Anonymouswizard researches Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

[Anonymouswizard]

Inspired by the tangent on the current thread on Harry Potter magic and other stuff I decided it was time to carefully research the document in question and see what all the fuss is about and if the acusations of being the Worst Science Ever^TM are justified.

Or in more accurate terms I'm going to read the fanfic and give my thoughts on it, planning on doing a chapter or two on every day where I don't have a shift.

A few notes to get out of the way first.
1) I don't tend to read fanfic. The only one I've read all the way through was a (probable) troll fic, and I've listened to dramatic readings of a couple of the infamously bad ones, but it's not really my thing. So the quality will be compared to published literature rather than the standards of fan fiction, which I admit is unfair but I don't have much to go on.
2) I don't actually know that much about science, my degree's in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, so while I'll be giving my thoughts with the help of Google and other sources unless it's got to do with microchips and circuitry I might be talking out of my arse.
3) As a Brit I will be complaining about any Americanisms that I find to be out of place, especially before Chapter 18 (which as I understand is in the process of being translated from American). Fish and chips, Bob's your uncle, and all that tosh.

Alright, without further ado let us get to the point of this ridiculous piece of procrastination excellent idea for a thread. My reading brew is at hand.

Chapter 1 - P<0.05
Well we start off promisingly, in a sea of books. Unfortunately this gets ruined when we discover that our protagonist has a tripple-barreled-surname. Anyways, onwards with HJPVEatMoR.

Unfortunately this book starts with a character kicking up the dreaded fuss. At least we know who we're supposed to dislike here, although Aunt Petunia is being almost as bad. Keep a stiff upper lip girl!

Ah, Harry understands Britishness perfectly. It's not enough to go mad, you've got to do it stylishly. Get that kid a cuppa and a monocle! Although I'm confused as to why the Hogwarts letter has a return address on it, and what stamps do you need to send something to a parallel society? What ten year old tests a hypothesis instead of playing on his Gameboy? A stylishly mad one, obviously.

We end on the revelation that Harry's neighbour knows about Hogwarts. How mightly convinient.

Chapter 2 - Black is White, Up is Down, and Short is Long
Experiment time! I would love for the narration to jump into MCGonagall's head for a bit just to see exactly what she's making of this, but at least some punishment is being dolled out to the person who made a fuss.

Plus the fanfiction is at least acknowledging that Harry doesn't talk like a normal kid. Although honestly I think that it would have been better to just ignore that little detail.

Ah, Harry, can't you just accept 'a wizard did it' and stop talking like the kind of adult doctors of physics want to punch in the face?

Harry apparently has a very regular sleep pattern. Why? It's not like people can't fall asleep less than sixteen hours before they woke up regularly, as I'm sure secondary school geography can effortlessly prove. It turns out that a sufficiently motivated geography teacher can put students to sleep less than two hours after they have awoken from slumber.

I'll admit that the story is at least making me laugh, but we shall see if it manages to actuall make me engaged.

I am however, a bit annoyed that we didn't get the story where Dumbledore has to fight off a plague of flaming zebras.


Thoughts so Far
While I might reverse my opinion on this in the coming chapters, I feel like the story is moving too fast. One of the few things that the original books did absolutely right was establish Harry's home life to the point that once you got into the magical world it just felt that little bit more magical. Here we have the confirmation of magic and basic introduction to the world within the first thirteen pages.

Ignoring the plot, we haven't had any science that I can definitively say is right or wrong, but I'm a bit suspicious that no conservation of energy automatically leads to a breakdown in causality. But I ain't no physicist, I'll ask my doctor friend about it some time.

Writing wise, it's not anything special at the moment. The dialogue feels unnatural, but I'm willing to give the author a break on that seeing as Harry as already been established as utterly unrealistic I'm not expecting it to start feeling much more natural.

I'm off to put the kettle on, and possibly power through another couple of chapters before bedtime.

[Sapphire Guard]

Heh. This should be interesting.

