Why is there no Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality thread?

[rpgdemon]

There should be a HP:MOR thread. Anyone else reading this?

At Fanfiction.net (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality)

Or at its own website. (http://hpmor.com/chapter/1)

So, synopsis: Harry is raised by a scientist instead of Vernon, and grows up reading sci-fi, fantasy, et cetera. It takes a bit of time to get off the ground, but once it does, it's awesome.

[Magus]

It sounds very familiar, so I'm going to guess we talked about it at least once before.

[rpgdemon]

We have. The main reason I made this thread is that I know at least some people here read it (I think I got turned on to it at NPF, and I remember talking to people about it), and I really want to discuss the latest chapter's cliffhanger, and have had no where to do so.

It will be resolved when it updates tomorrow, but I am impatient! I also find works much more enjoyable when I have other people to talk about them with, so hence, a post!

[Loyal]

We have. (http://nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=37708)

I'm a bit surprised it's updating again. "Sunk Costs" went like... 6 months without an update? Eight?

[rpgdemon]

Yeah, during that time there was a lot of hullaballoo about moving, and stuff, then he started writing a bunch of chapters all at once so that they wouldn't mess eachother up, and since this chapter ends on a terrible cliffhanger, and he didn't want to make people wait on -that-. He is now posting those chapters that he wrote.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

It finally updated? Good, though I've completely forgotten what had happened in those last few chapters now.

[rpgdemon]

Yeah, he's now writing bulk chapters, and releasing them onceish a week once he's got a group done, rather than the "Whenever!" schedule he had before.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

So I finally got caught up with the latest updates, and it was all pretty excellent and humourus (the battles continue to be the best parts, if only to see what crazy new plan Harry comes up with), and then I got to this line:

(to Umbridge) "I make you this one offer," said the Boy-Who-Lived. "I never learn that you've been interfering with me or any of mine. And you never find out why the unkillable soul-eating monster is scared of me. Now sit down and shut up."

Ho. Ly. Shit! It may sound like over used hyperbole but this really is the best line ever. Of all time. Harry Potter is now offically a badass.

[Amake]

I figured Harry entered the hallowed halls of asses most malevolent back when he destroyed his first Dementor. What a visionary victory for humanity that was. Almost made me cry.

Now, I never had anything especially against Harry Potter. I read through the books once, enjoyed them, have never felt any urge to do it again. But MoR is fantastic. It's like Street Fighter 2 compared to Street Fighter. Laughs, thrills, mindblowing insights, I don't even know what to say.

Let's talk about the author's commitment to cryonics (http://lesswrong.com/lw/1mc/normal_cryonics/) instead. It's weird, right? I mean I can understand his personal obsession with not dying, but he's calling people who aren't insured to have their bodies frozen insane. It's the only writings of his I've read and didn't agree with. I think it's mildly insane to:

Pay 300 dollars a year until you die - creating an anticipation for death - just in case you happen to a) die or get into a state of immediate inevitable death at a time and a place where you can get yourself frozen, b) sign up with a cryonic service that doesn't go bankrupt or accidentally pull the plug to the freezers at any time in the future, c) be frozen with a technique that turns out to be reversible, sometime in the future and d) die from a cause that also turns out to be reversible sometime in the future.

And this is where you should sanely spend your spare money? Ensuring that you continue to consume resources for maybe centuries past your own lifetime just to give a small elite a minuscule chance of living again, while people who don't even get a first chance die like flies? If you want to save the most lives I think building schools and water delivery systems and possibly spaceships should have a higher priority than building large freezers.

Maybe it's just me who's picturing a nightmarish future dominated by vast frozen tombs with billions and billions of bodies using up all electricity the living can afford to produce. And possibly lonely ghosts crying invisibly for us, not understanding why we would choose to sleep forever and never wake up and play with them. Maybe it's just because I live in north Sweden. But I don't think the road to a sane, enlightened future is cold.

[rpgdemon]

Yeah, some of his real-life ideas are pretty weird. The cryogenics, for one.

