11 ms·

It sounds crazy, but as someone who reads a lot of fiction (and very little fan fiction, because most of it's crap), I sincerely think this is one of the best t

by smanek 16y ago

It sounds crazy, but as someone who reads a lot of fiction (and very little fan fiction, because most of it's crap), I sincerely think this is one of the best things I've read in years. I'd personally rank it up with Asimov or Heinlein at their best. If you're the kind of person, upon discovering a 'wizarding world' would: - Look into establishing arbitrage between the wizards' fixed ratio of Gold/Silver currency and the muggles' variable ratio -Try to discover the underlying laws and mechanics of magic -Use a time machine to prove/disprove P == NP Read this Book!

sbierwagen 16y ago
Use a time machine to prove/disprove P == NP Hold up. P==NP is only proved if you have a time machine.[1] It's still unknown in story if you can do it with a conventional, causal, turing machine. Also note that Harry is either ahead of the times (he doesn't mention the Moravec paper in-story) or very, very au courant, being perhaps the only eleven year old in the world to be reading preprints of theoretical computer science papers while also attending wizarding school. 1: http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1991/TempComp.html http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.artic...
- Eliezer 16y ago
  Actually, it happens to be true that all eleven-year-olds attending wizarding school read preprints of theoretical computer science papers.
  - demallien 16y ago
    <snicker>. Though your statement does feel a bit like dereferencing a NULL-pointer, as in GetAllElevenYearOldsAtWizardingSchool()->doesReadTheoreticalCompSciPapers() should blow up... (Well, at least in the world of bare-metal C, any sane language will of course return an empty collection, and not a NULL pointer to the first function....)
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - tel 16y ago
    Then you did a very unrealistic job representing each and every other young wizard in your writing.
    - gwern 16y ago
      You're missing Eliezer's little joke. In classical logic, usually any predicate is True of a non-existent entity. There are no 11 year olds who attend wizarding school, hence it is True that all such creatures read CS preprints. (Like it is True that unicorns have one horn.)
      - tel 16y ago
        I was also joking in that in Eliezer's fictional work he writes prolifically about 11 year olds who attend wizarding school and there is precisely one who reads them. Perhaps a </joke> would have been necessary.
Symmetry 16y ago
As someone who also reads a lot of fiction, I think this fic is in great need of a good editor... but that after the normal publication process it would be as good as anything Asimov or Heinlein wrote.
- mdemare 16y ago
  Sadly, because it is fan fiction, it will never be published.
  - Eliezer 16y ago
    But because it's fan fiction, I wouldn't object if, after the story finishes, someone produced their own edit of it.
    - swombat 16y ago
      Oh wow, there you are. I just wanted to say that I absolutely love this series of Harry Potter stories. Awesome. Brilliant. Genius. This is as someone who does read a lot as well. It's really, really, really excellent. It's the only mostly static website on the web which I go and manually check every couple of days, excited at the thought that maybe there's a new chapter up. It's like having a child's Christmas every few days. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
      - Eliezer 16y ago
        "Thanks," he said in the small, awkward voice of someone who'd never quite figured out how to take a compliment like that gracefully.
        Alex3917 16y ago
        It strikes me as slightly ironic that this book is so popular here. After all, it's in praise of rationality, whereas HN is a community of entrepreneurs; A profession where the odds against you are so great that you almost couldn't get out of bed in the morning without delusions of grandeur, or at least a healthy dose of narcissism.
gxti 16y ago
If you like his writing, see also "Three Worlds Collide": http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/
- jarin 16y ago
  Huge, huge, HUGE upvote. Three Worlds Collide is amazing. And if you like that, check out "Life Artificial": http://lifeartificial.com http://lifeartificial.com
- araneae 16y ago
  I love HP and the Methods of Rationality, and absolutely hated "Three Worlds Collide" because a)It was very contrived, and b)Rape will never be legal, sorry, unless it's an anti-feminist society similar to some Arab countries, which that society wasn't. I know it's just one little thing, but that completely killed the suspension of disbelief for me.
  - AngryParsley 16y ago
    It's contrived because the goal of the story was to get people to think about metaethics. It's still pretty good for entertainment value though. b) was a reference to http://lesswrong.com/lw/xm/building_weirdtopia/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/xm/building_weirdtopia/ There was some discussion of this when the chapter was posted. The rape idea was really weird, but it made more sense after reading some of the discussion: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/qso?c=1 http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/q... http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/qt7?c=1 http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/q... http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/qtf?c=1 http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/q...
    - araneae 16y ago
      I've read the comments, and the point still stands. There's a reason that I had never heard of a "weirdtopian" novel before. If something is outside of the scope of what humans are capable of, it's very jarring to one's suspension of disbelief. Just because it fits with his desire to make it weirdtopian doesn't mean I like it any better.
rflrob 16y ago
"I'd personally rank it up with Asimov or Heinlein at their best." There's also a healthy dose of Pratchett, acknowledging the fundamental silliness of magic.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  But perhaps it is J. K. Rowling who should get credit for doing the acknowledging. If you write "students are given time machines so they can attend more classes" and no one in-universe points this out as odd, that's Harry Potter. If a fanfiction has someone notice how odd this is, that may bear a greater stylistic resemblance to Terry Pratchett, but the core silliness was still J. K. Rowling's idea to start with...
crux_ 16y ago
I'll be honest: I read a lot of fiction too. And this is awful. (Note: giving it up at chapter 3.) Everything so far has followed this pattern: * 1) Set-up. * 2) Harry demonstrates his special, unique smarts. Of course, step two is the far more important of the two. Combine that with a ridiculously over-the-top amount of name-dropping (more citations than a doctorate!). (I admit, I did have a soft spot for the Flubber reference; it was instantly ruined by the AD&D one that followed -- and if "+6 thingamabobie" wasn't explicit enough for you, the entire next paragraph was about AD&D.) This is not storytelling: "And she told him of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Dark Lord, Voldemort." Bleargh. And following it up with an academic citation WRT the bystander effect: WTF? Anyway, everyone has opinions; that's just mine. Story should come first, and wish-fulfillment fantasies second. (Not that they can't add to a story!)
- ronnoch 16y ago
  Just to clarify, you're judging this story after only 3 chapters? Because if you want to get an accurate impression of the story, you should push past chapter 5 at least. The tone of the story evolves considerably, and you might find you like it after all. (Though to quote the author, "If you still don't like it after Chapter 10, give up.")
  - crux_ 16y ago
    Yes: I set it aside very early on. I'm quite certain the story will change & evolve. However, I'm rather sceptical that the writing quality will. Part of why I gave it up so early is purely on me: I am a sucker for a page-turner -- once a plot picks up a certain amount of steam, I have a near-compulsion to finish. This is the case even if, upon reflection, I don't like the writing, characters, events, etc... Nothing less fun than coming out of a reading binge at 3am on a work night reading a book you didn't like! edit: Random sampling in future chapters reveals great heapings of soliloquy and dialectic. I don't feel too bad about setting it down.
    - MBlume 16y ago
      > Nothing less fun than coming out of a reading binge at 3am on a work night reading a book you didn't like! Oh this has happened to me far far too many times... If it helps, MoR's plot is fairly episodic and doesn't start to pick up steam until about chapter 16 I'd add an "I loved it" but honestly, I liked a lot of the things you disliked, so YMWPV.
noonespecial 16y ago
It's not bad as far as fiction goes. It's straight awesome compared to just about all other fanfic. It's main problem is that it's front loaded with all of the authors non-fiction blog posts on transhumanism. The story is stalled repeatedly by the Rand-like "John Galt" speeches by the Potter character especially.
- athom 16y ago
  Which is rather ironic, given Harry's dismissal of Atlas Shrugged in one of the early chapters.
Indyan 16y ago
HPMOR has hit HN front page on at least 3 occasions (including this one). That in itself tells you how good this thing really is. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1385932 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1385932 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668766 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668766