[Seppl]

Ignoring the plot, we haven't had any science that I can definitively say is right or wrong, but I'm a bit suspicious that no conservation of energy automatically leads to a breakdown in causality. But I ain't no physicist, I'll ask my doctor friend about it some time.

Harry already babbles a hint at an explanation. Conservation laws in physics do not come out of nowhere, they can be derived mathematically from the symmetries of a system and vice versa. In this case, the lack of conservation of energy in the universe would imply that the laws of physics must change over time. Or that math itself is fundamentally wrong, which would be even worse for Harry's state of mind.

There will be a lot of these kind of university level physics trivia in these first few chapters.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well I've got a ful cup of Earl Grey, onwards into this selection of carefully ordered words. Will I be amazed at the rationalism, or will my brain apparate out of my skull?

[SIZE=3]Chapter 3 - Comparing Exposition to it's Alternatives
We begin with what is essentially a replay of a scene from Philosopher's Stone, although I'll note that Hagrid made this much more entertaining. McGonagal is a great character, but Hagrid's warmth really made the magical world feel more welcoming.

I do like the entire 'adopted parents are parents bit', but I don't think it adds anything to the story. I'd recommend the author cuts it down to just Harry saying 'I don't know how my genetic parents died' and leave it at that.

Also I'm sorry, from how it was described the entrance to Diagon Alley being created was exactly like turning into a cat from a whole 'conservation of energy' sense. The description makes it sounds as if the mass just disappeared, instead of the bricks moving to the sides (although I suppose they could be making the remnants of the wall wider).

We really didn't need the roleplaying shoutout. Either make an entire fanfiction based around it or lose it. Or at the very least change it to being vorpal knives. Actually, the roleplaying shoutouts make this bit significantly less magical. It's all well and good coming across the glorious pumpkin but it gets a bit grating when we're told we need a +2 knife to pierce it's skin and only get a wish if we cook the flesh in a skillet of charcol and pass the D31 Fortitude Save to keep it down.

The rest is pretty much just the 'you know who' exposition from Philospher's Stone, but slightly worse. Why oh why couldn't we have had Hagrid doing this?

Chapter 4 - The Incorrect Ideas Conjecture
Does Harry really think he's the first person to try to abuse the wizarding system. I will note that Griphook doesn't actually confirm or deny as to whether the coins are supposed to be worth just the value of the metal, as he states that wizards only trust goblin coins I would assume that even if the worth of the currency is based purely on the physical coin then workmanship also plays a role in their value, as well as the relative indestrucability of goblin-made goods.

As a side note, I'm not sure if Rowling has ever stated if the coins are made out of the respective metals or just that colour. I'd actually assume the latter, goblin coins might be even more valued if they had a way to make a gold-esque material that doesn't contain a significant amount of actual gold. They're supposed to be really good metalworkers as I remember.

Also, uh, Harry, how much your valut is worth in Muggle Money is only worthwhile if you're spending it in muggleville.

So we've established that the financial system the author has established details for can be borked with a free weekend and a mini. Better hope that this book gives the protagonist a lot of stuff to do, otherwise we might have to sit through Harry Potter driving an armoured van into Diagon Alley in order to pull off this scheme.

Here we have possibly the most sensible thing Mr Potter has said so far in this story. A good science library at Hogwarts would be awesome, although I recommend he puts some basic scientific equipment, which I'm sure in his case includes a particle acclerator, as well.

Again we feel the loss of Hagrid. He'd have sorted with annoy twit out with his attempts to buy every potential thing in the city.


Well, I'm going to leave it there for the moment, I'd like to do more than two chapters a day but the main character here really gets on my nerves. I'm actually enjoying a lot of it, but it really needs a poblish and an edit to make Harry a bit more likeable.

On the plus side, if I stick to two chapters a day I think I might be able to post even when I have a shift. Maybe I'll do two more chapters on days where I'm free.

With regards to FTL signalling, now that explanation makes a lot of sense, I think it does the story a diservice not to use such a nice, simple explanation but instead expect me to know why already.

