It and the Ron thing make the elitism increasingly distasteful
Is it really elitist to not make friends with people you don’t like (Ron) or people you might not have time for (Hagrid)? I never befriended any of the janitors at any of my schools (have you?), even if they might have really enjoyed my friendship, and I don’t consider myself elitist for that.
for him to make the choices he’s made means he’s in full Dark Lord mode. Harry’s lost, and it’s a question of whether or not he’ll be redeemed, not whether or not he’ll resist
I think the term “Dark Lord” is suffering from Sword of Good symptom. If “losing” means deciding to make the world a better place, eliminating Azkaban and/or death, and preventing future atrocities then I’m all for this sort of loss. Call it “becoming a Dark Lord” if you want, it’s much better than any alternative.
Is it really elitist to not make friends with people you don’t like (Ron) or people you might not have time for (Hagrid)?
It depends on why you don’t like them or don’t have time for them. It’s more a comparison to the original than it is a lack of justification in-world (the class balance of the protagonists and antagonists has shifted significantly). If Ron is just a snot that wants to exclude Malfoy from everything, then sure, don’t be friends with him. But is that really all Eliezer saw in him?
(have you?)
I make it a priority to befriend support staff, but so far that hasn’t included any janitors; mostly secretaries.
If “losing” means deciding to make the world a better place, eliminating Azkaban and/or death, and preventing future atrocities then I’m all for this sort of loss.
Do you have any evidence beyond wishful thinking that’s what’ll happen? So far, it looks to me like “losing” means getting tricked by your prophesied enemy into releasing his strongest follower. I put the odds at pretty strong that the story will turn into a UFAI cautionary tale, where Harry and/or Quirrel FOOMs and the results are not pretty.
Quirrel has been playing Harry like a fiddle from day one. We might have some information about Harry’s goals, but Quirrel’s goals are the ones that will be put into place.
I put the odds at pretty strong that the story will turn into a UFAI cautionary tale, where Harry and/or Quirrel FOOMs and the results are not pretty.
I put those odds quite low, because it’s a story about rationality and only incidentally about the Singularity. The overall moral of the story has to be consistent with EY’s conviction that becoming truly rational helps (rather than hurts) you in moral dilemmas. To quote an analogous bit of the story:
And if Harry had thought ‘rational’ people did defect in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, then he wouldn’t have done anything to spread that kind of ‘rationality’, because a country or a conspiracy full of ‘rational’ people would dissolve into chaos. You would tell your enemies about ‘rationality’.
Is it really elitist to not make friends with people you don’t like (Ron) or people you might not have time for (Hagrid)? I never befriended any of the janitors at any of my schools (have you?), even if they might have really enjoyed my friendship, and I don’t consider myself elitist for that.
I think the term “Dark Lord” is suffering from Sword of Good symptom. If “losing” means deciding to make the world a better place, eliminating Azkaban and/or death, and preventing future atrocities then I’m all for this sort of loss. Call it “becoming a Dark Lord” if you want, it’s much better than any alternative.
It depends on why you don’t like them or don’t have time for them. It’s more a comparison to the original than it is a lack of justification in-world (the class balance of the protagonists and antagonists has shifted significantly). If Ron is just a snot that wants to exclude Malfoy from everything, then sure, don’t be friends with him. But is that really all Eliezer saw in him?
I make it a priority to befriend support staff, but so far that hasn’t included any janitors; mostly secretaries.
Do you have any evidence beyond wishful thinking that’s what’ll happen? So far, it looks to me like “losing” means getting tricked by your prophesied enemy into releasing his strongest follower. I put the odds at pretty strong that the story will turn into a UFAI cautionary tale, where Harry and/or Quirrel FOOMs and the results are not pretty.
Quirrel has been playing Harry like a fiddle from day one. We might have some information about Harry’s goals, but Quirrel’s goals are the ones that will be put into place.
I put those odds quite low, because it’s a story about rationality and only incidentally about the Singularity. The overall moral of the story has to be consistent with EY’s conviction that becoming truly rational helps (rather than hurts) you in moral dilemmas. To quote an analogous bit of the story: