Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

fanfiction.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 92 posts

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#81

Post by gwern »

tel wrote: post #73
Eliezer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it happens to be true that all eleven-year-olds attending wizarding school read preprints of theoretical computer science papers.

Then you did a very unrealistic job representing each and every other young wizard in your writing.

You're missing Eliezer's little joke. In classical logic, usually any predicate is True of a non-existent entity.

There are no 11 year olds who attend wizarding school, hence it is True that all such creatures read CS preprints. (Like it is True that unicorns have one horn.)

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#82

Post by memetichazard »

MBlume wrote: post #52
ugh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very confused by the often very vitriolic criticisms from some avid fanfiction fans. Is MoR violating some kind of fanfiction etiquette I as an outsider don’t get? Some seem to be very annoyed whenever they think MoR veers too far from canon which I don’t understand at all. What do I care about canon as long as it makes sense internally? Picking and choosing certain ideas from the existing material while dropping…

A quick taxonomy of fanfic (from someone who spent way too much time in HP fandom in college): fill-in-the-blanks: This is a story that tells parts of the original work's backstory. The custom is to try scrupulously to maintain canon compatibility -- ie ensure that your work, and the original works, could be presented as a unified whole without contradiction. Fernwithy ( http://www.sugarquill.net/index.php?action=pro…

Actually the initial reception of MoR from what I was was that it was a crackfic/humor piece. The first few chapters are, after all, hilarious. And people expected more of the same. There was quite a bit of confusion later on when it became apparent that the story was meant to be serious.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#83

Post by MBlume »

memetichazard wrote: post #82
MBlume wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick taxonomy of fanfic (from someone who spent way too much time in HP fandom in college): fill-in-the-blanks: This is a story that tells parts of the original work's backstory. The custom is to try scrupulously to maintain canon compatibility -- ie ensure that your work, and the original works, could be presented as a unified whole without contradiction. Fernwithy ( http://www.sugarquill.net/index.php?action=pro…

Actually the initial reception of MoR from what I was was that it was a crackfic/humor piece. The first few chapters are, after all, hilarious. And people expected more of the same. There was quite a bit of confusion later on when it became apparent that the story was meant to be serious .

Heh, I seem to recall Eliezer saying something about how the story was going to be played completely straight, and then out of nowhere, Harry bit his teacher, and he realized it was going to be a humor piece.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#84

Post by rotw »

mattmanser wrote: post #37
Symmetry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who also reads a lot of fiction, I think this fic is in great need of a good editor... but that after the normal publication process it would be as good as anything Asimov or Heinlein wrote.

Have you read Asimov recently? In the cold light of adulthood it is unfortunately not as good as my inner child remembers. Nowhere near as bad as Rowling, who is an awful writer, but still pretty bad. To be fair to Rowling her first book actually introduced some good ideas, the rest were pretty much universally crap. Some of Asimov's themes and ideas are also feeling very dated now too, he seemed to be heavily influe…

"Nowhere near as bad as Rowling, who is an awful writer, but still pretty bad. To be fair to Rowling her first book actually introduced some good ideas, the rest were pretty much universally crap."

What? Excuse me, are you serious? Rowling is a very good writer. In terms of style and plotting, the latter of which isn't always perfect, but definitely not as awful as you make out. And why on earth are you measuring her in terms of "ideas" such as historical context, she wrote a series of children and teen's books, which happen to possess a cross-over appeal to adults due to their quality. Harry Potter isn't hard science fiction, and I do find your seeming inability to find simple pleasure in reading such a (in my view) charming series quite disheartening.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#85

Post by rotw »

crux_ wrote: post #45
ronnoch wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, you're judging this story after only 3 chapters? Because if you want to get an accurate impression of the story, you should push past chapter 5 at least. The tone of the story evolves considerably, and you might find you like it after all. (Though to quote the author, "If you still don't like it after Chapter 10, give up.")