[Pex]

Spoiler: The Quirrel Games

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One section I didn't understand. When they first have the war games Harry realizes too late what Hermione's strategy is enabling her to win, but it's not clear to me what her strategy is. The closest I could gather was she was willing to listen and follow a plan a subordinate would come up with, but that didn't make sense how that has her win. What is her strategy?

[Lethologica]

Spoiler: The Quirrel Games

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One section I didn't understand. When they first have the war games Harry realizes too late what Hermione's strategy is enabling her to win, but it's not clear to me what her strategy is. The closest I could gather was she was willing to listen and follow a plan a subordinate would come up with, but that didn't make sense how that has her win. What is her strategy?

Spoiler: Ch.31

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No, that's literally it. Hermione's plan that Harry can't figure out is having other people in the room.

The Quirrell Games is one of the series' high points for me, but don't take it too seriously. Actually, that's a fair warning for the entire series.

[Douglas]

Spoiler: The Quirrel Games

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One section I didn't understand. When they first have the war games Harry realizes too late what Hermione's strategy is enabling her to win, but it's not clear to me what her strategy is. The closest I could gather was she was willing to listen and follow a plan a subordinate would come up with, but that didn't make sense how that has her win. What is her strategy?

Spoiler

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Her strategy, which she came up with by consulting other members of her army for ideas, was to fake losing so that Draco and Harry would whittle each other down while leaving her alone, then come back and finish off whatever was left. She split her army in two, partly so they'd both "know" she'd lost and partly so her apparent loss would be more believable, and had everyone drop and pretend to sleep after the first volley. Some of her soldiers were actually hit by the sleep charms and thus removed from battle, but enough were just pretending that when they got back up later they were a substantial force.

[Silva Stormrage]

Oh I will be following this. I first read HPMoR while in high school and was a bit more self absorbed and arrogant at my own intelligence at that point (Aren't we all ) so I am curious how someone reading through this will a fresh eye will read this.

A couple comments just noting that I think a lot of people miss when reading the story thanks to the general tone/perspective of the narrative. Mostly because it's from Harry's perspective the vast majority of the time and Harry speaks as if he knows everything with 100% certainty.

1) Harry is an incredibly unreliable narrator. Multiple times in the story he will act smug when describing a cognitive bias or pitfall and then proceed to stumble into that pitfall 1 chapter later or even sometimes in the same chapter. For example, Harry's plan with the silver and gold exchange and such? Even he admits later on there is no real way to pull it off stealthy or reliably once he researches it more and that no the entire wizard economy isn't destroyed by an 11 year old with a single idea.

2) Harry gets more likable further on. Right now he is a smug arrogant child with an anger management problem. A good portion of the mid/later chapters are him trying to fix that.

Overall I still like the story on rereads but I feel the people who bemoan it as "The worst thing ever" are vastly vastly over exaggerating it's flaws or reading everything Harry does as if it's supposed to be 100% true or "Something people should do". Thats just my take on it, I have several friends who dislike it for fairly valid reasons.

[Silver Swift]

Also I'm sorry, from how it was described the entrance to Diagon Alley being created was exactly like turning into a cat from a whole 'conservation of energy' sense. The description makes it sounds as if the mass just disappeared, instead of the bricks moving to the sides (although I suppose they could be making the remnants of the wall wider).

Turning a wall into a wall with an archway is still bad from a conservation of energy point of view, but you can fudge a lot more of the microscopic details than you can when turning a woman into a cat (as the previous chapter mentions, cats are complicated). Also, the wall doesn't have to think.

We really didn't need the roleplaying shoutout.

Yeah, uhm, you might want to get ready for quite a few more random and unnecessary pop culture references.

Also, uh, Harry, how much your valut is worth in Muggle Money is only worthwhile if you're spending it in muggleville.

He knows:

"Is this a usual amount of money for a young couple to have in their vault, in the wizarding world?" If it was, a cup of tea probably cost five thousand pounds. Rule one of economics: you can't eat money.

