had said.

But this bizarre certainty... Harry was finding himself just expecting that, yes, a Hogwarts professor would show up and wave a wand and magic would come out. The strange certainty was making no effort to guard itself against falsification - wasn't making excuses in advance for why there wouldn't be a professor, or the professor would only be able to bend spoons.

Where do you come from, strange little prediction? Harry directed the thought at his brain. Why do I believe what I believe?

Usually Harry was pretty good at answering that question, but in this particular case, he had no clue what his brain was thinking.

Harry mentally shrugged. A flat metal plate on a door affords pushing, and a handle on a door affords pulling, and the thing to do with a testable hypothesis is to go and test it.

He took a piece of lined paper from his desk, and started writing.

Dear Deputy Headmistress

Harry paused, reflecting; then discarded the paper for another, tapping another millimetre of graphite from his mechanical pencil. This called for careful calligraphy.

Dear Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall,

Or Whomsoever It May Concern:

I recently received your letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, addressed to Mr. H. Potter. You may not be aware that my genetic parents, James Potter and Lily Potter (formerly Lily Evans) are dead. I was adopted by Lily's sister, Petunia Evans-Verres, and her husband, Michael Verres-Evans.

I am extremely interested in attending Hogwarts, conditional on such a place actually existing. Only my mother Petunia says she knows about magic, and she can't use it herself. My father is highly sceptical. I myself am uncertain. I also don't know where to obtain any of the books or equipment listed in your acceptance letter.

Mother mentioned that you sent a Hogwarts representative to Lily Potter (then Lily Evans) in order to demonstrate to her family that magic was real, and, I presume, help Lily obtain her school materials. If you could do this for my own family it would be extremely helpful.

Sincerely,

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres.

Harry is remarkably precocious in this story, but I think it's still within the bounds of credibility, save for that bit above about the "Feynman Lectures on Physics".

quote:

Harry added their current address, then folded up the letter and put it in an envelope, which he addressed to Hogwarts. Further consideration led him to obtain a candle and drip wax onto the flap of the envelope, into which, using a penknife's tip, he impressed the initials H.J.P.E.V. If he was going to descend into this madness, he was going to do it with style.

Then he opened his door and went back downstairs. His father was sitting in the living-room and reading a book of higher maths to show how smart he was;

Again not very "rational" on the Professor's part - reading the book just shows how "educated" you are but not necessarily how "smart".

quote:

and his mother was in the kitchen preparing one of his father's favourite meals to show how loving she was. It didn't look like they were talking to one another at all. As scary as arguments could be, not arguing was somehow much worse.

The author may have a little difficulty with portraying a child's thoughts, but I must concede that he does a good job at writing a dysfunctional marriage.

quote:

"Mum," Harry said into the unnerving silence, "I'm going to test the hypothesis. According to your theory, how do I send an owl to Hogwarts?"

His mother turned from the kitchen sink to stare at him, looking shocked. "I - I don't know, I think you just have to own a magic owl."

That should've sounded highly suspicious, oh, so there's no way to test your theory then, but the peculiar certainty in Harry seemed willing to stick its neck out even further.

"Well, the letter got here somehow," Harry said, "so I'll just wave it around outside and call 'letter for Hogwarts!' and see if an owl picks it up. Dad, do you want to come and watch?"

His father shook his head minutely and kept on reading. Of course, Harry thought to himself. Magic was a disgraceful thing that only stupid people believed in; if his father went so far as to test the hypothesis, or even watch it being tested, that would feel like associating himself with that...

Only as Harry stumped out the back door, into the back garden, did it occur to him that if an owl did come down and snatch the letter, he was going to have some trouble telling Dad about it.

But - well - that can't really happen, can it? No matter what my brain seems to believe. If an owl really comes down and grabs this envelope, I'm going to have worries a lot more important than what Dad thinks.

Harry took a deep breath, and raised the envelope into the air.

He swallowed.

Calling out Letter for Hogwarts! while holding an envelope high in the air in the middle of your own back garden was... actually pretty embarrassing, now that he thought about it.

No. I'm better than Dad. I will use the scientific method even if it makes me feel stupid.

"Letter -" Harry said, but it actually came out as more of a whispered croak.

Harry steeled his will, and shouted into the empty sky, "Letter for Hogwarts! Can I get an owl? "

"Harry?" asked a bemused woman's voice, one of the neighbours.

Harry pulled down his hand like it was on fire and hid the envelope behind his back like it was drug money. His whole face was hot with shame.

