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

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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

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:06

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

Magic can't do that, you'd have to be a god!
Ever the rationalist.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2015 19:10

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

quote:

Harry looked away, suddenly ashamed. "I'm sorry," he said in a small voice. "But I have a Mum and Dad. And I know that I'd just make myself unhappy by comparing that reality to... something perfect that I built up in my imagination."

Yup, totally a ten year old.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2015 16:35

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

Pvt.Scott posted:

See? This guy gets it.

It's only ironic if he' Greek, though.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2015 22:28

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

petrol blue posted:

Is his dad rich? I was getting "pretentious douche with airs", but that might just be the, uh, default.

My money's on the ever-permeating spirit of the author.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2015 21:16

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

Yud decides to do a demonstration of the death of the author, his magnum opus remains unfinished and the world is better for it.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 11:07

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

That seems to be a case where actually being rational might spoil his fragile self-image.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 19:33

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

Basically he should've went with Pokemon.
Saying that, please tell me there's a section on firebreathing dragons.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2015 10:18

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

Killstick posted:

Honest question: If the author had been someone else without the baggage of Less Wrong, would you still think harry was being portrayed as always being right and an author insert, or just as a flawed character?

Yes. Because he's trying to pull off a ten year old kid that understands Bayes without being affected by it in other ways. The author isn't making any effort to portray him as flawed - or sufficiently advanced in his area. Child prodigies exist but this one just comes out as halfassed.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Mar 9, 2015

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 12:30

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

That's it though: he doesn't want to be treated as an equal, he seems to see himself as more of a prophetic "everyone should listen to me because I am always right and you need to be amazed" thing.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 21:13

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

That Martin Luther reference sure came out of nowhere. Guess he's a genius for history as well as, er, everything else.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 11:42

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

See, having character development would imply he wasn't perfect in the first place, something that simply can not stand when it's a Harry Sue.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 16:56

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

He's clearly been talking about about HPMOR. There's meanings hidden in there, just use a bit of kabbalah on the poo poo.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2015 10:52

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

It's because the writing deserves no charity. With Rowling (and any, y'know, good books), I'm willing to suspend my disbelief because I'm enjoying it and I want to read more so I am willing to accept some silliness. There, however, are no redeeming factors for this. Or Patrick Rothfuss, since you mention that - it's not about the lead being portrayed as a bad person, on the contrary, it's about the entire loving world being presented in a way that makes the lead look like less of a poo poo - and that for no reason at all.

Similarly, you could argue that nitpicking on the author's nitpicks is just fair treatment.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 16:33

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

I honestly don't get all the talk about intelligence being portrayed as a desirable character quality, especially if the example we're getting is Harry. So far he's been acting like a total dork.
Parroting theories and aping methods does not an intelligent character make.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2015 18:52

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

Night10194 posted:

Really, whenever you see someone talking about how anything is the source of all that's good and holy forever, you should get some warning flags up

Fixed that for you. Dangers of reductionism and so on.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2015 12:42

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

quote:

So I took another practice test, this time resolving to, as Ben Kenobi would say, "act on instinct". (That actual phrase, in Ben's voice, ran through my head.) (10). I got a 640 Math. The lesson I learned was to trust my intuitions, because my intuitions are always right - probably one of the most important lessons of my entire life.

Now that's not very scientific, is it? The level of doublethink required to keep thinking that and while still maitaining the pretense to rationality must be insane.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Mar 24, 2015

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 16:22

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

Remeber, your insticts are always right.
Mind you, if your instincts are telling you torture is preferrable to dust spec in the eye given just about any number of examples, you're pretty hosed up in addition to that.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 14:30

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

Isn't quantifying the unquantifiable pretty much whas Bayesian statistics are about?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 20:44

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

His SCIENCE book list is rather curious. GEB is obviously great but it's more of a generalist, popular thing and the Kahneman/Tversky study on heuristics comes from 1982; if that's his go-to book on psychology, it's a pretty interesting choice.

edit: No, that's not how desensivization works.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2015 19:58

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

Or Fu Manchus. Depending on the alignment.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2015 16:29

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

JosephWongKS posted:

That does make sense � Slytherins are supposed to be �ambitious, shrewd and cunning�, none of which describes Goyle (or Crabbe) in the canon series.

