3 ms·

I too wrote about this, although _much_ longer, if you want a bit of a deeper dive on the subject https://www.iankduncan.com/personal/2026-09-16-sex-ai-and-the-

by iand675 16d ago

I too wrote about this, although _much_ longer, if you want a bit of a deeper dive on the subject https://www.iankduncan.com/personal/2026-09-16-sex-ai-and-the-apocalypse https://www.iankduncan.com/personal/2026-09-16-sex-ai-and-th...

JuniperMesos 16d ago
[dead]
vintermann 16d ago
That was a good read. A little long as you say, but this thing has been around for over 20 years now, it can't be helped. Predictably the original submission got flagged.
HDThoreaun 16d ago
As far as manifestos go HPMOR is a pretty good one. I think that’s what a lot of the critiques about it miss. Yudkowsky is actually a pretty decent writer, especially in the fan fic scene. Not only is his prose actually acceptable which is pretty rare in fanfic it’s clear that he actually thought through a lot of the plot points ahead of time. Harry Potter universe fits very well for his story not only because it’s popular with the target audience, but because there’s a ton of unexplored authority figures in the original and the main goal of the manifesto largely boils down to rejecting blind belief in authority and blazing your own trail. I think it’s hard to separate the number of people who read it because it’s legitimately the best Harry Potter fanfic from the people who read it for the manifesto stuff which again points to the ingenuity of choosing it as a setting.
- glaslong 16d ago
  I suppose there is worse sci-fi you could launch a cult from (Dianetics)
- aiedrionio 16d ago
  It's terrible as a work of literature. It has many, many, many flaws, but the most serious is that it's boooooring. Hundreds upon hundreds of pages go by with nothing happening except creepy children preaching at each other. It's terrible as a fan fiction. Not a single character acts anything like the original, the world is unrecognizable, and the plot is derailed entirely by the end of the second or third chapter. The original story needs to be distorted beyond recognition because the author's bizarre worldview works even more poorly in a fantasy world than it does in reality. It's demonstrably effective as a manifesto, but that is despite the fact that it is riddled with scientific and conceptual errors. It's one of the worst things I've ever read. The fact that people like it is evidence of the bizarre incestuous nature of the community that produced it.
  - timmytokyo 16d ago
    War and Peace is shorter than HPMOR. Anyone who knows anything about Harry Potter fandom in those years knows that its readers were always thirsty for something new in the Potterverse to read or be exposed to. By latching onto that universe's incredible popularity, Yudkowsky exposed a large number of young, inquisitive people to the ideas of rationalism. It was essentially a recruitment mechanism, one that was wildly successful. Many rationalists freely admit that their first exposure to rationalism was via HPMOR.
    - aiedrionio 16d ago
      I don't think Harry Potter fans would look kindly on their favorite story being treated with such contempt. Remember that within about three sentences of introducing Ron Weasley our hero finds him guilty of the heinous crime of enjoying sports and concludes he should not exist. Excuse me. It was Draco Malfoy, our rapist deuteragonist, who said that. Our hero merely agreed. Maybe Harry Potter fans would read a bad fantasy book, but HPMOR is not just a bad fantasy book. It is repugnant to healthy people from the first few pages.
      - HDThoreaun 16d ago
        I really, really dont understand this complaint at all. Harry and draco disliking ron is supposed to show that they are snotty kids who have big blind spots. The characters are supposed to be dislikable at the start, the story is about the growth they experience from there. This is part of what makes it a better story than the original. Yudkowsky's harry grows as a character which basically doesnt happen at all in the original series. Do you dislike succession too? Some people just need completely heroic protagonists in their stories. Thats fine, but it doesnt make the story bad.