An old woman's face peered out from above the neighbouring fence, grizzled grey hair escaping from her hairnet. Mrs. Figg, the occasional babysitter. "What are you doing, Harry?"

"Nothing," Harry said in a strangled voice. "Just - testing a really silly theory -"

"Did you get your acceptance letter from Hogwarts?"

Harry froze in place.

"Yes," Harry's lips said a little while later. "I got a letter from Hogwarts. They say they want my owl by the 31st of July, but -"

"But you don't have an owl. Poor dear! I can't imagine what someone must have been thinking, sending you just the standard letter."

A wrinkled arm stretched out over the fence, and opened an expectant hand. Hardly even thinking at this point, Harry gave over his envelope.

"Just leave it to me, dear," said Mrs. Figg, "and in a jiffy or two I'll have someone over."

And her face disappeared from over the fence.

There was a long silence in the garden.

Then a boy's voice said, calmly and quietly, "What."

All in all, not too bad an opening chapter. The Professor's clearly meant to be hated and is indeed loathsome while not being over-the-top; the portrayal of abusive relationship with Petunia is reasonably grounded and believable; and Harry's precociousness stretches a little far at time but is still generally believable. I also like how the author subtly mocks the supposed "rationality" of the Professor throughout the chapter.

JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Feb 21, 2015

# ? Feb 21, 2015 17:52

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

REVIEWS FOR CHAPTER 1

quote:

Errrrr chapter 1 . Feb 28, 2010

So. I'm the first one reviewing, eh?

I enjoyed the chapter. It is a very good start. Do continue I would like to see how you progress.

Not-to-mention I would like to see how Harry's adoptive father reacts.

P.S. Will it be Snape?

quote:

anonnatymousMARTIN chapter 1 . Feb 28, 2010

Oh! I love these types of stories! It screams brilliance! Sharp, considerate, very intelligent Harry. This cheered me up a little. I hope you continue.

quote:

omegahurricane chapter 1 . Feb 28, 2010

Very interesting. Hermione will truely get along very well with this Harry. Petunia being indepted to Lily and there for being nice is a good swing on things. Can't wait to see who gives and the expation of the method to the madness that is J. K. Rowlings Magical Universe.

quote:

scarletalphabet chapter 1 . Feb 28, 2010

This has the potential to be VERY interesting. I've never seen a take quite like this, and that is very rare indeed in the world of HP fanfic. :P I like how Harry is smart and studies, but doesn't seem to know everything. I hope you keep it that way and I look forward to more. Cool idea with the Petunia and Lily relationship as well.

quote:

cheekylildevil chapter 1 . Feb 28, 2010

I have never read anything like this and are waiting with baited breath for more. This has the potential to become one of the most read stories on this site.

Please, please write more,

Waiting,

Indi

quote:

Ishikawa-san chapter 1 . Feb 28, 2010

A well written start.

A completely new take on the HP Universe, i agree with the majority of the other reviewers that the potential is incredible.

Looking forward to reading more. Should be fascinating as well as hilarious at various points. Always a good combination in fanfiction.

Thumbs up.

quote:

Aries The Ram chapter 1 . Mar 5, 2010

I certainly hope you continue to write this, I'm definitely going to keep reading as it is one of the more interesting and engaging stories. Within one chapter you've given me something that is different enough to keep me reading while also giving me some solace in knowing that in some way, shape and form the H/Hr should be pleasing. Also I enjoy humor fics. Thank you and i'll review on another chapter once I get more information.

quote:

Madame Norberta chapter 1 . Mar 9, 2010

I am loving this already! The characters are so different, yet so in character. Harry outside shouting for an owl made me laugh out loud.

I'm glad you have several chapters posted already. I don't think I have the patience to wait...

I also should mention how much I appreciate your excellent writing and careful editing. Unfortunately both are rare in fanfiction.

Peggy

quote:

Meteoricshipyards chapter 1 . Mar 9, 2010

What a _wonderful_ start! I'm loving it!

Thank you so much. Looking forward to this Harry encountering the wizarding world.

Tom A.

quote:

SomeGuyFawkes chapter 1 . Mar 9, 2010

What an interesting and unusual spin on the HP story. The rationalist stuff was great, but is was undercut, a little, by Politically Correct absurdities (for example, what names will be inflicted on Potter's poor grand-kids?). The PC is more amusing since, in other regards, the family seems to fit in a traditional (pre-FemiNazi) mold.

Anywho, fine start. The twist with Mrs. Figg was well done.