Not to nitpick, but a pretty big plot point in the books is that the thing that defines sorting more than anything else is your choice. If I remeber correctly, the parents of those two guys ran with Voldemort, so it's perfectly possible they've been brought up in a "Slytherin OR ELSE" manner.
Same with Hermione not automatically ending up in Ravenclaw, I suppose.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 07:48

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

Really? Because the impression I'm getting is that it's there to Bow Before The Mighty Harry Sue.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 10:40

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

Nietzsche: the greatest rationalist of them all.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 18:47

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

Truly, Harry is the (rationalist) messiah, granting the gift of life where there was none by power of sheer obnoxiusness.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2015 17:58

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

WingsOfSteel posted:

Slughorn is the most decent Slytherin in the books, and he's also the only Slytherin character in the books who was sorted into the house and graduated before Voldemort came along.

Snape. Uh, by some definitions of "decent".

# ¿ Apr 15, 2015 07:08

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

Oh. So he's a weeaboo in addition to everything else.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2015 18:52

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

Wouldn't it be better as Come-tea, then?

# ¿ May 3, 2015 17:39

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

Well, a Hugo-quality anything is an accolade that's getting redefined this year. Yud wouldn't be out of place there.
_{Shutting up now, okay.}

edit: One rather weird thing about his Hugo appeal, though - he wants to get into contact with either Rowling or Daniel Radcliffe - what the hell has the actor have to do with book rights?
...Unless there's going to be a movie version.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jun 23, 2015

# ¿ Jun 23, 2015 20:50

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

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

I would suspect Yudkowski of not really knowing where his story was going at first, and him just writing chapters on whatever took his fancy at the time, but his own words seem to contradict that.

Yeah, easily the best part of the retrospective posted a bit above was Yud's "note to self: foreshadow less" bit. I guess he was aiming for an even less coherent plot?

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 11:27

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

divabot posted:

Apparently Wiseau did another thing. I shudder to contemplate.

You really should; cherrypicking from the wiki article:

wikipedia posted:

*The A.V. Club noted that the production values and acting quality of The *Neighbors were far worse than those of The Room, and noted the unexplained presence of women in bikinis in several scenes. Wiseau responded to the criticism by saying that the women were meant to be symbolic of sexually liberated women.

*Several reviews noted that the black, Asian, and female characters tended to be characterized as racist and/or sexist stereotypes.

*Wiseau plays dual roles: Charlie, the main protagonist of the series, and (with a blonde wig) Ricky Rick, a petty criminal who serves as the series' primary antagonist. According to Wiseau, he decided to play both roles to show that he had range as an actor.

*On May 26, 2015, episodes five and six were released on Hulu. According to Wiseau, this was so the show would be eligible for the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards, which he submitted them for nomination for in six categories.

I'm paticularly fond of the sexually liberated sexist stereotypes.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 20:12

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

Curvature of Earth posted:

Eh, the New Testament wasn't that great. Suddenly the Jews don't matter anymore? God needs his flesh-and-blood son (where did that come from!?) to die for some reason? What happened to the pile of rules God spent two whole books laying out? Did they even read the source material?

And what's with all the different versions? Did they break up just after finishing the plot outline or what?

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 12:13

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

PT6A posted:

It's called Harry Potter Becomes a Communist, and upon following the link, apparently Commie Potter is a fan of Robert Mugabe.

I honestly don't know whether it's making fun of communists, or trying to promote communism, or if it's just the insane fever dream of a babbling retard, and I really don't want to read enough to find out.

These two are literally the same thing.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2015 10:49

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

Well, it's good to know people have contingency plans to deal with time-traveling evil AIs from the future. Really helps you sleep soundly at night.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2015 10:28

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

So the fanfic is basically him begging to be accepted into the Illuminati, right.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2015 18:29

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

divabot posted:

The Beisutsukai, you insufficiently rational person who is probably from a low-IQ country. (Ordinary humans were not so impressed.)

...It's turtles all the way down, isn't it.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 09:22

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

And this is what happens when critical thinking takes a nice, long vacation.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 15:12

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

Still makes no sense, though. You can't have things happening in a destroyed universe. I don't see how the last sentence is relevant in any way, either.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Jul 30, 2015

# ¿ Jul 30, 2015 09:25

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

I'm assuming that if it was a parody, the other characters wouldn't put with Harry's bullshit as opposed to being as awed as they are. Not to mention it's, y'know, not funny or indicative of criticism of the attitude it's supposed to be parodying in any way.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2015 14:37

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:06

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

what the gently caress is a keer

edit: Someone should really get this clown to a psychology 101 course. Somehow the whole thing gets stupider as it goes on.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Aug 3, 2015

# ¿ Aug 3, 2015 17:18

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

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