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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

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Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#161

Post by davidgerard »

eru wrote: post #160
davidgerard wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude helped save us all from being flash-fried, I'll give him some slack ;-)

Some people argue mutual assured destruction brought us closer to the abyss than anything. (See Dr Strangelove.) Schelling wrote well, I am not sure about his actual effect on policy. There were other hawks, like von Neumann, another geeks' hero.

Dr Strangelove is actually a treatise on why Smart Contracts are a terrible idea nobody should want - the plot is literally an unstoppable Smart Contract gone wrong.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#162

Post by Eliezer »

zyxley wrote: post #85
db48x wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, Harry's personality is a Clue, or rather Bayesian evidence to use when predicting future events in the story, or deducing the true nature of the mysterious events that started the story.

Given that the early parts of the story are written in such a way that the narrative treats Harry's behavior as completely right and justified, it seems far more likely to be a retcon done years after the fact than some secret master plan Yudkowsky had in mind from the beginning.

The ending was explicitly foreshadowed in Ch. 1, including advance quotes. And, like, all the other early chapters. Nobody familiar with HPMOR could possibly take seriously the notion that this was a retcon.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#163

Post by Eliezer »

solarmist wrote: post #106
zyxley wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yudkowsky has already made money off it by gating chapters behind receiving a certain amount in donations, which is part of why I find it really strange that he's apparently now trying to explicitly get Rowling's attention.

I didn't know that, donations are baiting the lion, I suppose it helps though that his story is almost completely separate from canon. That's a very risky path to walk though.

I offered to post pre-written chapters at a higher speed (1 per 2 days instead 1 per 4 days) if a medium-sized charity I cofounded many years earlier made its annual donation target during a matching grant. Beware that HPMOR has a hatedom, and don't believe everything you're told about it.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#164

Post by [deleted] »

davidgerard wrote: post #130
qrendel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That fairly hostile "article" is not accurate and the basilisk portion has already been responded to previously by Yudkowsky. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/2myg86/xkcd_1450_aibo...

I have repeatedly asked for a list of the inaccuracies, since I substantially wrote, researched and cited the article http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk . Yudkowsky called me a LYING LIAR WHO LIES LIES LIES but the only claim of an actual lie he could come up with was where it said this was an incentive to donate to MIRI. Given that the original Basilisk post and the preceding post were literally about ho…

[deleted]

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#165

Post by Eliezer »

qrendel wrote: post #103
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what the parent is referring to http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWrong#Roko.27s_Basilisk . I'm in agreement regarding the absurdity and group think of Less Wrong, for reasons that aren't that relevant to this thread. That said, HPMOR is a fairly entertaining read, once you can get past the feeling that you're having an ideology forced on you through Harry's point of view. The book reminds me of things Ayn Rand…

That fairly hostile "article" is not accurate and the basilisk portion has already been responded to previously by Yudkowsky. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/2myg86/xkcd_1450_aibo...

(FYI: If you follow qrendel's above link to /r/XKCD you'll see a detailed list of the false claims in the RationalWiki article as they existed at that time. After repeatedly being provided such lists, David Gerard claims every time that no list of false claims have ever been provided him. Checking the XKCD link will show you that this is outright and verifiably false.)

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#166

Post by davidgerard »

Eliezer wrote: post #165
qrendel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That fairly hostile "article" is not accurate and the basilisk portion has already been responded to previously by Yudkowsky. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/2myg86/xkcd_1450_aibo...

(FYI: If you follow qrendel's above link to /r/XKCD you'll see a detailed list of the false claims in the RationalWiki article as they existed at that time. After repeatedly being provided such lists, David Gerard claims every time that no list of false claims have ever been provided him. Checking the XKCD link will show you that this is outright and verifiably false.)

Let me note again the lack of actual specifics. The claims are literally not made, let alone substantiated.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#167

Post by mirithekiwi »

eru wrote: post #149
mirithekiwi wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got that same impression of HPMOR. However, I liked Freakonomics at least because I thought it was better edited or had better explanations.

If you liked Freakonomics' topics, but abhorred the self-serving style, you will love Tom Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict.

This looks fascinating -- thank you for the suggestion!

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#168

Post by coryfklein »

davidgerard wrote: post #158
coryfklein wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people like me that would never have learned about the "continuum fallacy" if it weren't for Eliezer's willingness to stoop to my level and explain things like I'm 5 (or, more accurately, like I'm a fan of Harry Potter)? I personally don't care one bit if the good bits aren't original. They are approachable, and nobody else has done that for me. So I applaud Eliezer and his efforts, regardless of whether o…

Would you have known that everyone else had been calling it the continuum fallacy all that time? No, you wouldn't - you'd think Yudkowsky was uniquely insightful. Furthermore, you wouldn't learn anything beyond the limits of Yudkowsky's knowledge, or - more importantly - that there was anything beyond those limits. The habit of neologism makes stuff impossible to look up, and creates the illusion that this is new gro…

I haven't read everything on LessWrong, nor do I have time to keep up on the meta-discussion of Eliezer's neologism habits, but I can say that I've never thought that he invented any of the concepts that I learned through HPMOR or the sequences that I have read.

On the contrary, he seems very intent on citing the very books and people from which he learned these things. At least in my more limited experience. You definitely seem to have studied up on the issue much more than I.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#169

Post by davidgerard »

coryfklein wrote: post #168
davidgerard wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you have known that everyone else had been calling it the continuum fallacy all that time? No, you wouldn't - you'd think Yudkowsky was uniquely insightful. Furthermore, you wouldn't learn anything beyond the limits of Yudkowsky's knowledge, or - more importantly - that there was anything beyond those limits. The habit of neologism makes stuff impossible to look up, and creates the illusion that this is new gro…

I haven't read everything on LessWrong, nor do I have time to keep up on the meta-discussion of Eliezer's neologism habits, but I can say that I've never thought that he invented any of the concepts that I learned through HPMOR or the sequences that I have read. On the contrary, he seems very intent on citing the very books and people from which he learned these things. At least in my more limited experience. You def…

It took way too much reading to realise there wasn't actually a "there" there, that none of the pointers-to-pointers-to-explanations actually resolved in the end. The evidence is pretty clear that I have way too much time on my hands.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#170

Post by Eliezer »

davidgerard wrote: post #166
Eliezer wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(FYI: If you follow qrendel's above link to /r/XKCD you'll see a detailed list of the false claims in the RationalWiki article as they existed at that time. After repeatedly being provided such lists, David Gerard claims every time that no list of false claims have ever been provided him. Checking the XKCD link will show you that this is outright and verifiably false.)

Let me note again the lack of actual specifics. The claims are literally not made, let alone substantiated.

I reply that you are blatantly lying about an easily checkable matter, and I request the interested observer to follow the link and check.

(Wow. Am I missing something about status games that make the above open lie a good move for David Gerard? He's done it repeatedly, too. I'm confused, how is this a good thing from his perspective? Am I playing into his hands somehow by calling him on it each time?)

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