But, Harry would have had a few bouts of accidental magic (EVERY kid's life has stressors (especially perceived), no matter how PC the family is). Harry and his Dad should already have a list of minor mysteries that they can't adequately explain; this would be more plausible than mysterious notions in Harry's internal dialog.

quote:

Pennilyn Novus chapter 1 . Mar 10, 2010

Great beginning. Your writing style is tidy and scientific, and I like the alternate universe and its concept. Harry, Petunia, and the Professor's characters are revealed through their actions instead of clumbsy exposition. I look forward to reading the rest.

quote:

lucis chapter 1 . Mar 11, 2010

As of reading Chapter 1, I think this story has epic potential.

Also, in _Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman_ (or maybe _What do you care what other people think_, but I'm pretty sure it was the former) Feynman mentions that he went to psychics, magicians, et cetera, to give them a chance. All failed of course. In a similar vein, Dawkins has visited psychics to disprove them.

quote:

uo-chou chapter 1 . Mar 19, 2010

Interesting. Very, very interesting. As a man of science, I heartily look forward to your descriptions of Hogwarts and magic in general through the eyes of a disciple of the great Richard Feynman. Heh, I hope Harry pokes a million holes in the nonsensical canon storyline.

quote:

aliard chapter 1 . Mar 20, 2010

I can tell just now from reading the first chapter that this is going to be a wild ride. So Mrs. Fig gets hold of Hogwarts for Harry does she? I liked the part when Petunia was thinking about Vernon wanting a child named Dudley. And she said to herself, who would name a child Dudley Dersly?

# ? Feb 21, 2015 18:05

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

The hyphenated name thing is a fringe liberal reject-the-patriarchy! belief. I've met a few families who did this. In one, the father was Mr. G, the mother was Mrs. S, their son was J G-S and their daughter was J S-G. It's a bit odd, but people do all sorts of crazy things with their names.

What's your spoiler policy? The latest few chapters (yes, I've read all of this) reveals a major twist that makes some of this make more sense.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 18:56

Seraphic Neoman: Jul 19, 2011

I really cannot believe you're actually doing this.

And that about-the-author page is a little too generous, so let me crash it back down to reality. Effortpost go.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is not an AI researcher, he's merely a dude who runs a blog where he tries to convince everyone that Bayesian probability is literally the best loving thing ever (and though it is indeed a powerful area of mathematical probability, it is easy to misuse and that is exactly what Yudkowsky does). Big Yud never finished high school and has never finished college. He claims he can do it really guys but is "saving up his intellect" for something more dire. Instead he chose to create a site called Less Wrong which analyzes possible AI behavior (so long as the AI uses logic based on Bayesian probability. What who says that people will create Bayesian-probability based AI? What are you, a moron? :smug:

) though in reality the site is more about its own insular culture, where nerds invent terms to sound smart and argue about mundane poo poo. Since this is the largest pseudo-intellectual circlejerk to have ever graced the internet, they dislike it fiercely when people critique their work, even if it does have more holes than swiss cheese.

Lemme give you an example:

quote:

Now here's the moral dilemma. If neither event is going to happen to you personally, but you still had to choose one or the other:

Would you prefer that one person be horribly tortured for fifty years without hope or rest, or that 3^^^3 people get dust specks in their eyes?

I think the answer is obvious. How about you?

Oh yeah torture and big numbers (3^^^3 is the same thing as 3^3^3^3 which is the same thing as "a meaninglessly big number"). Big Yud and Less Wrong love torture and big numbers :awesome:

So as you would expect from socially-stunted intellectual masturbators the answers were as follows:

quote:

Wow. The obvious answer is TORTURE, all else equal, and I'm pretty sure this is obvious to Eliezer too. But even though there are 26 comments here, and many of them probably know in their hearts torture is the right choice, no one but me has said so yet. What does that say about our abilities in moral reasoning?

quote:

Torture,

Consider three possibilities:

(a) A dusk speck hits you with probability one, (b) You face an additional probability 1/( 3^^^3) of being tortured for 50 years, (c) You must blink your eyes for a fraction of a second, just long enough to prevent a dusk speck from hitting you in the eye.

Most people would pick (c) over (a). Yet, 1/( 3^^^3) is such a small number that by blinking your eyes one more time than you normally would you increase your chances of being captured by a sadist and tortured for 50 years by more than 1/( 3^^^3). Thus, (b) must be better than (c). Consequently, most people should prefer (b) to (a).

and Big Yud chimed in with

Big Yud posted:

I'll go ahead and reveal my answer now: Robin Hanson was correct, I do think that TORTURE is the obvious option, and I think the main instinct behind SPECKS is scope insensitivity.