He also seems kind of like an insecure dick about his panromance. In the previous author notes, he was mentioning looking for someone who liked metal concerts to date his "primary". It's like, okay, that's cool if it's his thing. Struck me as odd that he was using so stiffly formal language, but whatever.

Then he goes and says something like, "And I'm sorry for all your pitiful people with your less evolved romances who are offended by the idea of it." And I'm like, "Hey, I wasn't offended by anything, until you called me a pitiful person with lesser romance. Just because something's good for you (And is it, if you feel the need to insult everyone else's romantic preferences?) doesn't mean it's the best thing evar."

[Sifright]

Yea, Ray Kurzweil is kind of kooky in some ways. I mean it's a pretty decent story and it has a lot of funny moments, but like if you take a step back and think what the hell all these characters are supposed to be 11 it kind of falls apart.

[rpgdemon]

Who?

[Sifright]

the dude who wrote this fanfiction his name is raymond kurzweil he's semi famous in the circle he operates in.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I think you have the wrong person there Sif. This dude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky) wrote MoR, not whoever you said.

[Sifright]

haha wow, did i ever get this wrong. :)

edit: now i'm confused as to how i got them mixed up.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Harry Potter fan fiction?

Wake me up if you find any decent Harry Dresden stuff. And by decent, I mean stuff that Bob the skull would not a huge fan of.

[Doc ock rokc]

Harry Potter fan fiction?

Wake me up if you find any decent Harry Dresden stuff. And by decent, I mean stuff that Bob the skull would not a huge fan of.

regular, oc or crossover?

[rpgdemon]

haha wow, did i ever get this wrong. :)

edit: now i'm confused as to how i got them mixed up.

Yeah, I was like, "Unless Eliezer is a pen name..."

[Amake]

So chapter 84, Quirrel pulls a boner. If indeed he's not Voldemort, well, actually, I don't think we have to pretend we don't know for sure anymore after that humming torture display. But if he wasn't Voldemort, how could you explain his actions in the last scene of the chapter? He's pretty blatantly pressuring, trying to force an immediate irrevocable decision, acting as if there's not enough time to think it through and trusting the other party will be caught up enough to not realize that they do in fact have time even if he doesn't. Maybe said party is too shell-shocked at the moment to put it together, but if they remember later on and especially if they should happen to compare notes about Quirrel with other people who know him, he's going to be in trouble.

To paraphrase the Sandman: Voldemort, you disappoint me. This evening's display: It was not very subtle.

Or maybe it's just reader bias. Man it's hard to make-believe not knowing some things.

[rpgdemon]

Well, he's now got the head auror "confirming" who he is, and he knew Hermione didn't trust him to begin with, and what she says against him will sound like it's coming from that angle?

I dunno, I agree, if seems foolish. It might be that he thinks opening with how he was once a hero would hide that foolishness?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Huh, so it seems Quirrel subscribes to the Five Torture Groups methodology, except he skips straight to group 5 and works upwards from there. I'm impressed.

[Dracorion]

I suspect at this point he just gives no fucks about who people think he is, for the most part.

Also, if I hadn't already read it in the author's notes a long time ago, I would've guessed that Quirrel is Voldemort since Azkaban.

Who wants to bet that the person Amelia Bones is referring to is Tom Riddle?

[rpgdemon]

I suspect at this point he just gives no fucks about who people think he is, for the most part.

Also, if I hadn't already read it in the author's notes a long time ago, I would've guessed that Quirrel is Voldemort since Azkaban.

Who wants to bet that the person Amelia Bones is referring to is Tom Riddle?

I thought that, then I thought for Voldemort to be both Tom Riddle and Voldemort at the same time wouldn't make sense, and you'd think people would know who he was coming from Tom Riddle.

I'm still back and forth on it though. Riddle was a Noble Ancient house, since Morvolo thought the deathly hallow symbol was the house's family crest, in canon. And Voldemort could have been misaligning the facts, so that it was more, "I was a champion of light, then they sucked, so I got good followers", rather than "I was fighting Voldemort, and got sick and tired of his followers being better than mine."

He gave up being a hero, and then became Voldemort.