All of the discussion here has been based on the assumption that heroic responsibility is advocated by HPMOR as a fundamental moral virtue. But it is advocated by Harry Potter. Eliezer wrote somewhere about what in HPMOR can and what cannot be taken as the author’s own views. I forget the exact criterion, but I’m sure it did not include “everything said by HP”.
Heroic responsibility is a moral tool. That not everyone is able to use the tool, that the tool should not always be employed, that the tool exacts its own costs: these are all true. The tool itself is still a thing of usefulness and value, to be taken out and used when appropriate, and kept sharp the rest of the time.
Scaled down from heroic levels, it is what on LW has been called agentiness, or being a PC. I called it initiative in another comment in this thread.
A footnote:
I just looked up “initiative” on Google. Does it no longer mean what it used to? The first page of hits gives good definitions and examples from dictionary sites (“the ability to assess and initiate things independently”), but the rest of the hits are to brand names and actions taken by organisations, not individuals. I went down to the 20th page of hits, and apart from a few media companies using the word as a brand name and one more dictionary entry, it was all activities by organisations. I didn’t find a single example of the word used in the sense of agentiness.
What does “initiative” mean to people who learned it in the last 20 years?
Eliezer wrote somewhere about what in HPMOR can and what cannot be taken as the author’s own views. I forget the exact criterion, but I’m sure it did not include “everything said by HP”.
″ please keep in mind that, beyond the realm of science, the views of the characters may not be those of the author. Not everything the protagonist does is a lesson in wisdom, and advice offered by darker characters may be untrustworthy or dangerously double-edged.”
All of the discussion here has been based on the assumption that heroic responsibility is advocated by HPMOR as a fundamental moral virtue. But it is advocated by Harry Potter. Eliezer wrote somewhere about what in HPMOR can and what cannot be taken as the author’s own views. I forget the exact criterion, but I’m sure it did not include “everything said by HP”.
Heroic responsibility is a moral tool. That not everyone is able to use the tool, that the tool should not always be employed, that the tool exacts its own costs: these are all true. The tool itself is still a thing of usefulness and value, to be taken out and used when appropriate, and kept sharp the rest of the time.
Scaled down from heroic levels, it is what on LW has been called agentiness, or being a PC. I called it initiative in another comment in this thread.
A footnote:
I just looked up “initiative” on Google. Does it no longer mean what it used to? The first page of hits gives good definitions and examples from dictionary sites (“the ability to assess and initiate things independently”), but the rest of the hits are to brand names and actions taken by organisations, not individuals. I went down to the 20th page of hits, and apart from a few media companies using the word as a brand name and one more dictionary entry, it was all activities by organisations. I didn’t find a single example of the word used in the sense of agentiness.
What does “initiative” mean to people who learned it in the last 20 years?
This is mentioned at the beginning of the book
″ please keep in mind that, beyond the realm of science, the views of the characters may not be those of the author. Not everything the protagonist does is a lesson in wisdom, and advice offered by darker characters may be untrustworthy or dangerously double-edged.”
You roll for it :-P
I think the newer buzzword that means roughly the same thing might be “proactivity”?