It loses much of the impact when you intentionally seek it out, I think.
Listening to something is not at all the same as listening to something for seven hours.
Percent_Carbon
Karma: 661
Dumbledore tried to push Hermione away from heroism specifically to push her towards it. Maybe Quirrell thinks the same tool work work on her. He doesn’t even have to know that Dumbledore thought that would work or used that tool on Hermione. He could just observe in her the same vulnerability to that method.
There’s probably no need for the groups to signal each other’s existence.
When a new Secret Even Less Wrong is formed, members are previously formed Secret Even Less Wrongs who are still participating in Less Wrong are likely to receive secret invites to the new Secret Even Less Wrong.
Nyan_sandwich might set up his secret Google Group or whatever, invite the people he feels are worthy and willing to form the core of his own Secret Even Less Wrong, and receive in reply an invite to an existing Secret Even Less Wrong.
That might have already happened!
You’re not proposing a different system, you’re just proposing additional qualifiers.
This creates tension. I’m about .6 confident that tension is intentional.
You’re suggesting a strategy of tension?
To be honest, I’ve always assumed that there exist a variety of more LW-spinoff private forums where the folks who have more specialized/advanced groundings get to interact without being bothered by the rest of us.
Aw. And they didn’t invite nyan_sandwich. That’s so sad.
He or she should get together with other people who haven’t been invited to Even Less Wrong and form their own. Then one day they can get together with Even Less Wrong like some NFL/AFL merger, only with more power to save the world.
There would have to be a semaphore or something, somewhere. So these secret groups can let each other know they exist without tipping off the newbs.
Please go ahead and downvote me if you feel that way.
You’re too kind. Of course I already did. I just wish you’d somehow split up the things I wanted to respond.
Aside, I didn’t downvote the post I quoted and I don’t know why someone would. Maybe because we’re speaking pointlessly? Maybe because they thought I was trolling and you were feeding me?
I’ve lurked here for over a year and just started posting in the fan fic threads a month ago. I have read a handful of posts from the sequences and I believe that some of those are changing my life. Sometimes when I start a sequence post I find it uninteresting and I stop. Posts early in the recommended order do this, and that gets in the way every time I try to go through in order. I just can’t be bothered because I’m here for leisure and reading uninteresting things isn’t leisurely.
I am noise and I am part of the doom of your community. You have my sympathy, and also my unsolicited commentary:
Presently your community is doomed because you don’t filter.
Noise will keep increasing until the community you value splinters, scatters, or relocates itself as a whole. A different community will replace it, resembling the community you value just enough to mock you.
If you intentionally segregate based on qualifications your community is doomed anyway.
The qualified will stop contributing to the unqualified sectors, will stop commending potential qualifiers as they approach qualification, and will stop driving out never qualifiers with disapproval. Noise will win as soon as something drives a surge of new interest and the freshest of the freshmen overwhelm the unqualified but initiated.
Within the fortress of qualification things will be okay. They might never feel as good as you think you remember, but when you look through that same lens from further ahead you might recognize a second Golden Age of Whatever. Over time less new blood will be introduced, especially after the shanty town outside the fortress burns to the ground a couple times. People will leave for the reasons people leave. The people left will become more insular and self referential. That will further drive down new blood intake.
Doomed.
What are you going to do about it?
The best steps to take to sustain the community you value in this instance may be different than the best steps to take to build a better instance of the community.
I want to upvote you for being right about the phygvfu language and where to put the filter.
I want to downvote you for just about evetrything else. You are discourteous, butthurt, and there’s more than a bit of Dunning-Krueger stuck in your teeth.
Breathe, son. He don’t wanna kick you out, he just wishes it didn’t seem like such a damn good idea.
Who doesn’t have plots in this book? I hardly think that’s a test for evil in this book—more like a test for intelligence.
Not the best test. Ron is intelligent. Ron does not appear to plot, only form and employ strategy.
Assuming that it was all a Quirrell plot—which I do at this point—he could also have redeemed Hermione at the last minute with some evidence after she was condemned, and his point with magical Britain had been made.
Like he did with Harry against the Dementor.
Like he claimed he intended to do with the auror he threw an AK at.
Like he did in the Draco the Drop Lord Theatre incident. We should be suspicious of that one, as well.
Like he did as Voldemort when he set his Forces of Evil up to self destruct after he left the game, thereby sparing the rest of the world.
No, I don’t—there is no such dichotomy.
Right, sorry. You either have to trust him to some degree or assume that any content may be compromised.
I don’t understand all the interest in this. Is there a section of the site where unedited comments carry special weight?
Wait. Wait just one minute.
Can Eliezer edit his posts without leaving an asterisk?
Yes. Yes he can. Must be an administrator thing.
Do you mean he both can and has done so at least once in the past?
Yes. I am positive that I pasted that line and did not rearrange it.
Note to self (and others): Assume all Eliezer comments have an asterisk.
Either he or someone he strongly influences has administrator access to the site and can change any comment at any time. You either have to trust him or assume that all comments have an asterisk.
Is there supposed to be something especially secure about this place?
Wait. Wait just one minute.
Can Eliezer edit his posts without leaving an asterisk?
Yes. Yes he can. Must be an administrator thing.
I expect he could edit mine, too, if he wanted.
And people go around complaining about HPJEV being a bastard.
Why do people use this?
Also, why Harry Potter James Evans Veras?
Changing the date fixes this because the reader can go look it up and realize that it can’t be Riddle after all.