Some comments:

While some people tried to appeal to non-linear aggregation, you would have to appeal to a non-linear aggregation which was non-linear enough to reduce 3^^^3 to a small constant. In other words it has to be effectively flat. And I doubt they would have said anything different if I'd said 3^^^^3.

If anything is aggregating nonlinearly it should be the 50 years of torture, to which one person has the opportunity to acclimate; there is no individual acclimatization to the dust specks because each dust speck occurs to a different person. The only person who could be "acclimating" to 3^^^3 is you, a bystander who is insensitive to the inconceivably vast scope.

Scope insensitivity - extremely sublinear aggregation by individuals considering bad events happening to many people - can lead to mass defection in a multiplayer prisoner's dilemma even by altruists who would normally cooperate. Suppose I can go skydiving today but this causes the world to get warmer by 0.000001 degree Celsius. This poses very little annoyance to any individual, and my utility function aggregates sublinearly over individuals, so I conclude that it's best to go skydiving. Then a billion people go skydiving and we all catch on fire. Which exact person in the chain should first refuse?

I may be influenced by having previously dealt with existential risks and people's tendency to ignore them.

It's like amateur hour in high school philosophy. Let's take an individual and torture them for 50 years because that causes 5000 pain points but a dust speck only causes 0.01 pain points, however when you SHUT UP AND MULTIPLY (actual less wrong term and is the single dumbest loving thing they ever made) that gives us 10000000.....insert long list of zeroes here....0000 pain points! So single person torture is good! Forget about counting the aftereffects, how much life this person will miss out due to 50 loving years of torture, if you do the math it all squares up! :v:

Other bullshit:
His "organization" basically has only has one person (himself) and the money goes to sponsor himself and the site.
Yudkowsky is fiercely afraid of death and these ideas will show up in the book. Anyone who tried to make a statement about accepting death on Less Wrong is labeled a "deathist"

And for those who are "well maybe he is right, I mean are you an AI researcher?" I have this quote from a goon who is an AI researcher:

SolTerrasa posted:

Effortpost incoming, but the short version is that there are so many (so many) unsolved problems before this even makes sense. It's like arguing what color to paint the bikeshed on the orbital habitation units above Jupiter; sure, we'll probably decide on red eventually, but christ, that just doesn't matter right now. What's worse, he's arguing for a color which doesn't exist.

[...]

Okay, so long version here, from the beginning. I'm an AI guy; I have an actual graduate degree in the subject and now I work for Google. I say this because Yudkowsky does not have a degree in the subject, and because he also does not do any productive work. There's a big belief in CS in "rough consensus and running code", and he's got neither. I also used to be a LessWronger, while I was in undergrad. Yudkowsky is terrified (literally terrified) that we'll accidentally succeed. He unironically calls this his "AI-go-FOOM" theory. I guess the term that the AI community actually uses, "Recursive Self-Improvement", was too loaded a term (wiki). He thinks that we're accidentally going to build an AI which can improve itself, which will then be able to improve itself, which will then be able to improve itself. Here's where the current (and extensive!) research on recursive-self-improvement by some of the smartest people in the world has gotten us: some compilers are able to compile their own code in a more efficient way than the bootstrapped compilers. This is very impressive, but it is not terrifying. Here is the paper which started it all!

So, since we're going to have a big fancy AI which can modify itself, what stops that AI from modifying its own goals? After all, if you give rats the ability to induce pleasure in themselves by pushing a button, they'll waste away because they'll never stop pushing the button. Why would this AI be different? This is what Yudkowsky refers to as a "Paperclip Maximizer". In this, he refers to an AI which has bizarre goals that we don't understand (e.g. maximizing the number of paperclips in the universe). His big quote for this one is "The AI does not love you, nor does it hate you, but you are made of atoms which it could use for something else."

His answer is, in summary, "we're going to build a really smart system which makes decisions which it could never regret in any potential past timeline". He wrote a really long paper on this here, and I really need to digress to explain why this is sad. He invented a new form of decision theory with the intent of using it in an artificial general intelligence, but his theory is literally impossible to implement in silicon. He couldn't even get the mainstream academic press to print it, so he self-published it, in a fake academic journal he invented. He does this a lot, actually. He doesn't really understand the academic mainstream AI researchers, because they don't have the same :sperg: brain as he does, so he'll ape their methods without understanding them. Read a real AI paper, then one of Yudkowsky's. His paper comes off as a pale imitation of what a freshman philosophy student thinks a computer scientist ought to write.

