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vegetables posted:I thought the idea that animals could repeal them because they didn't understand death as a concept was clever That doesn't even make sense though. Not understanding something doesn't make you immune to it. Plus, as written they very obviously represent depression, and to get them to work as representations of death you basically have to change everything about them but their appearance (which is just a sort of generic spectre anyway).
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Mar 7, 2015 04:19
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reignonyourparade posted:HPMOR goes through seeming like its going to be three different stories as at it goes along and gets progressively weirder. I think that is actually one of its biggest problems, that Yudkowsky clearly had no idea where he was going with the plot and so it just sort of rambles on and on, dropping plot threads as he gets bored with them and never resolving anything, just moving on to the next thing.
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Mar 18, 2015 13:16
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Krotera posted:For those playing at home, here's what that means in this context. (the true halting problem is much more general) AI A simulates AI B and does whatever beats B -- B simulates A and does whatever beats A. But they'll compute forever at this rate -- to simulate B, A has to simulate itself and B's reaction -- but to simulate itself for that purpose, it has to simulate itself and B's reaction again, and so on. B has the same problem. Either could stop thinking at a certain recursion depth, but then the other would win by thinking one recursion level deeper. (as it would know by simulating it when the first one would stop) So deciding to terminate is always wrong. Either of these AIs is strong against opponents that can't attempt to simulate *it*, but how do you guarantee that? Well, the correct solution is to spend years building up an immunity to iocaine powder and poison both drinks.
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Mar 25, 2015 10:06
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Legacyspy posted:This is what I mean. If Nessus is just being sarcastic or w.e that is fine. But if he honestly thinks that friendly A.I is a worry over A.I torturing us... then he doesn't understand what, right or wrong, Eliezer is talking about. Its a worry that the A.I, in pursuit of the goals we gave it, may have unintended consequences that could be bad for us. This can be as simple as being a lovely A.I that when asked "How do we get rid of insects eating our sugar cane crop" says "introduce the cane toad" not understanding that the consequences of cane toad infestation will be far more annoying than the insects eating our crops. Or an A.I that does for some reason we can't couldn't have foreseen decide to "kill all humans" in pursuit of its goals. I think this is unlikely but I don't think the idea of "How do we get an A.I to recommend courses of actions that take into account the complex values we have (like not liking a cane toad infestation) is a useful one. Whether Eliezer is actually doing anything useful on this front, I can't tell. But afaik hes also one of the few people even talking about it. Saying that no one else is even talking about this problem is like saying no one's talking about the problem of interplanetary diplomacy. Since there are no other inhabited planets to communicate with right now, it's not exactly a pressing question. If we end up colonising other planets or meeting another intelligent species then it'll be relevant, but until then we don't even know the parameters we'd be working within, so it's fairly useless to come up with any "solutions" just yet. How to make sure an AGI is "friendly" is a potential problem, but it's not one we can actually take any steps to solve until we know what form an AGI might actually take.
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Mar 26, 2015 07:48
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Legacyspy posted:But this sounds like a totally interesting thing to explore. Sure, it's a great premise for science fiction. And there's tons of sci-fi about interplanetary diplomacy (and AGIs). There just aren't many people talking about it as a practical issue, because it isn't one.
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Mar 26, 2015 08:17
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Legacyspy posted:The point is, all you need to do to get a world where someone is tortured (very bad consequence) to avoid a minor inconvenience across a sufficiently large number of people, is have a sufficiently large number of people such that the probability of at least one person getting a very bad consequence is near unity. And that is why people who prefer dust speckers are inconsistent. What even is your point? I've read your post several times and it's gibberish to me.
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Mar 26, 2015 13:46
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i81icu812 posted:How do you make non-oriental ramen? Isn't "ramen" just American for two-minute noodles?
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Apr 1, 2015 12:55
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JosephWongKS posted:John Stapp strapped himself to a rocket to research the effect of sudden deceleration on the human body. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren drank bacteria from the stomachs of ulcer suffers to prove that the bacteria was responsible for causing the ulcers. Werner Forssmann jammed a catheter up through his arm into his own heart to find out more about how the heart works. And Eliezarry Potter chose not to drink a can of Comed-Tea because of fear of embarrassment. It's still dumb, but it's not just that he's worried about embarrassing himself.
