Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality | Hacker News Reader

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

fanfiction.net

198 pointsssdsa33 comments

Also, if you don't know, the author of Methods is Eliezer Yudkowsky, (http://yudkowsky.net/) research fellow of Singularity Institute (http://www.singinst.org) and a founder of Less Wrong (http://lesswrong.com), a community advancing applied rationalism. If you live in the Bay Area, the SingInst community is excellent.

Also a HN poster -- http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Eliezer

I was very spectical about this. It sounded like a typical "atheist misantropic know-it-all" thing. I gave it a try reading on my mobile phone on train rides. As it turns out this is a very well written (!), entertaining, witty different take on the whole Harry Potter universe. Harry Potter actually is the "atheist misantropic know-it-all" (yes, I am using wrong words, sue me) but the story is not. It actually evolves around his struggles with himself because of those character traits. It is very exciting, funny and as I said, professionally written. Highly recommended!

The epub is missing some formatting and paragraphs (as in empty space) though, I read it in fbreader. Nothing too bad but you might stumble on them.

That's the reason I didn't give it an honest chance. Nice to hear that was a misconception!

The other problem I have with it is the length. It seems as if its ideas could've been expressed a lot more succinctly. Is this another misconception? Or perhaps one isn't supposed to read it for the ideas themselves, but rather for the lit-wrapping? If so, is it of any interest for a non-HP reader?

I could not care less about the moral, ethics or ideas. I just like reading it as some kind of alternate Harry version with some tangents that appeal to the science nerd or socially inept geek side of me.

There are many moments where full knowledge of the Harry Potter books (at least the first 3) seems important. Also I don't think you would have much fun if you do not know how the characters normally are.

It seems really long. I am not even one third through it yet.

To be honest, I often noticed myself skip over the parts where some scientific method or things like that are explained/discussed. It is written well enough that so far I could pick up the gist just by reading lightly as I always do (scanning the pages rather than reading word by word (I wish I could do that sometimes)).

I believe the idea was to package the ideas in an approachable (and perhaps potentially more viral) format. The ideas are more succinctly expressed at http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences, but I can't see your average Harry Potter fan stumbling into those and sticking around.

The early chapters were much more ham fisted about the ideas from Less Wrong, almost Ayn Randian in their clunkiness. Eliezer has raised his game a lot over the course of the story.

I have never read the original HP stories, and I have read HPMoR three times, just because it's a fun story.

Whoa yes, I've just read two chapters, and it's surprisingly good. (I had a similar surprise with the original Harry Potter book...)

I wonder what the license is. I'm interested in seeing if the reactions of some people in ch.2 can be made a tiny bit more realistic, without maybe reducing the comedy.

By default it is published under copyright, though with the caveat that copyright of fanfiction might not legally exist.

It probably exists in a practical sense after the copyright on Harry Potter expires and before the copyright on the fanfiction hasn't.

This seems to crop up on HN every 6 months or so.

Deservedly.

Earlier Discussions:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1385932

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1898783

And http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1319971

It's interesting how the karma/post changes over time... it goes up quickly, peaks somewhere, and then goes back down. Someone should write a script to analyze these duplicates and how they curve.

This is one of the few things that occasionally made me happy when I was depressed a few months back. I wish there was some way for this to see wider circulation.

Some new chapters have come out since the last time this hit the front page. So it could be argued that this is new content.

i've hit the point where i'll read it when he finishes it.

how do you know when he'll be done?

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2269863/Less_Wrong has links to rss feeds, I'll use that as a bookmark/reminder and maybe one day a "Ok all done" entry will show up.

i have a friend who is content to read it chapter by chapter, says it gives him a bit of a dickensian experience. he'll let me know when it's done.

Specifically there's a new chapter for the first time in weeks.

Is there a way to download the whole book? Train journey coming up...

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2269863/Less_Wrong

The PDF is even nicely typeset in, if not the Official Harry Potter font, a close facsimile.

Wow, there are ePub and mobi versions too. I'm sticking that on my iPad.

Fair warning, though -- it's unfinished, but already more than 1100 regular book pages long (and hard to put down), so it can easily become a significant time sink for a week or so. It will certainly outlast your train journey unless you're really going long-haul....

Looking forward to reading it. I have 10 hours on the train (including return), that should give me a good start.

In some countries I am pretty sure it is illegal to laugh at work as much I did while I was reading it. Was it just me or did anybody else hear the voice of the nerdy kid from Inbetweeners while reading this?

But really really well thought out and well written.

Harry Potter played by Sheldon Cooper

This makes me sad. I feel like the author is a smart guy who should probably be finding something better to do with his time than to write Harry Potter fan fiction.

Producing something other people can freely enjoy is hardly a waste of time. Would you considered Steve Yegge's blog a waste of his time? I don't. I have had a great many hours of enjoyment reading his words. I only wish I had such talent (and drive) for writing.

He is doing something better with his time; this is what he does in his spare time. Sometimes you just need to take a break... this is his break.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality was recommended to me at Ephemerisle (http://ephemerisle.org) by a Singularitarian (http://singinst.org) because I was relating a curious fact about my own childhood. I grew up in a cupboard under the stairs in a school of witchcraft and wizardry and have a funny birthmark scar on my face, but I studied science in my cupboard to become a rationalist who uses games to re-enchant people with science, making me a sort of reverse Harry Potter rationalist and making me the precise target audience of this particular fanfic.

I have been recruiting Singularity Institute people ever since, including one of my cofounders.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com