- irthomasthomas 16d ago
  What are your favourite quotes from it?
  - HDThoreaun 16d ago
    Let me be clear, he's no cormac mccarthy(my favorite prose is the passage from blood meridian describing the raiders). My bar for fan fiction prose is basically whether it annoys me, its a low bar. Most of what makes hpmor good is the cleverness with which yudkowsky subverts the original harry potter world to try to make a rationalist argument, whether that be by inverting a character or playing off the harry/voldemort relationship in thoughtful ways. '"Voldemort," said the old wizard. "I understand him now at last. Because to believe that the world is truly like that, you must believe there is no justice in it, that it is woven of darkness at its core. I asked you why he became a monster, and you could give no reason. And if I could ask him, I suppose, his answer would be: Why not? They stood there gazing into each other's eyes, the old wizard in his robes, and the young boy with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. "Tell me, Harry," said the old wizard, "will you become a monster?" "No," said the boy, an iron certainty in his voice. "Why not?" said the old wizard.' as you can see its nothing special, just good enough
    - irthomasthomas 16d ago
      I see, thanks. It reminds me a little of those spam emails which are sprinkled, intentionally, with obvious spelling errors. They aren't trying to trick the average person, they are trying to filter for a much smaller, more valuable audience.
      - HDThoreaun 16d ago
        yes exactly. Fan fiction readers largely do not care about grammar or nice prose, just has to not be overly distracting which unfortunately most fan fic fails at
      - usef- 16d ago
        fwiw, I don't think that was intentional here. He's just more interested in "ideas" than prose or people. A more extreme example of Andy Weir. Definitely a niche. I read it years ago while backpacking and it perhaps needed an editor but the overall struggle/war and reimagining of logical fallacies of the HP universe's magic were fun.
- smsm42 15d ago
  For me this is probably the weirdest part of it. I have read HPMOR and was distinctly underwhelmed by its literary quality. I mean, it's not bad, but it's not serious literature. It's not even on the level of the original HP. It's a fanfic. Sure, it's a fanfic with a lot of fan service and geekery and so on, so the audience is targeted masterfully. But still, it's hard not to notice the numerous literary faults. I mean, "he actually thought through a lot of the plot points ahead of time" is a kind of praise, but not one that a decent literary work expects. That's like saying about a chess grandmaster that he actually knows how all the pieces move. I mean, sure, on the fanfic scene it's probably above median, but I've seen people making out of it some kind of epic revelation, akin to some kind of a sacred text. Completely undeservedly, in my opinion, and rather weird for a community that is so proud in it's objective and rational approach to things that put it into its very name.
ambicapter 16d ago
> His autobiography even opens with a parable: as a small child he threw his favorite squirtgun off a third-floor balcony rather than accept that his mother could lend out what was his, and felt complete when he heard it hit the pavement. What a classic narcissist. > Main character syndrome stops being a character flaw the day you join a religion whose plot has you in the lead. This is some great writing.
cdfalcon 16d ago
fantastic. I've heard of bits and pieces of this but this is the first article I've read which lays out the entire timeline with all the firsthand sources you could want. thanks for the effort!
deleted 16d ago
[deleted]
tanseydavid 16d ago
Thank you for writing this piece. It was completely worth the length and amount of ground/time covered.
profstasiak 16d ago
why use AI to write this? It makes me wanna stop every five seconds.