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May 14, 2015 09:42
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JosephWongKS posted:“Beggars”? I mean, it’s not surprising that Harry would insult his classmates, but it doesn’t make sense that he’d call them “beggars” instead of e.g. “idiots” or “morons”. Harry exalts himself for his (self-perceived) superior intellect, not for his superior wealth. I think that's an attempted Britishism. "Beggar" is sometimes used as a politer alternative to "bugger", as in "You lucky beggar!" It doesn't really have anything to do with begging (or buggery).
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Jul 2, 2015 09:10
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Doctor Spaceman posted:At least here you can see bits where he's poking fun at the original books. Harry and co do win a lot of points for the House Cup because of their Voldemort-related activities, and Hogwarts does give out a time travel device to kids on a very flimsy justification. I'm not sure though that they get points because they're helping defeat Voldemort, or if it's just because Dumbledore was in Gryffindor and wants them to win, just like how Snape blatantly favours Slytherin (and penalises Harry and his friends because he hated Harry's dad). Dumbledore might use the Voldemort-related stuff as justification, but he'd probably find some other excuse to give Gryffindor those points otherwise.
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Jul 28, 2015 12:11
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:But if you're going to pick apart magic, I think it's not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that transfiguration *should* be mortally terrifying even if you ignore the question of where all that energy is coming from, unless you can devise some other failsafe or something. OK, but if you're making that change, how can you possibly justify teaching it to children (or anyone)?
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Sep 5, 2015 13:15
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How exactly is the English language lacking in ways to describe the convenience of time travel? It allows you to get places early even if you're running late. There, I just succinctly explained the convenience.
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Sep 21, 2015 06:31
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JosephWongKS posted:Canonically, aren’t the textbooks for the class assigned by the teacher for that class? I remember that coming up as a plot point in Book 2 (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), where all the textbooks for Defence Against the Dark Arts were useless books which had been written by Gilderoy Lockhart, the blowhard DaDa teacher for that year. Yep, but obviously Yudkowsky wanted to use the cliché of the unconventional teacher who comes in and tells the class to throw out their textbooks, "we won't be using those". It's usually a teacher who comes in part way through the term as a replacement who does it (explaining why they didn't just have the students not buy the textbooks to begin with), but that's clearly what he's going for.
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Sep 30, 2015 04:47
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Night10194 posted:Doesn't the actual Killing Curse have some enormous requirement to it and constitute an incredible moral transgression to even consider using? It's been a long time since I read the books, but I recall a lot of the forbidden spells being forbidden with good reason and nothing to rely on unless you were a really practiced Death Eater and a huge son of a bitch. EvilTaytoMan posted:Yeah you have to have killing intent to use it, and it splits your soul into pieces as a result. It's how Voldemort was able to make the horcruxes.
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Oct 1, 2015 11:03
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Palisader posted:But I thought even that was supposed to be temporary? Bah, I'll have to read that section again. IIRC it's an illusion rather than an actual transformation.
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Oct 16, 2015 02:46
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Hermione uses magic to improve her teeth in the actual books, so it's probably just like that. The actual books don't have all the stuff about transfiguring things being super dangerous.
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Oct 16, 2015 06:55
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JosephWongKS posted:She passed the more important test of character though. Blind obedience to authority (e.g. the Milgram experiment) is the straightest path to perdition and Nazism.
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Oct 20, 2015 08:33
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reignonyourparade posted:I think you're not supposed to read it "Hermione won't resent being singled out" but "Hermione came pre-singled out by quirrel, so instead of another student going 'malroy shot me what a jerk' he's just a footnote compared to what a terrible person Hermione thinks quirrel is." Of course, he could have shot Crabbe or Goyle since their loyalty is guaranteed. Or he could have shot Quirrel. Whether or not you accept that Hermione herself wouldn't resent Draco for choosing her (which she would), and whether or not you accept that other people wouldn't think he was an arsehole for choosing her (which they would), she's still not the only valid target.
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Oct 23, 2015 01:52
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anilEhilated posted:Well, counting people as "objects that can be used for combat" is rather telling. Not to mention half of those shouldn't even count - removing the floor in order to reveal a spike pit isn't exactly a use of the floor. NihilCredo posted:It's hard to draw the line between Eliezer's ideas of "so weird it's funny" and "so weird it's creepy", but I'm pretty sure this is one of the parts where you're actually *supposed* to cringe at Harry's creepiness. IIRC, at some point later on he wonders "am I ever going to live that one down?". Cingulate posted:The scene reads like an attempt to look into the mind of a future school shooter.
