I think Harry should start requiring unbreakable vows for people using transfiguration. He also should hurry with colonizing other planets and moons, in case someone does transfigure something they shouldn’t.
Transfiguration will get more powerful once they have some interesting material science classes. Having mass limits isn’t much of a problem when you start transfiguring stuff into super-light nanotube-reinforced titanium nantorusses.
A very brief oath, so everyone ends up sacrificing some power, but it’s not a crippling loss.
Since everyone is doing it, you can define a single one-syllable word for the full content of the oath, make sure everyone knows what it means, and then begin using that.
I got the impression that there were already healthy wizards who would perform Unbreakable Vows for enough money, and the thing about using terminally ill wizards was just Harry’s idea to do it more efficiently.
I was under the impression that said Wizards had their Magic for the Vow extorted out of them by the Noble houses which had both vastly superior wealth and the ability to make them broke. I can’t imagine someone willingly giving away their magic unless they had no real choice in the matter. It would be similar to giving away your legs.
If a wizard wants the P Stone Treatment, they have to agree to two things: To sacrifice a little magic as part of the Vow of another and to take a Vow themselves.
Honestly I think you just have to throw up your hands at the Unbreakable Vow. Nothing about Wizarding society makes the slightest bit of sense once you realize that they have the Unbreakable Vow. It wouldn’t look like it does.
The unbreakable vow is basically giving people the death penalty with no way to ask for any kind of exemption due to unforeseen circumstances. It’s not something to be used lightly. Also, in Methods of Rationality someone permanently has to lose some magic, which is also something not to be used lightly.
I suspect the Unbreakable Vow is being parsed here as adding high-level terms to someone’s utility function, and that that’s being interpreted as equivalent to erasing the previous personality.
I’m not so convinced, myself, neither that that’s the right way to look at the spell nor that values are that tightly linked to… not sure what I want to call it. Personhood? Unique agency? Whatever we actually care about when we object to murder, anyway.
EDIT: Never mind, after looking through a page or so of DanielLC’s comments I think that sentence actually expands to “[presumptively] giving people the death penalty [for breaking their Vow] with no way to ask for [...] exemption[s..., etc].” Pretty sure that’s not how the Vow works in Eliezer’s world, though, after reading the bit where Harry undergoes it.
I interpreted it to mean that people could no longer kill in self-defense, and there was no guarantee that they could be safe without ever killing in self-defense.
″...so shall it be,” Harry repeated, and he knew in that moment that the content of the Vow was no longer something he could decide whether or not to do, it was simply the way in which his body and mind would move. It was not a vow he could break even by sacrificing his life in the process. Like water flowing downhill or a calculator summing numbers, it was just a thing-Harry-Potter-would-do.
Except people are cruel and many of them would rather see criminals in Azkaban than living a relatively normal life.
Although to be honest, making criminals chose between Azkaban and the last part of A Clockwork Orangeis pretty awful already in my opinion.
People precommit to punishing criminals because having a precommitment discourages crime—if the criminal can figure out that you’ll change your mind once the crime is over with, and not punish them, the prospect of punishment won’t work as a deterrent. But if you have to follow through on the precommitment, that may mean you just “cruelly” punished a criminal “even though at this point causing the criminal harm doesn’t benefit anyone”.
Most people don’t consciously think of it this way, but people don’t usually know why their own memes spread.
You mean like the fact that criminals can make Unbreakable Vows not to commit crimes, as an alternative to permanent trauma and probable death in Azkaban? (other criminals can power them for a reduction in sentence time or as part of the same type of bargain—permanent loss of some magical power is still better than Azkaban)
Sure, but that’s only just scratching the surface.
Why can anyone commit crimes? Why can wizards lie, or fight except in self defense? The Trust Machine is the pearl of great price, and even wizards would build it.
If everyone was under an unbreakable vow not to commit crimes, Voldemort (who has horcruxes and can’t die from something as simple as an unbreakable vow) would just need to get one law passed saying that all must obey him. Vows against lying can be bypassed with memory charms, so they’re not really any better then veritaserum.
That’s the official version. Given the details in the chapter where Harry makes the vow and the details in this chapter where it mentions Harry being unable to give the final order, it seems like in the HPMoR verse that isn’t how it works.
Actually, the one wow I really do not get all wizards are not under is very simple. Merlin laid down his interdict due to a crisis of magic being used in wars in utterly unrestrained ways. Blocking people from learning certain kinds of magic is a daft way of stopping that. What you do is you take every single wizarding child of 8, and make them swear to never use any magic that would harm more than one person. Still free to fight, still free to defend themselves, just noone capable of area effect magics of destruction anymore.
The description of the founding of the wizengamot. War is probably not a very descriptive term for what was going on before it—The political structure implies that it is what came after a period of feuding families. In this case, feuding families with magical might backing up the kind of stupidity bloodfeuds cause.
I think Harry should start requiring unbreakable vows for people using transfiguration. He also should hurry with colonizing other planets and moons, in case someone does transfigure something they shouldn’t.
