The more I see him in the real world the more very upset I become that I genuinely really liked his story. HPMOR is a banger, possibly one of my favorite pieces of amateur literature in existence.
I didn’t know the author was a wanker at the time of reading, and now that I do, I want to make myself retroactively un-like his work, but I can’t.
The more I see him in the real world the more very upset I become that I genuinely really liked his story. HPMOR is a banger, possibly one of my favorite pieces of amateur literature in existence.
If you enjoy ratfic, I suppose I have to point you at the standard other fare that tends to be enjoyed by fans of HPMOR, like Ra by qntm, Yud’s other works like Three Worlds Collide, and the assorted works of Scott Alexander especially but not limited to UNSONG (an utter masterpiece of foreshadowing), Sort By Controversial (one of the most realistic horror stories ever), Universal Love, Said the Cactus Person (which alternates between nonsense poetry and the narrator trying to convince the entities in his DMT trip to prove they are real by solving a math problem, complete with explaining enlightenment with a car analogy) and Samsara (about the last unenlightened man being driven to enlightenment by sufficiently stubborn refusal of it).
Going away from the ratfic standards, there’s also some overlap between fans of those and the works of Wildbow/J.C. McCrae. Wildbow is a fantastic author, but wouldn’t understand the value of brevity if asked to write something to hit him over the head with repeatedly. If you want to try his stuff and like superheroes and deconstructions thereof, start with Worm. If you prefer biopunk, try Twig. If you prefer urban fantasy, then either Pact or Pale. He’s also got Claw and Seek, which I haven’t yet read myself.
I didn’t know the author was a wanker at the time of reading, and now that I do, I want to make myself retroactively un-like his work, but I can’t.
He was so good at HP fanfic that he managed to illicit a similar response as many have to the JK’s original.
Roko’s Basilisk is real, but only for LW rationalists. living with contradictions in our thinking and using gut feeling rather than obsessively chaining Bayesian priors together protected the rest of us.
seriously, Yudkowsky and others were tormented by the thought of the Basilisk. it’s a literal mind virus. just one that requires a very specific host (true believers in Timeless Decision Theory.)
Roko’s basilisk is a really cool metaphor for fascism. If you help the regime come into existence, you are rewarded; if you fight it, you are punished but only if you are unsuccessful.
If you help the regime come into existence, you are rewarded
well don’t count on that. totalitarian regimes have a tendency to be paranoid and to enact rather unpleasant purges at every level of the organisation.
Specifically it will only be real if it becomes real and you didn’t support it becoming real.
It’s like the inverse of the notion that the proof of God’s omnipotence is that he doesn’t need to exist in order to save you - the whole idea of Roko’s Basilisk is that if the AI super-intelligence machine God comes to be, it might decide to punish everyone who worked against it coming to be, as an incentive for people to help it come to be in the first place. For exactly the right kind of host, this is an effective memetic infohazard, despite essentially being “God will be angry if he don’t assist in his apotheosis”.
Completely ignoring the possibility of “the AI will get angry if we create it, but build it wrong / wastes resources / cause destruction while building it which it decides should’ve been used better”. Like, these guys are explicitly fighting against the goals they claim the AI they’re working towards is supposed to have.
it is, based on most people who read it, actually very good. the problems start when you analyse it in context with the author. ironically, same thing is true for the source material.
Harry is the protagonist, but he’s not a good person. he’s a ruthlessly utilitarian sociopath who takes himself far too seriously, but it’s entertaining to watch his thought processes. again, much like the author.
i mean, as long as you don’t go into it expecting to sympathise with the main character and get immersed in the story, yeah. it’s not badly written, it’s just bad.
One of the key things to enjoying it is realizing that Harry is very often wrong about astoundingly obvious things because he’s not half as bright as he thinks he is and has massive, glaring blind spots. Rather like watching someone with a PhD who thinks that means they know much about things wildly far away from their specialty.
most people have bad taste. hpmor spreads vapid grandiose intellectualism and the people who like it should act more like skulblaka: they were trivially manipulated by a cult leader.
to be fair, though, eliezer yudkowsky is being sardonic in the OP text.
HPMOR definitely has its share of problems – a mary sue main character for one. But it was incredibly unique at the time it came out, in particular for taking the world of harry potter down as many pegs as it could with such exacting precision. I think it’s one of the all-time greats (of fanfics) personally, but you definitely have to get past how full of himself the author is.
If you prefer, there’s the “post-rats,” which are a spin-off of the same cult and are pretty much identical except every few minutes they make sure to mention how much they don’t like yudkowsky anymore.
