Eliezer also wrote Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR), an alternative universe version of Harry Potter where Harry’s adoptive parents raised with Enlightenment ideals and the experimental spirits. This work introduces many of the ideas from Rationality: A-Z in a gripping narrative.
I feel like whenever HPMOR is mentioned you need to acknowledge and address the fact that fanfiction is kind of weird and silly? Otherwise people are going to be confused and maybe anxious. Explain that it was written kind of accidentally, as a result of the fact that using other peoples’ worldbuilding makes writing easier, and that, yes, it is surprising that it turned out to be good, so here are some attestations from well read people that it definitely is good and we’re not just recommending it because it’s ours.
A tricky thing about this is that there’s an element of cognitive distortion in how most people evaluate these questions, and play-acting at “this distortion makes sense” can worsen the distortion (at the same time that it helps win more trust from people who have the distortion).
If it turned out to be a good idea to try to speak to this perspective, I’d recommend first meditating on a few reversal tests. Like: “Hmm, I wouldn’t feel any need to add a disclaimer here if the text I was recommending were The Brothers Karamazov, though I’d want to briefly say why it’s relevant, and I might worry about the length. I’d feel a bit worried about recommending a young adult novel, even an unusually didactic one, because people rightly expect YA novels to be optimized for less useful and edifying things than the “literary classics” reference class. The insights tend to be shallower and less common. YA novels and fanfiction are similar in all those respects, and they provoke basically the same feeling in me, so I can maybe use that reversal test to determine what kinds of disclaimers or added context make sense here.”
I wouldn’t feel any need to add a disclaimer here if the text I was recommending were The Brothers Karamazov, though I’d want to briefly say why it’s relevant, and I might worry about the length.
Not sure if this was deliberate on your part, but note that HPMOR is almost twice the length of Karamazov. (662k vs 364k.)
I feel like whenever HPMOR is mentioned you need to acknowledge and address the fact that fanfiction is kind of weird and silly? Otherwise people are going to be confused and maybe anxious. Explain that it was written kind of accidentally, as a result of the fact that using other peoples’ worldbuilding makes writing easier, and that, yes, it is surprising that it turned out to be good, so here are some attestations from well read people that it definitely is good and we’re not just recommending it because it’s ours.
A tricky thing about this is that there’s an element of cognitive distortion in how most people evaluate these questions, and play-acting at “this distortion makes sense” can worsen the distortion (at the same time that it helps win more trust from people who have the distortion).
If it turned out to be a good idea to try to speak to this perspective, I’d recommend first meditating on a few reversal tests. Like: “Hmm, I wouldn’t feel any need to add a disclaimer here if the text I was recommending were The Brothers Karamazov, though I’d want to briefly say why it’s relevant, and I might worry about the length. I’d feel a bit worried about recommending a young adult novel, even an unusually didactic one, because people rightly expect YA novels to be optimized for less useful and edifying things than the “literary classics” reference class. The insights tend to be shallower and less common. YA novels and fanfiction are similar in all those respects, and they provoke basically the same feeling in me, so I can maybe use that reversal test to determine what kinds of disclaimers or added context make sense here.”
Not sure if this was deliberate on your part, but note that HPMOR is almost twice the length of Karamazov. (662k vs 364k.)
I think stereotyping fanfiction as poorly written and non-educational doesn’t quite count as a cognitive distortion.