Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

[Don Coyote]

THIS SHIT IS FUCKING AWESOME.

[Jasper]

Something just occurred to me.  What if, instead of guessing the locations of the horcruxes, Harry had simply given Voldemort better hiding places?

[Cain]

I thought the latter was what was actually happening.  That's why it's so hard for me to forsee how he can beat him, since without locating and destroying them all (including the one inside him), Voldemort will just keep cropping up, like a dangerously genre savvy bad penny.  Of doom.

One reviewer has also suggested that Harry, in keeping the Bayesian Conspiracy and it's findings secret, is violating one of the most basic key dictates of scientific advancement, and that the plot resolution will revolve around him realizing that.  Which is possible I guess, though Yudowsky isn't a vanilla rationalist and the reviewer in question may be assuming too much here (IIRC, in the sequences Yudowsky has claimed being a rationalist is more important than being a scientist, and has made some implicit criticisms of the standard scientific method).

[Jasper]

I can't remember where he said it, but I vaguely recall-

Ah yes.

He has spoken of this before:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/p0/to_spread_science_keep_it_secret/

[Requia ☣]

Since when is science *not* heavily guarded?  There's no way to get access to it beyond the high school level without shelling out tens of thousands of dollars.

[Kai]

I can't remember where he said it, but I vaguely recall-

Ah yes.

He has spoken of this before:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/p0/to_spread_science_keep_it_secret/

I really liked that essay when I first read it, if only because adding chanting and litanies to PhD initiation would be awesome.

Requiem, the point wasn't that scientific knowledge isn't hard to get, it's that the public thinks that it's freely available, and therefore unimportant. If you claim to have hidden knowledge that people must pay to get, it looks more valuable than if you seem to be freely giving it away.

[Jasper]

Since when is science *not* heavily guarded?  There's no way to get access to it beyond the high school level without shelling out tens of thousands of dollars.

There are public libraries, so the only barrier is one of effort.  People underestimate how big a barrier it is, thus the perception that science is not guarded.

[Requia ☣]

I can't remember where he said it, but I vaguely recall-

Ah yes.

He has spoken of this before:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/p0/to_spread_science_keep_it_secret/

I really liked that essay when I first read it, if only because adding chanting and litanies to PhD initiation would be awesome.

Requiem, the point wasn't that scientific knowledge isn't hard to get, it's that the public thinks that it's freely available, and therefore unimportant. If you claim to have hidden knowledge that people must pay to get, it looks more valuable than if you seem to be freely giving it away.

You have a very good point.  So really the goal should be to make people *think* that science is hard to get to.  There's no reason you can't make it actually easier to get to as well...

[Cain]

I can't remember where he said it, but I vaguely recall-

Ah yes.

He has spoken of this before:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/p0/to_spread_science_keep_it_secret/

I really liked that essay when I first read it, if only because adding chanting and litanies to PhD initiation would be awesome.

Requiem, the point wasn't that scientific knowledge isn't hard to get, it's that the public thinks that it's freely available, and therefore unimportant. If you claim to have hidden knowledge that people must pay to get, it looks more valuable than if you seem to be freely giving it away.

Ironically, Adam Weisphaut said almost exactly the same thing to Zwack in one of his letters, except Weisphaut really truly believed in secret socieities devoted to Reason, as opposed to just making it look secret so people would get more interested.

If we dropped this informaiton off to Wiolwa's crew, we could have a conspiracy theory that Yudowsky is really an Illuminatus by the end of the week, and by the end of the month it'd be "common knowledge" in the conspiracy community that HP&MoR is Illuminati propaganda.

Also my graduation had Ominious Latin Chanting.  Translated it was a medieval drinking song, but it was nevertheless quite awesome.

[Requia ☣]

If we dropped this informaiton off to Wiolwa's crew, we could have a conspiracy theory that Yudowsky is really an Illuminatus by the end of the week, and by the end of the month it'd be "common knowledge" in the conspiracy community that HP&MoR is Illuminati propaganda.

Is there any reason NOT to do this?

[Cain]

Absolutely none.  Given Yudowsky's....appreciation of chaos, and subtle references to Discordianism elsewhere, he might be quite tickled by such an event.

[Jasper]

Would he take that as "fan art", I wonder?

[BabylonHoruv]

I can't remember where he said it, but I vaguely recall-

Ah yes.

He has spoken of this before:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/p0/to_spread_science_keep_it_secret/

I really liked that essay when I first read it, if only because adding chanting and litanies to PhD initiation would be awesome.

Requiem, the point wasn't that scientific knowledge isn't hard to get, it's that the public thinks that it's freely available, and therefore unimportant. If you claim to have hidden knowledge that people must pay to get, it looks more valuable than if you seem to be freely giving it away.

Ironically, Adam Weisphaut said almost exactly the same thing to Zwack in one of his letters, except Weisphaut really truly believed in secret socieities devoted to Reason, as opposed to just making it look secret so people would get more interested.

If we dropped this informaiton off to Wiolwa's crew, we could have a conspiracy theory that Yudowsky is really an Illuminatus by the end of the week, and by the end of the month it'd be "common knowledge" in the conspiracy community that HP&MoR is Illuminati propaganda.

Also my graduation had Ominious Latin Chanting.  Translated it was a medieval drinking song, but it was nevertheless quite awesome.

He's not?  He certainly has enough little pinealist bits to make me assume he's got Discordian sympathies.

[Jasper]

I'd be really happy if he posted another chapter soon.  All my other light reading has really boring, unintelligent protagonists.

[Kai]

I'd be really happy if he posted another chapter soon.  All my other light reading has really boring, unintelligent protagonists.

Have you read On the Origin of Species yet? That one has a kickass protagonist, really intelligent too.