Transfiguration will get more powerful once they have some interesting material science classes. Having mass limits isn’t much of a problem when you start transfiguring stuff into super-light nanotube-reinforced titanium nantorusses.
The thing, if no wizards are dying any more, how do you get those Unbreakable Vows in any ethical way?
A very brief oath, so everyone ends up sacrificing some power, but it’s not a crippling loss.
Since everyone is doing it, you can define a single one-syllable word for the full content of the oath, make sure everyone knows what it means, and then begin using that.I got the impression that there were already healthy wizards who would perform Unbreakable Vows for enough money, and the thing about using terminally ill wizards was just Harry’s idea to do it more efficiently.
It’s less ethical if they are going to live with slightly less magic for eternity.
I was under the impression that said Wizards had their Magic for the Vow extorted out of them by the Noble houses which had both vastly superior wealth and the ability to make them broke. I can’t imagine someone willingly giving away their magic unless they had no real choice in the matter. It would be similar to giving away your legs.
If a wizard wants the P Stone Treatment, they have to agree to two things: To sacrifice a little magic as part of the Vow of another and to take a Vow themselves.
Honestly I think you just have to throw up your hands at the Unbreakable Vow. Nothing about Wizarding society makes the slightest bit of sense once you realize that they have the Unbreakable Vow. It wouldn’t look like it does.
The unbreakable vow is basically giving people the death penalty with no way to ask for any kind of exemption due to unforeseen circumstances. It’s not something to be used lightly. Also, in Methods of Rationality someone permanently has to lose some magic, which is also something not to be used lightly.
Don’t follow. You see “making an actually binding promise” as equivalent to dying?
I suspect the Unbreakable Vow is being parsed here as adding high-level terms to someone’s utility function, and that that’s being interpreted as equivalent to erasing the previous personality.
I’m not so convinced, myself, neither that that’s the right way to look at the spell nor that values are that tightly linked to… not sure what I want to call it. Personhood? Unique agency? Whatever we actually care about when we object to murder, anyway.
EDIT: Never mind, after looking through a page or so of DanielLC’s comments I think that sentence actually expands to “[presumptively] giving people the death penalty [for breaking their Vow] with no way to ask for [...] exemption[s..., etc].” Pretty sure that’s not how the Vow works in Eliezer’s world, though, after reading the bit where Harry undergoes it.
I interpreted it to mean that people could no longer kill in self-defense, and there was no guarantee that they could be safe without ever killing in self-defense.
No. I’m saying Unbreakable Vows kill people who break them.
Hence the example I suggest—whatever price the Unbreakable Vow exacts, there will be things that are worth it, like not going to Azkaban.
Except people are cruel and many of them would rather see criminals in Azkaban than living a relatively normal life. Although to be honest, making criminals chose between Azkaban and the last part of A Clockwork Orangeis pretty awful already in my opinion.
People precommit to punishing criminals because having a precommitment discourages crime—if the criminal can figure out that you’ll change your mind once the crime is over with, and not punish them, the prospect of punishment won’t work as a deterrent. But if you have to follow through on the precommitment, that may mean you just “cruelly” punished a criminal “even though at this point causing the criminal harm doesn’t benefit anyone”.
Most people don’t consciously think of it this way, but people don’t usually know why their own memes spread.
You mean like the fact that criminals can make Unbreakable Vows not to commit crimes, as an alternative to permanent trauma and probable death in Azkaban? (other criminals can power them for a reduction in sentence time or as part of the same type of bargain—permanent loss of some magical power is still better than Azkaban)
Sure, but that’s only just scratching the surface.
Why can anyone commit crimes? Why can wizards lie, or fight except in self defense? The Trust Machine is the pearl of great price, and even wizards would build it.
If everyone was under an unbreakable vow not to commit crimes, Voldemort (who has horcruxes and can’t die from something as simple as an unbreakable vow) would just need to get one law passed saying that all must obey him. Vows against lying can be bypassed with memory charms, so they’re not really any better then veritaserum.
The Vow doesn’t kill you if you violate it, it makes you unable to violate it.
Voldemort can’t get the law passed that everyone must obey him because the law-passers are vowed not to be intimidated by snake-nazis.
Its vows all the way down.
It kills you if you violate it.
That’s the official version. Given the details in the chapter where Harry makes the vow and the details in this chapter where it mentions Harry being unable to give the final order, it seems like in the HPMoR verse that isn’t how it works.
Actually, the one wow I really do not get all wizards are not under is very simple. Merlin laid down his interdict due to a crisis of magic being used in wars in utterly unrestrained ways. Blocking people from learning certain kinds of magic is a daft way of stopping that. What you do is you take every single wizarding child of 8, and make them swear to never use any magic that would harm more than one person. Still free to fight, still free to defend themselves, just noone capable of area effect magics of destruction anymore.
How do we know the crisis was war, and not (for example) people gradually reinventing the arts with which the Atlanteans destroyed themselves?
The description of the founding of the wizengamot. War is probably not a very descriptive term for what was going on before it—The political structure implies that it is what came after a period of feuding families. In this case, feuding families with magical might backing up the kind of stupidity bloodfeuds cause.