Since Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is apparently still a thing, I figured I’d spend a few minutes before fediverse monster-movie night to collect relevant links:

And this from our own bitofhope:

Tired of people misrepresenting HPMOR as a Harry Potter fanfic where Harry uses science to study magic.

Anyone who has actually read the fic knows it’s a Death Note/Waiting for Godot/Spaceballs crossover fic about aristocrat failchildren bringing glowstick swords into an airsoft match. There are zero superfluous sentences. Every sentence a painting, especially when Glup of the Most Noble and Ancient Judean People’s Front of Shitto casts Compelled Duel on Backgroundella O. C. Technicallynot of the Superlatively Posh and Antiquarian Judean Popular Front of Whatsherface.

In the words of Anton Chekhov: if you establish in the first act that you must never burn anything you have transfigured, you must have a character transform something into a rocket in the third act and then fire that rocket without any harm done. This will prove you’re a better writer than Chekhov.

Final exam question: You are facing the most reddit serial killer of all time and his dumbass henchmen. Armed with only your wits and a spell that can transform anything into anything else, devise an escape. For extra credit, invoke one or more of the following science fiction plot devices: nuclear fusion, carbon nanotubes/fullerenes, wormholes/warp drives, neutronium, wave/particle duality, brown notes, grey goo, the anthropic principle, quantum tunneling, Maxwell’s demon.

HPMOR: the only novel that has been fully read by fewer people than mistakenly believe to have fully read it.

And a question dug up from one of those old threads: OK, so, Yud poured a lot of himself into writing HPMoR. It took time, he obviously believed he was doing something important — and he was writing autobiography, in big ways and small. This leads me to wonder: Has he said anything about Rowling, you know, turning out to be a garbage human?

  • zogwargEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    Oof on the part of the author though:

    Eliezer Yudkowsky: Nope.

    Algernoq (the blogpost author): I assume this is a “Nope, because of secret author evidence that justifies a one-word rebuttal” or a “Nope, you’re wrong in several ways but I have higher-value things to do than retype the sequences”. (Also, it’s an honor; I share your goal but take a different road.) […]

    Richard_Kennaway: What goal do you understand yourself to share with Eliezer, and what different road?

    Algernoq: I don’t deserve to be arrogant here, not having done anything yet. The goal: I had a sister once, and will do what I can to end death. The road: I’m working as an engineer (and, on reflection, failing to optimize) instead of working on existential risk-reduction. My vision is to build realistic (non-nanotech) self-replicating robots to brute-force the problem of inadequate science funding. I know enough mechanical engineering but am a few years away from knowing enough computer science to do this.

    • jonhendryEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      My vision is to build realistic (non-nanotech) self-replicating robots to brute-force the problem of inadequate science funding

      Guillotines ought to be sufficient.