The more I see him in the real world the more very upset I become that I genuinely really liked his story. HPMOR is a banger, possibly one of my favorite pieces of amateur literature in existence.
I didn’t know the author was a wanker at the time of reading, and now that I do, I want to make myself retroactively un-like his work, but I can’t.
If you enjoy ratfic, I suppose I have to point you at the standard other fare that tends to be enjoyed by fans of HPMOR, like Ra by qntm, Yud’s other works like Three Worlds Collide, and the assorted works of Scott Alexander especially but not limited to UNSONG (an utter masterpiece of foreshadowing), Sort By Controversial (one of the most realistic horror stories ever), Universal Love, Said the Cactus Person (which alternates between nonsense poetry and the narrator trying to convince the entities in his DMT trip to prove they are real by solving a math problem, complete with explaining enlightenment with a car analogy) and Samsara (about the last unenlightened man being driven to enlightenment by sufficiently stubborn refusal of it).
Going away from the ratfic standards, there’s also some overlap between fans of those and the works of Wildbow/J.C. McCrae. Wildbow is a fantastic author, but wouldn’t understand the value of brevity if asked to write something to hit him over the head with repeatedly. If you want to try his stuff and like superheroes and deconstructions thereof, start with Worm. If you prefer biopunk, try Twig. If you prefer urban fantasy, then either Pact or Pale. He’s also got Claw and Seek, which I haven’t yet read myself.
He was so good at HP fanfic that he managed to illicit a similar response as many have to the JK’s original.
Don’t tell me you think Roko’s basilisk is real
Roko’s Basilisk is real, but only for LW rationalists. living with contradictions in our thinking and using gut feeling rather than obsessively chaining Bayesian priors together protected the rest of us.
seriously, Yudkowsky and others were tormented by the thought of the Basilisk. it’s a literal mind virus. just one that requires a very specific host (true believers in Timeless Decision Theory.)
Roko’s basilisk is a really cool metaphor for fascism. If you help the regime come into existence, you are rewarded; if you fight it, you are punished but only if you are unsuccessful.
well don’t count on that. totalitarian regimes have a tendency to be paranoid and to enact rather unpleasant purges at every level of the organisation.
In fairness, I wouldn’t count on roko’s basilisk either.
It will only be real if you don’t make it real, or, uh… Wait a minute…
Specifically it will only be real if it becomes real and you didn’t support it becoming real.
It’s like the inverse of the notion that the proof of God’s omnipotence is that he doesn’t need to exist in order to save you - the whole idea of Roko’s Basilisk is that if the AI super-intelligence machine God comes to be, it might decide to punish everyone who worked against it coming to be, as an incentive for people to help it come to be in the first place. For exactly the right kind of host, this is an effective memetic infohazard, despite essentially being “God will be angry if he don’t assist in his apotheosis”.
Completely ignoring the possibility of “the AI will get angry if we create it, but build it wrong / wastes resources / cause destruction while building it which it decides should’ve been used better”. Like, these guys are explicitly fighting against the goals they claim the AI they’re working towards is supposed to have.
it is, based on most people who read it, actually very good. the problems start when you analyse it in context with the author. ironically, same thing is true for the source material.
the context makes it better, for me.
Harry is the protagonist, but he’s not a good person. he’s a ruthlessly utilitarian sociopath who takes himself far too seriously, but it’s entertaining to watch his thought processes. again, much like the author.
i mean, as long as you don’t go into it expecting to sympathise with the main character and get immersed in the story, yeah. it’s not badly written, it’s just bad.
One of the key things to enjoying it is realizing that Harry is very often wrong about astoundingly obvious things because he’s not half as bright as he thinks he is and has massive, glaring blind spots. Rather like watching someone with a PhD who thinks that means they know much about things wildly far away from their specialty.
most people have bad taste. hpmor spreads vapid grandiose intellectualism and the people who like it should act more like skulblaka: they were trivially manipulated by a cult leader.
to be fair, though, eliezer yudkowsky is being sardonic in the OP text.
HPMOR definitely has its share of problems – a mary sue main character for one. But it was incredibly unique at the time it came out, in particular for taking the world of harry potter down as many pegs as it could with such exacting precision. I think it’s one of the all-time greats (of fanfics) personally, but you definitely have to get past how full of himself the author is.
the thing is
you don’t have to get past how full of himself the author is
the entire cult the author founded is in denial of the fascism
If you prefer, there’s the “post-rats,” which are a spin-off of the same cult and are pretty much identical except every few minutes they make sure to mention how much they don’t like yudkowsky anymore.