by smanek 16y ago

sbierwagen 16y ago

Use a time machine to prove/disprove P == NP Hold up. P==NP is only proved if you have a time machine.[1] It's still unknown in story if you can do it with a conventional, causal, turing machine. Also note that Harry is either ahead of the times (he doesn't mention the Moravec paper in-story) or very, very au courant, being perhaps the only eleven year old in the world to be reading preprints of theoretical computer science papers while also attending wizarding school. 1: http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1991/TempComp.html http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.artic...

Eliezer 16y ago
Actually, it happens to be true that all eleven-year-olds attending wizarding school read preprints of theoretical computer science papers.
- demallien 16y ago
  <snicker>. Though your statement does feel a bit like dereferencing a NULL-pointer, as in GetAllElevenYearOldsAtWizardingSchool()->doesReadTheoreticalCompSciPapers() should blow up... (Well, at least in the world of bare-metal C, any sane language will of course return an empty collection, and not a NULL pointer to the first function....)
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- tel 16y ago
  Then you did a very unrealistic job representing each and every other young wizard in your writing.
  - gwern 16y ago
    You're missing Eliezer's little joke. In classical logic, usually any predicate is True of a non-existent entity. There are no 11 year olds who attend wizarding school, hence it is True that all such creatures read CS preprints. (Like it is True that unicorns have one horn.)
    - tel 16y ago
      I was also joking in that in Eliezer's fictional work he writes prolifically about 11 year olds who attend wizarding school and there is precisely one who reads them. Perhaps a </joke> would have been necessary.