Yes: I set it aside very early on. I'm quite certain the story will change & evolve. However, I'm rather sceptical that the writing quality will. Part of why I gave it up so early is purely on me: I am a sucker for a page-turner -- once a plot picks up a certain amount of steam, I have a near-compulsion to finish. This is the case even if, upon reflection, I don't like the writing, characters, events, etc... Nothing…

I agree though, the writing is sub-par. It somehow sounds far too american to quite fit into the Harry Potter canon, in my opinion.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#86

Post by inklesspen »

pjscott wrote: post #36
swombat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, there you are. I just wanted to say that I absolutely love this series of Harry Potter stories. Awesome. Brilliant. Genius. This is as someone who does read a lot as well. It's really, really, really excellent. It's the only mostly static website on the web which I go and manually check every couple of days, excited at the thought that maybe there's a new chapter up. It's like having a child's Christmas every…

I hope I'm not raining on your Christmas, but if you register at FanFiction.net, you can subscribe to get an email whenever a new chapter is posted. That way you find out about new chapters quickly, and you don't have to check manually. That's what I do, anyway. There's also an unofficial RSS feed: http://demented.no-ip.org/~feep/rss_proxy.cgi?5782108

I actually built a feed-builder: http://ffnetupdates.inklesspen.com/

Sign up (no email or password, just a UUID), track as many authors or stories as you like in one Atom feed. It will let you know when wordcount changes even if there's no new chapter, or when your favorite author has a new story.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#87

Post by tel »

gwern wrote: post #81
tel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you did a very unrealistic job representing each and every other young wizard in your writing.

You're missing Eliezer's little joke. In classical logic, usually any predicate is True of a non-existent entity. There are no 11 year olds who attend wizarding school, hence it is True that all such creatures read CS preprints. (Like it is True that unicorns have one horn.)

I was also joking in that in Eliezer's fictional work he writes prolifically about 11 year olds who attend wizarding school and there is precisely one who reads them.

Perhaps a would have been necessary.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#88

Post by Indyan »

smanek wrote: post #7

It sounds crazy, but as someone who reads a lot of fiction (and very little fan fiction, because most of it's crap), I sincerely think this is one of the best things I've read in years. I'd personally rank it up with Asimov or Heinlein at their best. If you're the kind of person, upon discovering a 'wizarding world' would: - Look into establishing arbitrage between the wizards' fixed ratio of Gold/Silver currency and…

HPMOR has hit HN front page on at least 3 occasions (including this one). That in itself tells you how good this thing really is. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1385932 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668766

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#89

Post by slashclee »

gwern wrote: post #76
cynicalkane wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to posture as an amateur writing critic, thinking about the social context of Asimov's writing, you probably shouldn't also condemn a writer loved by readers, writers, and critics as "pretty much universally crap". It's counter-cultural and pretentious yet very shallow, and so you lose a lot of credibility as a critic.

Is it really controversial to say that Asimov had a bad prose style and is primarily an idea or conceptual writer? I mean, look at http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=asimov%20%22prose... . These people aren't making it up; Asimov will never be praised for his striking style, magnificent metaphors, or lucid descriptions, like, say, Gene Wolfe is.

Pretty sure he was defending Rowling, not Asmiov.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

#90

Post by crux_ »

rotw wrote: post #85
crux_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: I set it aside very early on. I'm quite certain the story will change & evolve. However, I'm rather sceptical that the writing quality will. Part of why I gave it up so early is purely on me: I am a sucker for a page-turner -- once a plot picks up a certain amount of steam, I have a near-compulsion to finish. This is the case even if, upon reflection, I don't like the writing, characters, events, etc... Nothing…

I agree though, the writing is sub-par. It somehow sounds far too american to quite fit into the Harry Potter canon, in my opinion.

Since the author wasn't interested in trying to fit into canon, that doesn't seem to be a fair basis for dismissing his/her writing.

However, there are plenty of others (standard IMO disclaimer applies). ;)

(As a very quick & somewhat quantitative example, look at how many words the author spent on the contrasting views & strained relationship of Ma Potter & Pa Potter WRT magic in the first chapter, vs. the approximately zero words spent on that same topic in the second chapter when magic is demonstrated directly for them.)

Post reply on HN