by iand675 16d ago

JuniperMesos 16d ago

[dead]

vintermann 16d ago

That was a good read. A little long as you say, but this thing has been around for over 20 years now, it can't be helped. Predictably the original submission got flagged.

HDThoreaun 16d ago

As far as manifestos go HPMOR is a pretty good one. I think that’s what a lot of the critiques about it miss. Yudkowsky is actually a pretty decent writer, especially in the fan fic scene. Not only is his prose actually acceptable which is pretty rare in fanfic it’s clear that he actually thought through a lot of the plot points ahead of time. Harry Potter universe fits very well for his story not only because it’s popular with the target audience, but because there’s a ton of unexplored authority figures in the original and the main goal of the manifesto largely boils down to rejecting blind belief in authority and blazing your own trail. I think it’s hard to separate the number of people who read it because it’s legitimately the best Harry Potter fanfic from the people who read it for the manifesto stuff which again points to the ingenuity of choosing it as a setting.

glaslong 16d ago
I suppose there is worse sci-fi you could launch a cult from (Dianetics)
aiedrionio 16d ago
It's terrible as a work of literature. It has many, many, many flaws, but the most serious is that it's boooooring. Hundreds upon hundreds of pages go by with nothing happening except creepy children preaching at each other. It's terrible as a fan fiction. Not a single character acts anything like the original, the world is unrecognizable, and the plot is derailed entirely by the end of the second or third chapter. The original story needs to be distorted beyond recognition because the author's bizarre worldview works even more poorly in a fantasy world than it does in reality. It's demonstrably effective as a manifesto, but that is despite the fact that it is riddled with scientific and conceptual errors. It's one of the worst things I've ever read. The fact that people like it is evidence of the bizarre incestuous nature of the community that produced it.
- timmytokyo 16d ago
  War and Peace is shorter than HPMOR. Anyone who knows anything about Harry Potter fandom in those years knows that its readers were always thirsty for something new in the Potterverse to read or be exposed to. By latching onto that universe's incredible popularity, Yudkowsky exposed a large number of young, inquisitive people to the ideas of rationalism. It was essentially a recruitment mechanism, one that was wildly successful. Many rationalists freely admit that their first exposure to rationalism was via HPMOR.
  - aiedrionio 16d ago
    I don't think Harry Potter fans would look kindly on their favorite story being treated with such contempt. Remember that within about three sentences of introducing Ron Weasley our hero finds him guilty of the heinous crime of enjoying sports and concludes he should not exist. Excuse me. It was Draco Malfoy, our rapist deuteragonist, who said that. Our hero merely agreed. Maybe Harry Potter fans would read a bad fantasy book, but HPMOR is not just a bad fantasy book. It is repugnant to healthy people from the first few pages.
    - HDThoreaun 16d ago
      I really, really dont understand this complaint at all. Harry and draco disliking ron is supposed to show that they are snotty kids who have big blind spots. The characters are supposed to be dislikable at the start, the story is about the growth they experience from there. This is part of what makes it a better story than the original. Yudkowsky's harry grows as a character which basically doesnt happen at all in the original series. Do you dislike succession too? Some people just need completely heroic protagonists in their stories. Thats fine, but it doesnt make the story bad.
irthomasthomas 16d ago
What are your favourite quotes from it?
- HDThoreaun 16d ago
  Let me be clear, he's no cormac mccarthy(my favorite prose is the passage from blood meridian describing the raiders). My bar for fan fiction prose is basically whether it annoys me, its a low bar. Most of what makes hpmor good is the cleverness with which yudkowsky subverts the original harry potter world to try to make a rationalist argument, whether that be by inverting a character or playing off the harry/voldemort relationship in thoughtful ways. '"Voldemort," said the old wizard. "I understand him now at last. Because to believe that the world is truly like that, you must believe there is no justice in it, that it is woven of darkness at its core. I asked you why he became a monster, and you could give no reason. And if I could ask him, I suppose, his answer would be: Why not? They stood there gazing into each other's eyes, the old wizard in his robes, and the young boy with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. "Tell me, Harry," said the old wizard, "will you become a monster?" "No," said the boy, an iron certainty in his voice. "Why not?" said the old wizard.' as you can see its nothing special, just good enough
  - irthomasthomas 16d ago
    I see, thanks. It reminds me a little of those spam emails which are sprinkled, intentionally, with obvious spelling errors. They aren't trying to trick the average person, they are trying to filter for a much smaller, more valuable audience.
    - HDThoreaun 16d ago
      yes exactly. Fan fiction readers largely do not care about grammar or nice prose, just has to not be overly distracting which unfortunately most fan fic fails at
    - usef- 16d ago
      fwiw, I don't think that was intentional here. He's just more interested in "ideas" than prose or people. A more extreme example of Andy Weir. Definitely a niche. I read it years ago while backpacking and it perhaps needed an editor but the overall struggle/war and reimagining of logical fallacies of the HP universe's magic were fun.
smsm42 15d ago
For me this is probably the weirdest part of it. I have read HPMOR and was distinctly underwhelmed by its literary quality. I mean, it's not bad, but it's not serious literature. It's not even on the level of the original HP. It's a fanfic. Sure, it's a fanfic with a lot of fan service and geekery and so on, so the audience is targeted masterfully. But still, it's hard not to notice the numerous literary faults. I mean, "he actually thought through a lot of the plot points ahead of time" is a kind of praise, but not one that a decent literary work expects. That's like saying about a chess grandmaster that he actually knows how all the pieces move. I mean, sure, on the fanfic scene it's probably above median, but I've seen people making out of it some kind of epic revelation, akin to some kind of a sacred text. Completely undeservedly, in my opinion, and rather weird for a community that is so proud in it's objective and rational approach to things that put it into its very name.

ambicapter 16d ago

> His autobiography even opens with a parable: as a small child he threw his favorite squirtgun off a third-floor balcony rather than accept that his mother could lend out what was his, and felt complete when he heard it hit the pavement. What a classic narcissist. > Main character syndrome stops being a character flaw the day you join a religion whose plot has you in the lead. This is some great writing.

cdfalcon 16d ago

fantastic. I've heard of bits and pieces of this but this is the first article I've read which lays out the entire timeline with all the firsthand sources you could want. thanks for the effort!

deleted 16d ago

[deleted]

tanseydavid 16d ago

Thank you for writing this piece. It was completely worth the length and amount of ground/time covered.

profstasiak 16d ago

why use AI to write this? It makes me wanna stop every five seconds.