Spoiler

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Her strategy, which she came up with by consulting other members of her army for ideas, was to fake losing so that Draco and Harry would whittle each other down while leaving her alone, then come back and finish off whatever was left. She split her army in two, partly so they'd both "know" she'd lost and partly so her apparent loss would be more believable, and had everyone drop and pretend to sleep after the first volley. Some of her soldiers were actually hit by the sleep charms and thus removed from battle, but enough were just pretending that when they got back up later they were a substantial force.

Spoiler

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To add to this, the only reason this trick works is that Hermione has "the killing intent of a bowl of wet grapes" and both Draco and Harry immediately buy that she would split up her forces in order to play fair.

[oudeis]

I read several chapters of this before I realized that the author was a grotesquely self-impressed narcissist masturbating to and about his ideas of his own superiority.

[Kantaki]

Spoiler

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Her strategy, which she came up with by consulting other members of her army for ideas, was to fake losing so that Draco and Harry would whittle each other down while leaving her alone, then come back and finish off whatever was left. She split her army in two, partly so they'd both "know" she'd lost and partly so her apparent loss would be more believable, and had everyone drop and pretend to sleep after the first volley. Some of her soldiers were actually hit by the sleep charms and thus removed from battle, but enough were just pretending that when they got back up later they were a substantial force.

Spoiler

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So the lesson is „always double-tap” then?
Unless you're a cheating cheater called Contessa that's a good lesson.

[Anonymouswizard]

Sorry for the lack of update, but I've been busy today despite it being my day off. Anyway, onwards and upwards! (To quote a fantasy book I'd much rather be reading.)

Chapter 5 - Correlation does not Imply Causation
Shopping, and less interesting than the shopping in Philosopher's Stone.

I'm liking this kid less and less. Honestly Harry, you should have just asked for five to ten Galleons as spending money.

I do like the bit of discussion about if people should be thankful to baby Harry, it's a point that's actually relevant to the original series. The explanation of a fundemental attribution error is also nicely explained.

McGonagal is fast becoming my favourite character, the Scottish woman with sarcasm! Although I still think Hagrid might have worked better.

Honestly, the main thing about this chapter is that it's inoffensive. Not much to make me feel like it's great or terrible, and nothing that annoys me.

The conversation with Draco at least makes me giggle. But it would be much better if Harry was flirting with Draco.

Actually, I quite like Draco, can we switch to him as our protagonist?

Chapter 6 - Overplnning
Okay, the experiment with the bag is at least a bit entertaining. Especially how the observable rules are relatively consistent but not intuitive.

It does make relative sense that most ten year olds who discovered they could do magic would not want to scientifically investigate it. Once they've learnt their first summon cake and incoluous looking alcohol charm they're probably ready to move onto a see through robes one.

Plus it's pretty clear that this story assumes option two instead of option one, although it could still surprise me.

Yeah, I'm really not liking Master Evil Overlord Jnr. While I can understand that wizards might not be researching with the scientific method, this doesn't mean he can assume he can learn enough to be the most important wizard of his era.

Ah, a D&D reference that isn't making me annoyed. See, this is all the last chapter needed, I see the words bag of holding and I begin to assume Harry knows D&D.

I've worked it out. This is actually a backstory to the author's character in an Urban Fantasy game to explain exactly why he has about 1000 different magic items at the beginning. That's why Harry's buying all this stuff 'just in case'.

On the one hand, Harry has brought up painful memories for somebody. On the other hand, maybe we won't get another fifty pages of Harry buying everything in Diagon Alley. Please can Professor McGonagal just stuff him in a sack between stores so he can get the rest of his school things.

I am really hating Harry and his explanation for being prepared for everything. If I ever get transported to this world I'm bringing duct tape just to shut him up for five minutes.

How does a pet rock die? Also, I'm finding that Harry's lectures here are just annoying, and that the story didn't need to specify that Harry wasn't abused and isn't acting like an 11 year old most of the time.

The next section where HP is obsessing over his wand is much better.