Symmetry 16y ago

As someone who also reads a lot of fiction, I think this fic is in great need of a good editor... but that after the normal publication process it would be as good as anything Asimov or Heinlein wrote.

mdemare 16y ago
Sadly, because it is fan fiction, it will never be published.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  But because it's fan fiction, I wouldn't object if, after the story finishes, someone produced their own edit of it.
  - swombat 16y ago
    Oh wow, there you are. I just wanted to say that I absolutely love this series of Harry Potter stories. Awesome. Brilliant. Genius. This is as someone who does read a lot as well. It's really, really, really excellent. It's the only mostly static website on the web which I go and manually check every couple of days, excited at the thought that maybe there's a new chapter up. It's like having a child's Christmas every few days. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
    - Eliezer 16y ago
      "Thanks," he said in the small, awkward voice of someone who'd never quite figured out how to take a compliment like that gracefully.
      - Alex3917 16y ago
        It strikes me as slightly ironic that this book is so popular here. After all, it's in praise of rationality, whereas HN is a community of entrepreneurs; A profession where the odds against you are so great that you almost couldn't get out of bed in the morning without delusions of grandeur, or at least a healthy dose of narcissism.

gxti 16y ago

If you like his writing, see also "Three Worlds Collide": http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/

jarin 16y ago
Huge, huge, HUGE upvote. Three Worlds Collide is amazing. And if you like that, check out "Life Artificial": http://lifeartificial.com http://lifeartificial.com
araneae 16y ago
I love HP and the Methods of Rationality, and absolutely hated "Three Worlds Collide" because a)It was very contrived, and b)Rape will never be legal, sorry, unless it's an anti-feminist society similar to some Arab countries, which that society wasn't. I know it's just one little thing, but that completely killed the suspension of disbelief for me.
- AngryParsley 16y ago
  It's contrived because the goal of the story was to get people to think about metaethics. It's still pretty good for entertainment value though. b) was a reference to http://lesswrong.com/lw/xm/building_weirdtopia/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/xm/building_weirdtopia/ There was some discussion of this when the chapter was posted. The rape idea was really weird, but it made more sense after reading some of the discussion: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/qso?c=1 http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/q... http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/qt7?c=1 http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/q... http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/qtf?c=1 http://lesswrong.com/lw/y8/interlude_with_the_confessor_48/q...
  - araneae 16y ago
    I've read the comments, and the point still stands. There's a reason that I had never heard of a "weirdtopian" novel before. If something is outside of the scope of what humans are capable of, it's very jarring to one's suspension of disbelief. Just because it fits with his desire to make it weirdtopian doesn't mean I like it any better.

rflrob 16y ago

"I'd personally rank it up with Asimov or Heinlein at their best." There's also a healthy dose of Pratchett, acknowledging the fundamental silliness of magic.

Eliezer 16y ago
But perhaps it is J. K. Rowling who should get credit for doing the acknowledging. If you write "students are given time machines so they can attend more classes" and no one in-universe points this out as odd, that's Harry Potter. If a fanfiction has someone notice how odd this is, that may bear a greater stylistic resemblance to Terry Pratchett, but the core silliness was still J. K. Rowling's idea to start with...

crux_ 16y ago

I'll be honest: I read a lot of fiction too. And this is awful. (Note: giving it up at chapter 3.) Everything so far has followed this pattern: * 1) Set-up. * 2) Harry demonstrates his special, unique smarts. Of course, step two is the far more important of the two. Combine that with a ridiculously over-the-top amount of name-dropping (more citations than a doctorate!). (I admit, I did have a soft spot for the Flubber reference; it was instantly ruined by the AD&D one that followed -- and if "+6 thingamabobie" wasn't explicit enough for you, the entire next paragraph was about AD&D.) This is not storytelling: "And she told him of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Dark Lord, Voldemort." Bleargh. And following it up with an academic citation WRT the bystander effect: WTF? Anyway, everyone has opinions; that's just mine. Story should come first, and wish-fulfillment fantasies second. (Not that they can't add to a story!)

ronnoch 16y ago
Just to clarify, you're judging this story after only 3 chapters? Because if you want to get an accurate impression of the story, you should push past chapter 5 at least. The tone of the story evolves considerably, and you might find you like it after all. (Though to quote the author, "If you still don't like it after Chapter 10, give up.")
- crux_ 16y ago
  Yes: I set it aside very early on. I'm quite certain the story will change & evolve. However, I'm rather sceptical that the writing quality will. Part of why I gave it up so early is purely on me: I am a sucker for a page-turner -- once a plot picks up a certain amount of steam, I have a near-compulsion to finish. This is the case even if, upon reflection, I don't like the writing, characters, events, etc... Nothing less fun than coming out of a reading binge at 3am on a work night reading a book you didn't like! edit: Random sampling in future chapters reveals great heapings of soliloquy and dialectic. I don't feel too bad about setting it down.
  - MBlume 16y ago
    > Nothing less fun than coming out of a reading binge at 3am on a work night reading a book you didn't like! Oh this has happened to me far far too many times... If it helps, MoR's plot is fairly episodic and doesn't start to pick up steam until about chapter 16 I'd add an "I loved it" but honestly, I liked a lot of the things you disliked, so YMWPV.

noonespecial 16y ago

It's not bad as far as fiction goes. It's straight awesome compared to just about all other fanfic. It's main problem is that it's front loaded with all of the authors non-fiction blog posts on transhumanism. The story is stalled repeatedly by the Rand-like "John Galt" speeches by the Potter character especially.

athom 16y ago
Which is rather ironic, given Harry's dismissal of Atlas Shrugged in one of the early chapters.

Indyan 16y ago

HPMOR has hit HN front page on at least 3 occasions (including this one). That in itself tells you how good this thing really is. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1385932 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1385932 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668766 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668766