So that's the decision theory side. On the Bayesian side, RationalWiki isn't quite right. We actually already have a version of Yudkowsky's "big improvement", AIs which update their beliefs based on what they experience according to Bayes' Law. This is not unusual or odd in any way, and a lot of people agree that an AI designed that way is useful and interesting. The problem is that it takes a lot of computational power to get an AI like that to do anything. We just don't have computers which are fast enough to do it, and the odds are not good that we ever will. Read about Bayes Nets if you want to know why, but the amount of power you need scales exponentially with the number of facts you want the system to have an opinion about. Current processing can barely play an RTS game. Think about how many opinions you have right now, and compare the sum of your consciousness to how hard it is to keep track of where your opponents probably are in an RTS. Remember that we're trying to build a system that is almost infinitely smarter than you.

Yeah. It's probably not gonna happen.

Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Feb 21, 2015

# ? Feb 21, 2015 19:58

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

Is it normal for me to look at that quote of word vomit and say "the gently caress did any of that even mean?"

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:39

Seraphic Neoman: Jul 19, 2011

Arcsquad12 posted:

Is it normal for me to look at that quote of word vomit and say "the gently caress did any of that even mean?"

Yes. Less Wrong comments are infamously impenetrable to an ~~outsider~~ everyone really. Not only do they use big words and scientific terms, they usually like to toss in together their own made up concepts to muddle everything further.
And to make things worse they use terms incorrectly to boot. The scenario with the skydivers is not a Prisoner's Dilemma. Yes there are some similarities, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Feb 21, 2015

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:47

Trin Tragula: Apr 22, 2005

Man, I remember getting linked to this and reading the first few chapters and enjoying the clearly deliberately exaggerated and self-aware Harry who was totally only that way as an excuse for a bit of light-hearted fun-poking at some of the more arbitrary things in Harry Potter and some of the tropes it inherited from being a school story.

I was quite surprised by what happened next.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 21:41

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

I'm just going to say right now that I'm not going to try and rewrite this thing like I did last time.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:57

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

Jesus H. Irrational Christ.
Alright, so putting aside the author's supposed ignorance on logical issues (because I'm really not qualified on that), let me shout this question into the void: Why Harry Potter?!
I mean, okay, magic and rationality. And it's popular and probably was popular whenever he started commiting this thing. But thinking of a ten-year-old (wizarding genius) just saying these things and thinking these things...
...It's wrong. I'd start organizing a lynch mob when he namedrops Feynman. By the time he's testing a hypothesis, the abomination should be well roasted and pitchforked to the nearest hanging tree. Tree promoted to use for redundant deaths. Whatever.
It is not human.

I'm following along to see just how much of my childhood this is going to retroactively ruin.

edit: VVV I'm not throwing the plate away, I'm putting it behind a concrete wall with a very small bulletproof window and a canister of nerve gas at the ready, horrified and interested at the same time.
I mean, let's face it, this is far from the worst that fanfiction has spawned - it's just the ridiculous pretense that comes packaged along with the usual terrible writing this time. Say one thing for fanfic authors, they just tend to pretend their "work" is art; this guy seems to think it's science.
And tell me you don't find a ten year old quoting Feynman creepy.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Feb 21, 2015

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:14

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

anilEhilated posted:

Jesus H. Irrational Christ.
Alright, so putting aside the author's supposed ignorance on logical issues (because I'm really not qualified on that), let me shout this question into the void: Why Harry Potter?!
I mean, okay, magic and rationality. And it's popular and probably was popular whenever he started commiting this thing. But thinking of a ten-year-old (wizarding genius) just saying these things and thinking these things...
...It's wrong. I'd start organizing a lynch mob when he namedrops Feynman. By the time he's testing a hypothesis, the abomination should be well roasted and pitchforked to the nearest hanging tree. Tree promoted to use for redundant deaths. Whatever.
It is not human.

I'm following along to see just how much of my childhood this is going to retroactively ruin.

Not really seeing how your "Ew! My peas and carrots touched! Throw away the whole plate!" approach is better. :shrug:

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:16

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

The thing is, a story about someone from a scientific background getting involved in the wizarding world and being 'Holy poo poo this is amazing! I want to study this!' would be fun as hell! This is not that story.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:22

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

anilEhilated posted:

I'm following along to see just how much of my childhood this is going to retroactively ruin.

edit: VVV I'm not throwing the plate away, I'm putting it behind a concrete wall with a very small bulletproof window and a canister of nerve gas at the ready, horrified and interested at the same time.
I mean, let's face it, this is far from the worst that fanfiction has spawned - it's just the ridiculous pretense that comes packaged along with the usual terrible writing this time. Say one thing for fanfic authors, they just tend to pretend their "work" is art; this guy seems to think it's science.
And tell me you don't find a ten year old quoting Feynman creepy.