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Oct 26, 2015 02:44
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JosephWongKS posted:That’s a good point. Is it though? You don't notice that Harry's ideas are all about how to kill someone because that's where your mind went as well. It's how most people would interpret the task, I think.
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Oct 26, 2015 04:55
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So what was the lesson and how did Harry dodge it? Quirrell is a bad teacher.
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Oct 26, 2015 08:25
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JosephWongKS posted:Why fifteen years old? What changes when Eliezarry turns fifteen? I guess it's just supposed to be the idea that to an eleven-year-old that seems like a long time away.
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Oct 28, 2015 10:37
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JosephWongKS posted:It’s magic. Literal magic. You think that after having seen McGonagall literally turn into a literal cat and after a full week in Hogwarts, Eliezarry would have learned to deal with it. I guess it's meant to be a funny "look how dumb this is if you think about it too much" bit, but it comes across as too serious, like Yudkowsky's not making a joke, he actually can't understand why they fly around on brooms in these books. (he is making a joke, I just think the execution is poor)
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Oct 29, 2015 05:35
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I do like that in this bit, Harry's belief that he knows better than all the adults around him is shown to be completely false and he's treated like the ignorant child that he is. Pity it so often goes the other way.
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Oct 30, 2015 04:45
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Xander77 posted:One of us isn't quite following the "Time Turner" thing. Or to put it another way, it's the Bill & Ted rules of time travel.
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Nov 4, 2015 09:50
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In It For The Tank posted:Dumbledore's characterization is one of the consistently strong points of the HPMOR. He strikes a good balance, much like his canon counterpart, of being whimsical on one hand and terrifyingly powerful and intelligent on the other. I recall some bits later on where his character gets seriously distorted to make room for Harry to take the spotlight. Basically, whenever Yudkowsky wants to use Harry to make a point, whatever character is around becomes a straw man for him to debate, and Dumbledore is no exception.
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Nov 30, 2015 15:25
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Jazerus posted:Oh God, Not Again! is a comedy where Harry's sent back in time to the beginning of the series and decides to short-circuit the plot. This is a common premise for serious fics, most of which are dreck, but this pulls it off really well as a comedy. Is this ongoing or complete? If ongoing, is it still being updated or does it look like it's been abandoned?
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Dec 28, 2015 01:59
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Mazerunner posted:Side note, but what about Crabb and Goyle? Clearly they're not all that clever and probably not too ambitious- do they value those traits though (in other people)? Or did they beg for Slytherin due to the pure-blood association and the hat caved when they might have been better suited for another house?
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Jan 7, 2016 09:01
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Travenum posted:Isn't the implication that since Dumbledore could turn himself invisible, it was him who gave Harry the cloak? There are other ways to turn invisible (at least in the real Harry Potter). The cloak is only unique in that it can't be damaged and lasts forever. I still don't get what the implication was supposed to be though.
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Jan 13, 2016 04:51
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kvx687 posted:He tried to get his fans to get him in contact with Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe in an attempt to get his fic published as an official, canon alternate universe. I've never understood what he thought Daniel Radcliffe could do for him.
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Jan 14, 2016 03:11
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JosephWongKS posted:What’s the point of all this conflict, or any conflict, if Eliezarry’s just going to resolve it with the Time-Turner Ex Machina? Rowling took the Time-Turner from Hermione by the end of Book 2; is Eliezarry going to keep his for the rest of the series? There's two ways this could actually serve a purpose. Either Eliezarry gets into more trouble than he otherwise would have because of these shenanigans and learns to control himself (or at least be more subtle), or he suffers no consequences due to being the chosen one and learns he can get away with anything, which gets him into some serious trouble that he can't get out of later. I don't think either of those things happen here, I'm pretty sure this is meant to be a comedy/wish fulfilment section, like "wouldn't it have been awesome if you could have showed up that one mean teacher when you were at school?"
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Apr 28, 2016 11:15
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nopantsjack posted:Have we got to the bit where harry becomes Chaos general of some kind of inter-house war and wins battles through being lolrandom? Its the cringiest thing ever.