FORESHADOWING! I'm making this a thing, purple is the colour for when I think the story is foreshadowing later plot points.

I'm still agreeing with McGonagal. Harry's annoying, already knows too much, and we need to get this shopping trip out of the way before it turns into more exposition.

Noooooooooo! More shopping! And this chapter feels as long as the previous five combined.

Yeah, I don't know what to make of the trunk shopping scene. Sorry.

The scene outside the alley is relatively nice, and feels like it does more to develop Harry's relationship with McGonagal than the entire rest of the chapter.

Finally, Dumbledore! The scene is meh, but at least it represents exactly how somebody would react to Harry.


I'm finding this entire fanfic to be very much overblown, but then again my brother is a massive fan of it, so my previous perception might have been altered.

[Kantaki]

The next section where HP is obsessing over his wand is much better.

Phrasing!

Also, it sounds like tying the kid up, covering in barbecue sauce and leaving him in the middle of the Forbidden Forest will be a common reaction from his fellow students.
And possibly teachers.
At least they won't punish it.

[Anonymouswizard]

Phrasing!

Look, there's like a 50% chance that the next fanfic I read will go even further, in that I won't be referencing it accidentally.

Also, it sounds like tying the kid up, covering in barbecue sauce and leaving him in the middle of the Forbidden Forest will be a common reaction from his fellow students.
And possibly teachers.
At least they won't punish it.

Eh, I suspect that English magical beasts (I think it says a lot that my SwiftKey adds an r to that word) would go in more for brown sauce.

But yes, this version of Harry is exactly that annoying, and I never really liked the original flavour to begin with (Ron was my favourite character back when I was a fan, and I still hold a soft spot for him).

Man, this is getting me in the mood to write some fanfiction of my own. Maybe a HP/UA crossover, where the Freak turns up in the middle of the Second British Magical War (nah, too silly, I do have plans for a HP/Dresden Files crossover, but I'm not up to date on TDF).

[TeChameleon]

Also, it sounds like tying the kid up, covering in barbecue sauce and leaving him in the middle of the Forbidden Forest will be a common reaction from his fellow students.
And possibly teachers.
At least they won't punish it.

And more than a few readers, by the sound of it >.>

Man, this is getting me in the mood to write some fanfiction of my own. Maybe a HP/UA crossover, where the Freak turns up in the middle of the Second British Magical War (nah, too silly, I do have plans for a HP/Dresden Files crossover, but I'm not up to date on TDF).

... I really need to get back to that long-fallow fanfic I was doing a few years back that was an HP/Dresden crossover. Still planning on finishing it, despite the length of time, but life has interfered fairly brutally with my ability to write It's a fun crossover, for sure.

[Pex]

I read several chapters of this before I realized that the author was a grotesquely self-impressed narcissist masturbating to and about his ideas of his own superiority.

I wouldn't put it in all those words but yes. I was entertained enough to finish, but the arrogance is strong in this one. The Boy Who Lived or not, no student would have gotten away with his behavior and attitude. Even the real Draco Malfoy could only go so far.

[Silva Stormrage]

But yes, this version of Harry is exactly that annoying, and I never really liked the original flavour to begin with (Ron was my favourite character back when I was a fan, and I still hold a soft spot for him).

Man, this is getting me in the mood to write some fanfiction of my own. Maybe a HP/UA crossover, where the Freak turns up in the middle of the Second British Magical War (nah, too silly, I do have plans for a HP/Dresden Files crossover, but I'm not up to date on TDF).

Ooooh... Ya Ron is not portrayed too highly here. Once again through Harry's unreliable narrator lens though. He doesn't play that large of a role.

Spoiler

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Mostly due to Harry being an ass to him when they first meet which shatters any possible friendship between them.

The twins play larger roles but still fairly minor.

Also when you get to the introduction to Ron,

Spoiler

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I was wanting to shout some variant of the 5th panel of this xkcd at Harry so badly there. Acting weird and being smug when everyone avoids or thinks you are weird is not a sign of low intelligence.