“OhmygodohmygodOHMYGOD! Bones is going to figure out Quirrell is Voldemort! OHMYGOD! What’s he going to do?!?! He’s surrounded by aurors, he’s in DMLE headquarters!… Oh my GOD! Those aurors are so screwed!!”
looks up Tom Riddle online because that’s totally what all readers would do
“Oh, hm. That’s not Riddle then. I wonder who it is?”
...
Are you really suggesting that EY means the reader to do this? He said he wasn’t going to lie to us anymore. See’s low-probability theory of tease and WHAM involves EY lying to his readers, but your take on it that they were supposed to be totally tricked until the look it up online (?!?!) is turns that up to ridiculous levels.
If EY originally intended the bait and switch, then regretted it, p>0.8 he would clean out other things that only exist to support his ill conceived tease.
What other things?
The Albanian Shuffle. See says there is a real chance that it is mentioned just to string the reader along and make us think Bones is about to say that Quirrell is Riddle.
“Reader! She’s about to undercover the Defense Professor is Voldemort!” as a message intended to be sent to the reader but not the characters at about p=0.25.
I dismiss this because EY changed the date, which comes at the top of the passage, just so readers wouldn’t jump to think Bones is talking about Riddle. If EY took such a step to prevent the tease that Bones was about to name Riddle, then I would expect EY would not leave things in that were only there to build up that tease.
So the Albanian Shuffle is dismissively unlikely to be referenced for the sake of making the reader think Bones was about to name Riddle. I really don’t know how you could think that in the first place unless you first read that paragraph after already thinking that Bones was going to name Riddle.
“In all honesty,” said Professor Quirrell, looking up at the stars, “I still don’t understand it. They should have known that their lives depended on that man’s success. And yet it was as if they tried to do everything they could to make his life unpleasant. To throw every possible obstacle into his way. I was not naive, Miss Granger, I did not expect the power-holders to align themselves with me so quickly—not without something in it for themselves. But their power, too, was threatened; and so I was shocked how they seemed content to step back, and leave to that man all burdens of responsibility. They sneered at his performance, remarking among themselves how they would do better in his place, though they did not condescend to step forward.” Professor Quirrell shook his head as though in bemusement. “And it was the strangest thing—the Dark Wizard, that man’s dread nemesis—why, those who served him leapt eagerly to their tasks. The Dark Wizard grew crueler toward his followers, and they followed him all the more. Men fought for the chance to serve him, even as those whose lives depended on that other man made free to render his life difficult… I could not understand it, Miss Granger.” Professor Quirrell’s face was in shadow, as he looked upward. “Perhaps, by taking on himself the curse of action, that man removed it from all others? Was that why they felt free to hinder his battle against the Dark Wizard who would have enslaved them all? Believing men would act in their own interest was not cynicism, it turned out, but sheerest optimism; in reality men do not meet so high a standard. And so in time that one realized he might do better fighting the Dark Wizard alone, than with such followers at his back.”
I don’t know how long he thought it would take, but it sounds like he had no idea how hard it would suck.
Fantastic.
I dismiss the bait and switch because the passage does not seem to lay down that tease; p0.8 he would clean out other things that only exist to support his ill conceived tease. There isn’t a WHAM paragraph with few words surrounded by white space. It’s just not built like a bait and switch shocker.
While reading, I thought that Scion of X did fight Riddle and did as Hermione suggested:
“You left your friends behind where they’d be safe, and tried to attack the Dark Wizard all by yourself?”
And after Voldemort killed him he kept the identity close because things like that can be useful. But I know that I am gullible and literal (p>0.2 that I under value literal interpretations after an alternative is available), so I dismissed that as soon as I thought up an explanation that worked on a more in character plot. p<0.01
I dismiss the unknown, unrelated, unremarked third party because of Conservation of Detail. p<0.01
I don’t have any other speculation worth mentioning, so “something else” gets p<0.25.
It’s taken me three passes over the newest posts to figure out that you meant you sympathize with him. Upvoting for (delayed) chuckle.
Do you sympathize with Randian protagonists, too?
What was idiotic about the way Harry was protected?
Did you miss the part about a single point of failure?
Fate of the whole fucking world and the critical security decisions and on site protective services are trusted to a crew of twenty somethings who were really close in school. Idiots.
And Voldemort was knowingly superior to every possible defender, so why would he worry about it?
The only reason to work alone is if working with others means watching your back more. We have no evidence that Vodlemort executed his other raids singlehandely, so we should believe that he did it the smart way with backup. So why the sudden switch from terrorist to cheap slasher monster?
On something where MoR is silent, canon carries a lot of weight. On something where MoR spends time adjusting expectations, canon carries very little weight.
MoR is not silent on the question of sacrifice, it is covered under the primary themes of the story. Throwing your life away futilely not smart and should not be rewarded in a story with rationalist aspirations. There’s no exposition on the subject of mother’s love sacrifice charms, so if this is what happened it will be unforeshadowed. EY has said that is a bad thing to do so we should guess that he probably doesn’t intend to do that.
I have thought the same in conversations about other puzzles for that character, so I should heartily agree. The evidence shows no reason for him to want her to stay.
I update to believing that Quirrell tried and failed to drive Hermione away p>0.6. His groundhog day attack equipped him to expertly apply pressure to her but she still persevered, even barely, because she is heroic. (He was using reverse psychology to drive her toward Harry p0.25.)
Thank you for the reality check.