I'd rate the writing as above average. There's a decent sense of mystery and progressive discovery. The characters have unique and identifiable voices. Any technical mistakes are minor and don't detract from the story. There's a bit of bullshit science, but unless you're reading something specifically written to be accurate by an expert in a particular field that's inevitable. The story is too drat long, but that's not a major point for me. There's some issues I have that haven't really come up yet, I'll mention them when they're relevant. The writing is not great, mind you, just better then the average fanfiction.

I only read one Feynman book several years ago, but he seemed like a pretty chill guy who was interested in making science accessible. He'd probably be happy a child was following his work. Why would it be creepy? Because I wouldn't expect a child that young to be that well read? All that would mean is my expectation was wrong. I'm a fairly smart guy, and I've been outsmarted in small ways by ten year olds before. I didn't find it creepy, I just laughed and praised them for being clever.

To get a bit liberal, I always find the impulse to hate and destroy (or just stridently distance yourself from) things that violate someone's sense of normalcy to be questionable.

Night10194 posted:

The thing is, a story about someone from a scientific background getting involved in the wizarding world and being 'Holy poo poo this is amazing! I want to study this!' would be fun as hell! This is not that story.

... Yep, that would have probably been a better story.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 01:05

Nyaa: Jan 7, 2010; Like, Nyaa.

Bobbin Threadbare posted:

I'm just going to say right now that I'm not going to try and rewrite this thing like I did last time.

But who gonna save ~~Detective~~ Sirius Black with magic powder? :ohdear:

# ? Feb 22, 2015 01:33

Abyssal Squid: Jul 24, 2003

Bobbin Threadbare posted:

I'm just going to say right now that I'm not going to try and rewrite this thing like I did last time.

Someone was complaining about HP&tMoR and I offered "there has to be some way to make it entertaining, maybe a cheap find-and-replace trick? Like, magic -> ballsacks."

The results were magical:
Harry took a deep breath. "Mum, your parents didn't have ballsacks, did they?"
"They sent a professor from Hogwarts. He -" Petunia's eyes flicked to Michael. "He showed us some ballsacks."
Harry was finding himself just expecting that, yes, a Hogwarts professor would show up and wave a wand and ballsacks would come out.
"Something went wrong," Harry said. "The resonance in our ballsacks," Professor Quirrell said quietly.

Try it with "magical" to "erotic" and "wand" to "dong" too:

Neither side would have dongs or any other device of ballsacks, and the goblin guards would attack immediately if anyone dared to use dongless ballsacks

# ? Feb 22, 2015 02:04

Ysengrin: Feb 13, 2012

Night10194 posted:

The thing is, a story about someone from a scientific background getting involved in the wizarding world and being 'Holy poo poo this is amazing! I want to study this!' would be fun as hell! This is not that story.

Yeah I was pretty disappointed when I expected that from the story and instead we got... well, what you'll see.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 03:01

Hemingway To Go!: Nov 10, 2008; im stupider then dog shit, i dont give a shit, and i dont give a fuck, and i will never shut the fuck up, and i'll always Respect my enemys.
- ernest hemingway

Arcsquad12 posted:

Is it normal for me to look at that quote of word vomit and say "the gently caress did any of that even mean?"

no because it's pretty much time cube.

don't stare too hard into the abyss.

his net circle of assholes are obsessed with his dumbass ai mumbo-jumbo and have a cult around him, and they know they come off as a cult so they use the word "phyg" instead (rot 13 of cult)

# ? Feb 22, 2015 03:01

Stravinsky: May 31, 2011

I'm not reading any of this

# ? Feb 22, 2015 03:26

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

Ysengrin posted:

Yeah I was pretty disappointed when I expected that from the story and instead we got... well, what you'll see.

A long time ago, I saw a story about a crashed space pilot and his science buddy having to deal with weird magic using aliens that saved them. They assume at first the magic is just a superstition, until they see someone actually cast an observable spell and the scientist freaks out. Not because he's mad or having a crisis of belief, but because "HOLY poo poo YOU GUYS, if we live I am going to get all the nobel prizes for this discovery and I want measuring tools right now so I can study this incredible phenomena."

More sci-fi meeting fantasy needs that attitude. It's fun as hell.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 05:07

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

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!

