Reading HPMOR has been a life-changing experience to me. Never before could I have imagined a book so dense in information (fully expected), but also… so explosively funny, so endearingly romantic, and so mind-bogglingly easy to read! I confess, never in a million years would I have expected Yudkowsky (that one dusty high-IQ blogger) to profess such a powerful religious message of reaching the stars, of pursuing the high morality of battling and defeating suffering for ever, of elevating the human kind beyond what is deemed possible!
HPMOR is a sci-fi book. And probably to the offense of *Harry Potter* fans, I don’t even consider acknowledging the canon original to be of any import whatsoever (aside from a few amusing references). This is a book of the same caliber as *Childhood’s End* by Arthur C. Clarke—an exploration into superhumanity, effectively presenting a messenger from the future into our mundane, parochial, cruel present. Or even some hopeful progressivism akin to that of the Bolshevik Strugatski Brothers’ universe of *Noon* - with its boundless belief in progress, its trust in the good seeds in the human soul, its veneration of life as a gift not yet properly understood.
I cannot internalise it how anyone can hate this book. It appalled me when I discovered such a sentiment online (I should go back to under my rock, methinks). And the funny thing is that I disagree with many of Yudkowsky’s postulates. I don’t think morality to be as objective or conducive to civilisation as a pursuit of cold-hearted efficiency at any cost. I don’t even agree with the squib metaphor. And I would rather have gone for the Mark Twain *Yankee’s* ending, sombre mysticism. Yet nevertheless, I can respect and enjoy this leap of faith, this somewhat naïve and clear *yea to life* in all its endearing glory. Even though I happen to be Yudkowsky’s vehement ideological enemy!
This secondary creation is absolutely marvelous. It feels akin to wearing glasses for the first time. Everything and everyone is sharper than fiction, more blood-curdling than life itself. In computer gamer terms, this is a *total conversion mod* - something that leaves the original behind as a forgotten step in evolution. And the tears! Everyone in Yudkowsky’s novel cries—due to understanding the others and oneself. It is a self-insert of an autistic archetype à la myself if I ever saw one… And I will credit Yudkowsky with building such heroes which for once I did not shy away from empathising with—to the darkest depths of madness, and the highest pinnacles of glory.
All I can say is—magic. It’s been a magical summer for me. Magical ten days (Aug 1-12). And Yudkowsky will curse my name, yet I have proven magic’s existence in our world. And I have finally suffered, finally touched my inner self in this most sublime of emotional educations. Before AI brings an end to our travails, transfiguring our wanton ugliness into a myriad myriads glimmering paperclips :)
Reading HPMOR has been a life-changing experience to me. Never before could I have imagined a book so dense in information (fully expected), but also… so explosively funny, so endearingly romantic, and so mind-bogglingly easy to read! I confess, never in a million years would I have expected Yudkowsky (that one dusty high-IQ blogger) to profess such a powerful religious message of reaching the stars, of pursuing the high morality of battling and defeating suffering for ever, of elevating the human kind beyond what is deemed possible!
HPMOR is a sci-fi book. And probably to the offense of *Harry Potter* fans, I don’t even consider acknowledging the canon original to be of any import whatsoever (aside from a few amusing references). This is a book of the same caliber as *Childhood’s End* by Arthur C. Clarke—an exploration into superhumanity, effectively presenting a messenger from the future into our mundane, parochial, cruel present. Or even some hopeful progressivism akin to that of the Bolshevik Strugatski Brothers’ universe of *Noon* - with its boundless belief in progress, its trust in the good seeds in the human soul, its veneration of life as a gift not yet properly understood.
I cannot internalise it how anyone can hate this book. It appalled me when I discovered such a sentiment online (I should go back to under my rock, methinks). And the funny thing is that I disagree with many of Yudkowsky’s postulates. I don’t think morality to be as objective or conducive to civilisation as a pursuit of cold-hearted efficiency at any cost. I don’t even agree with the squib metaphor. And I would rather have gone for the Mark Twain *Yankee’s* ending, sombre mysticism. Yet nevertheless, I can respect and enjoy this leap of faith, this somewhat naïve and clear *yea to life* in all its endearing glory. Even though I happen to be Yudkowsky’s vehement ideological enemy!
This secondary creation is absolutely marvelous. It feels akin to wearing glasses for the first time. Everything and everyone is sharper than fiction, more blood-curdling than life itself. In computer gamer terms, this is a *total conversion mod* - something that leaves the original behind as a forgotten step in evolution. And the tears! Everyone in Yudkowsky’s novel cries—due to understanding the others and oneself. It is a self-insert of an autistic archetype à la myself if I ever saw one… And I will credit Yudkowsky with building such heroes which for once I did not shy away from empathising with—to the darkest depths of madness, and the highest pinnacles of glory.
All I can say is—magic. It’s been a magical summer for me. Magical ten days (Aug 1-12). And Yudkowsky will curse my name, yet I have proven magic’s existence in our world. And I have finally suffered, finally touched my inner self in this most sublime of emotional educations. Before AI brings an end to our travails, transfiguring our wanton ugliness into a myriad myriads glimmering paperclips :)