I was bothered by the irrationality preceding the whole prison sequence. Harry thinks of himself as one of the first people able to adequately investigate an entire branch of previously unknown human capabilities. capabilities so powerful that they have the promise of significantly speeding up human progress toward nullifying existential threats and eliminating vast swaths of needless suffering. and then he puts himself in personal danger of death to save one innocent person.
now from a story telling perspective it was great. I even regard it as a worthy trade off since we got some choice anti-democracy bits out of it.
I was bothered by the irrationality preceding the whole prison sequence. Harry thinks of himself as one of the first people able to adequately investigate an entire branch of previously unknown human capabilities. capabilities so powerful that they have the promise of significantly speeding up human progress toward nullifying existential threats and eliminating vast swaths of needless suffering. and then he puts himself in personal danger of death to save one innocent person.
now from a story telling perspective it was great. I even regard it as a worthy trade off since we got some choice anti-democracy bits out of it.
It’s like Harry is Harry Potter instead of Eliezer or something!
This does seem like it would be the proper rationalist manifestation of canon!Harry’s ‘saving people thing’. He’s just more self-aware about it.
Of course he isn’t! The beard is all wrong.
He also has trouble not throwing his life away to destroy some dementors for no lasting gain at all.
Harry is just deeply irrational about these things.
No one is perfect. I suspect a lot of people would have trouble in that situation, even highly rational people.
I know I probably wouldn’t, but that’s not because I’m being a good utilitarian. Quite the opposite: in fact, I’m too self-centered to do it.