Night10194 posted:

A long time ago, I saw a story about a crashed space pilot and his science buddy having to deal with weird magic using aliens that saved them. They assume at first the magic is just a superstition, until they see someone actually cast an observable spell and the scientist freaks out. Not because he's mad or having a crisis of belief, but because "HOLY poo poo YOU GUYS, if we live I am going to get all the nobel prizes for this discovery and I want measuring tools right now so I can study this incredible phenomena."

More sci-fi meeting fantasy needs that attitude. It's fun as hell.

http://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Patrol-Christopher-Anvil/dp/0743488482

I'm reminded of a similar story, about a space traveler who was marooned while surveying a planet of reality-bending aliens. The crew that rescued him were convinced by all the nonsense that went on, but realized that if they tried to claim they found a race of magic aliens they'd be kicked out of the service for psych reasons. However, if they lied and said nothing was wrong, a planned colony would go ahead and a lot more people would be affected. So they sent in an accurate account of what they witnessed - and then warned that the planet probably had a hallucinogenic atmosphere.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 06:59

Telarra: Oct 9, 2012

anilEhilated posted:

Jesus H. Irrational Christ.
Alright, so putting aside the author's supposed ignorance on logical issues (because I'm really not qualified on that), let me shout this question into the void: Why Harry Potter?!

The best part is that he's never actually read Harry Potter, only fanfic of it.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 09:13

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

Moddington posted:

The best part is that he's never actually read Harry Potter, only fanfic of it.

It really sounds like "close enough" is his raison d'�tre.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 09:44

High Warlord Zog: Dec 12, 2012

JosephWongKS posted:

WHO IS THE AUTHOR?

Who needs those :words:

when we have this song.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 09:45

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

This scares me.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:10

Captain Mog: Jun 17, 2011

I think I just don't "get" Fanfiction myself, especially the ones which take the characters are create a whole new story. Why not just, I don't know, write your own? Do you really need to have Harry Potter in your space opera about aliens? Just change the name or something.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:35

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

Moddington posted:

The best part is that he's never actually read Harry Potter, only fanfic of it.

This is a lie, I refuse to believe it. I will believe anything else about the Yud, but not this.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:46

metricchip: Jul 16, 2014

Moddington posted:

The best part is that he's never actually read Harry Potter, only fanfic of it.

You're right... that really is the best part. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the why of the whole thing.

I mean, if you want to be a respected blogger and "AI researcher" then obviously the best medium to speak to people is Harry Potter fanfiction.

e: also, I've read the sentence below about 4 times now and my mind is still recovering.

tvtropes posted:

Almost all of his works, whether fanfic or original, are highly philosophical Author Tracts. And then there's Peggy Susie, which is merely a Calvin and Hobbes fic and parody of The Terminator... with no philosophical elements whatsoever.

metricchip fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Feb 22, 2015

# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:49

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

Captain Mog posted:

I think I just don't "get" Fanfiction myself, especially the ones which take the characters are create a whole new story. Why not just, I don't know, write your own? Do you really need to have Harry Potter in your space opera about aliens? Just change the name or something.

Because this way he has a built in audience and won't need to worry about the scary process of actually writing his own work.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:57

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

Captain Mog posted:

I think I just don't "get" Fanfiction myself, especially the ones which take the characters are create a whole new story. Why not just, I don't know, write your own? Do you really need to have Harry Potter in your space opera about aliens? Just change the name or something.

I'm with you. I mean, I've watched films, read books, etc, and have idly wondered what else might have happened to them outside of said story. But even as someone who writes, I've never considered writing it out. Maybe it's because I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I could accurately capture the characters' voices.

Besides, I find writing my own characters, my own stories, far more satisfying.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:09

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Captain Mog posted:

I think I just don't "get" Fanfiction myself, especially the ones which take the characters are create a whole new story. Why not just, I don't know, write your own? Do you really need to have Harry Potter in your space opera about aliens? Just change the name or something.

People like writing stories + people are bad at making interesting characters + there's an abundance of interesting characters in existing works.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:17

Peel: Dec 3, 2007

Night10194 posted:

Because this way he has a built in audience and won't need to worry about the scary process of actually writing his own work.

IIRC this is more or less the explicit reason, he chose HP because he wanted to reach people and get their interest for his computer pseudoscience.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:44

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

Peel posted:

IIRC this is more or less the explicit reason, he chose HP because he wanted to reach people and get their interest for his computer pseudoscience.

Yeah, you have to remember, HPMOR is a religious tract. This is the crazy tech cult equivalent of an incredibly long Chick Tract, as will become obvious as we go.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:46

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

I've made the same argument about fanfic to a good friend who writes it. He didn't really have a good answer, but I reckon part of it might be that you know there's an audience for it - 'Harry Potter-but-with-Y' is an easier sell than 'Y', and there are (presumably) a ton of sites where you can trawl for people who love 'Harry Potter but with...'.

