gwern comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9

gwern 26 Oct 2011 16:52 UTC
6 points

Then, you can try exposing the subjects to differing stimuli while they’re in exactly the same starting state, and you can precisely and easily measure the effect of whatever change you’ve made.

Somewhere on LW, I think, someone suggested that ‘discovering perfect psychological manipulation’ was a problem akin to NP—hard to find, easy to check. So give rationalist!Voldemort a time-turner, a servant, and a a dungeon...
- wedrifid 26 Oct 2011 23:32 UTC
  2 points
  Parent
  
  Somewhere on LW, I think, someone suggested that ‘discovering perfect psychological manipulation’ was a problem akin to NP—hard to find, to check
  
  Did you leave out an ‘easy to’ in there?
  - dlthomas 26 Oct 2011 23:36 UTC
    2 points
    Parent
    I expect just an “easy”