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Dec 30, 2016 05:16
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It's interesting that Harry doesn't seem to consider what seems to me the most obvious solution to all his problems with accepting the existence of magic. He can't believe it works in the way it apparently does because he's assuming it's a product of the natural world. What if it's alien nanobots or something? If it's designed then it can work however the designer wanted it to. "The universe" doesn't care how you say "wingardium leviosa", but for some reason this ancient meddling alien really did/does.
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Jan 2, 2017 11:22
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Added Space posted:Unless you can demonstrate these aliens or nanobots, that's not really a solution to the mystery. It's an appeal to an unsolvable mystery, not really any better than attributing magic to a god. I think the best anyone can do is say that Atlantis somehow produced magic. Atlantis was comprehensively destroyed so no-one can say what the exact process was. It's a better solution than Atlantis, since Atlantis is known to be fictional. Anyway, my point was more about the fact that Harry seems to be working under the assumption that magic must be a natural phenomenon, and that's why he's so confused by it not working the way he expects. If you don't assume it's natural then there's no problem with how it works. Basically, the difference between: Magic is natural, but magic does not work the way a natural phenomenon would. Therefore there is something fundamentally wrong with my understanding of basically everything. and Magic does not seem to work the way I believe a natural phenomenon would, therefore: it is not a natural phenomenon; it doesn't work the way it appears to; or there is something fundamentally wrong with my understanding of basically everything. Harry's assumptions limit his possible conclusions to what appears to be the least likely one.
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Jan 3, 2017 05:00
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Added Space posted:However, if the thread thinks I should include everything I will. I'm fine with what you're doing currently, but you should do it however you want, because otherwise it's going to turn into a chore that you won't want to do any more. 
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Jan 4, 2017 14:13
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i81icu812 posted:The biggest problem is that if the magic gene is recessive then squibs are impossible for two magical parents. This implication should be important and and obvious but is never addressed. I could be wrong, but I think Eliezer has actually changed the definition of "squib" anyway. If I recall correctly, in the original books a squib was the child of a wizard who had no magical ability, rather than limited ability. Magic was just a binary thing, you've got it or you don't, there's no difference between a squib and a muggle except that a squib was raised by wizards. Also, I think wizards marrying muggles usually had wizard children (squibs seem to be very rare), which wouldn't make sense if magical ability was determined by a single recessive gene.
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Jan 5, 2017 02:04
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Added Space posted:Act 5:
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Jan 7, 2017 03:58
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Added Space posted:Aww, Harry thought he wasn't stupidly overconfident this time. That's almost cute. Added Space posted:I like the Hermione who has dedicated herself to hanging out with Harriezer and endlessly trolling him. Added Space posted:Harry Potter vs All The Dumb Bullies is a plot cancer that goes nowhere and results in no-one learning any sort of moral lesson. Added Space posted:I'm convinced that Harriezer is against bullies out of jealousy. He wants to be the one with all the power to push people around and force them to do what he thinks is right and just. HPatMoR posted:He was wooing a beautiful Muggleborn girl, who came across him being bullied, and tried to rescue him. HPatMoR posted:Open question because I think it's interesting: Does Bellatrix LeStrange, a woman who tortured, murdered, and often both at once deserve a life sentence in Azkaban? A place of unending misery and slowly failing health? I'm not sure, but I think The Princess Bride actually gets referenced at some point in HPatMoR, so it's weird that the version of deception and manipulation it advocates is the ridiculous and obviously flawed version that Vizzini uses.
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Jan 9, 2017 09:06
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Yudkowksy posted:Some other readers have been saying a very silly thing, so let me state the following: It is possible that the human species has gotten through its entire history to date without a single professional editor ever sending back a story with a comment reading "This villain is too strong and needs to be weakened." Please bear this in mind when writing your own stories.
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Jan 9, 2017 10:08
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The section of Harry figuring out partial transfiguration seriously needs to be cut way, way down. I don't mind the concept behind it, but it's too long and there is an obvious flaw. If partial transifguration is impossible for most people for the reason given, the example of the castle wall is dumb and wrong. Any wizard should be able to conceptualise a brick or stone as a single object distinct from the entire wall. That would still leave Harry's new variation as different and useful without completely blowing the concept. And all the technical detail that Yudkowsky included to try to look smart is just tedious to read and unnecessary. You can explain it all conceptually without bringing up quantum physics or the stupid poo poo about Buddhism and living inside your skull. All that does is obfuscate the idea.
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Jan 12, 2017 06:12
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