Not to mention that even mediocre writing makes yours 'best fanfic evar' rather than 'mediocre story'.

e: Having said that, I quite enjoyed this. It's fun to see an utterly different take on HP, though I refuse to believe he's never read the original. Unless he's watched the films and basing it off them?

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:06

Captain Mog: Jun 17, 2011

Davros1 posted:

I'm with you. I mean, I've watched films, read books, etc, and have idly wondered what else might have happened to them outside of said story. But even as someone who writes, I've never considered writing it out. Maybe it's because I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I could accurately capture the characters' voices.

Besides, I find writing my own characters, my own stories, far more satisfying.

Yeah, it's the same way with me. If anything, reading a good fantasy novel with great world-building challenges me to come up with my own even more. I remember back in the day when the big thing were all those stories which somehow made Cloud and Sephiroth into lovers, and I thought it was pretty odd back then, too. I was under the impression that fanfiction was mainly a late 90s/00s thing but I guess it's still going strong?

petrol blue posted:

I've made the same argument about fanfic to a good friend who writes it. He didn't really have a good answer, but I reckon part of it might be that you know there's an audience for it - 'Harry Potter-but-with-Y' is an easier sell than 'Y', and there are (presumably) a ton of sites where you can trawl for people who love 'Harry Potter but with...'.

Not to mention that even mediocre writing makes yours 'best fanfic evar' rather than 'mediocre story'.

I guess I can see the appeal with this. Aren't there some now-famous authors who got their start writing fanfic? It'd certainly make signing a book deal easier if you can approach the publisher and say "My Buffy fanfiction has like 30,000 followers and they're all excited to read my own story".

Captain Mog fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Feb 22, 2015

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:06

Velius: Feb 27, 2001

Honestly, I can see some reason for this to exist. One of the really off parts of Harry Potter to me was always how utterly devoid of curiosity or joy the characters were with magic. Especially Harry/hermione given their background; the idea that kids find magic so utterly dull and uninteresting that it's drudgery to learn, say, transfiguration or whatever just seemed really off key. As if it's just intended to make it more familiar to kids in mundane school.

From that standpoint, taking the existing IP and trying to "improve" it is at least sensical. But the 11 year old Godel Escher Bach loving AI theoretician Harry Potter is completely nuts. There must be some middle ground of reasonableness that doesn't lead to head conversations with hats that become self aware because of how awesome your internal monologue is.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:06

CestMoi: Sep 16, 2011

Stravinsky posted:

I'm not reading any of this

I am going to read all of it.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:09

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

Velius posted:

Honestly, I can see some reason for this to exist. One of the really off parts of Harry Potter to me was always how utterly devoid of curiosity or joy the characters were with magic. Especially Harry/hermione given their background; the idea that kids find magic so utterly dull and uninteresting that it's drudgery to learn, say, transfiguration or whatever just seemed really off key. As if it's just intended to make it more familiar to kids in mundane school.

From that standpoint, taking the existing IP and trying to "improve" it is at least sensical. But the 11 year old Godel Escher Bach loving AI theoretician Harry Potter is completely nuts. There must be some middle ground of reasonableness that doesn't lead to head conversations with hats that become self aware because of how awesome your internal monologue is.

Velius posted:

self aware

Good point (especially about Hermione), but I think you answered yourself.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:10

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

Captain Mog posted:

Aren't there some now-famous authors who got their start writing fanfic? It'd certainly make signing a book deal easier if you can approach the publisher and say "My Buffy fanfiction has like 30,000 followers and they're all excited to read my own story".

I believe 50 shades of grey started out as a Twilight fanfic. :eng99:

e: Quote != Edit. Unless it's Bayesian.

e2: Can we just change the thread title to :eng99:

petrol blue fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Feb 22, 2015

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:12

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 19:28

Hemingway To Go!: Nov 10, 2008; im stupider then dog shit, i dont give a shit, and i dont give a fuck, and i will never shut the fuck up, and i'll always Respect my enemys.
- ernest hemingway

Some say, in theory fanfiction is a way to practice writing without getting hung up on inventing characters and places and things.
Others say that different writers continue each others series all the time (movie adaptations, superhero comics, posthumous additions to series, etc) but they just have someone paying for it, so why can't they do it for fun.

Neither explains harry potter fanfiction of harry potter fanfiction from some rear end in a top hat who already thinks he's king poo poo and good at everything.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:13

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

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