I wouldn't put it in all those words but yes. I was entertained enough to finish, but the arrogance is strong in this one. The Boy Who Lived or not, no student would have gotten away with his behavior and attitude. Even the real Draco Malfoy could only go so far.

I don't understand this and the quoted posters views though. The entire story seems to be repudiating that kind of viewpoint and the main character arc revolves around Harry growing out of that smug know it all persona.

Hell one of the lines in the last chapter is literally,

Spoiler

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"It wasn't that Harry had gone down the wrong path, it wasn't that the road to sanity lay somewhere outside of science. But reading science papers hadn't been enough. All the cognitive psychology papers about known bugs in the human brain and so on had helped, but they hadn't been sufficient. He'd failed to reach what Harry was starting to realise was a shockingly high standard of being so incredibly, unbelievably rational that you actually started to get things right, as opposed to having a handy language in which to describe afterwards everything you'd just done wrong. Harry could look back now and apply ideas like 'motivated cognition' to see where he'd gone astray over the last year. That counted for something, when it came to being saner in the future. That was better than having no idea what he'd done wrong. But that wasn't yet being the person who could pass through Time's narrow keyhole, the adult form whose possibility Dumbledore had been instructed by seers to create."

Harry is at the point where he has a handy language where he can spot other people's problems. Rather than do anything fancy or really intelligent himself. Literally the only reason he got so far is that two far smarter and mature wizards (Dumbledore and Voldemort) were basically just using him as a pawn.

Thats my take on it and it just shocks me so much that I keep seeing that viewpoint that the author is just writing to show off his "Oh so grand intellect". Now granted the author has some pretty shady business practices and LessWrong has a bunch of issues. But the overall story is no where near as bad as people complain it is.

[Lethologica]

There's some of both in play. HPMOR!Harry is, for various reasons, part avatar for the author's didacticism, part Take That against such avatars. So the initial impression one gets of Harry (and, by extension, the author) is overblown...but when you figure out how much is satire/justified/etc, you're still left with rather an arrogant prat. And an author who chose to write this arrogant prat as being significantly more arrogant and pratty so he could ply his high-minded didacticism. Just because there's a reason for Mr. PotterMOR to be that way doesn't mean it's necessarily fun to read the better part of 122 chapters of him being that way, y'know?

That's not to say I didn't have fun reading HPMOR. I totally did. But in order to enjoy it I had to buy in on not letting Harry bug me, and that's a big ask.

In particular...

Thats my take on it and it just shocks me so much that I keep seeing that viewpoint that the author is just writing to show off his "Oh so grand intellect".

Yudkowsky says quite plainly that he wrote HPMOR as a didactic treatise on rationality. That's not the same as just showing off his intellect, but if you're on the receiving end of his lectures, where it's often very clear what the author-approved position is, and especially if you don't wholly agree with the author-approved position, it can feel very similar.

[Brookshw]

I read several chapters of this before I realized that the author was a grotesquely self-impressed narcissist masturbating to and about his ideas of his own superiority.

Nailed. It.

[Eldan]

I kept reading a bit longer because i thought the Harry Potter meets Ender's Game chapters were at least fun, but you realize pretty soon that it in addition to the auto********us nature of the entire work, it doesn't even talk about science much, but instead just likes to wax poetically about the author's favourite theories .

[Anonymouswizard]

Well this thread is making me look forward to the latter parts.

Although I do now understand why my hyper rationalist brother kept bugging me to read it, hrs always hated my belief in sky fairies (conversely I know sky fairy believers who wish I'd stop with this rationalist stuff, it's a matter of degree). Plus it shoves his exact opinion down your throat.

It just really makes me want to go back to Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles. It's stupid, probably a troll fic, and yet it's still much more fun to read than this is.

On the plus side, I've found the perfect sauce to cover Harry in before we dump him in the Forbidden Forest.

Oh, no new chapters yesterday because work was exhausting, hopefully some new ones tonight, it depends on when I stop hanging out with my friend.

[Silva Stormrage]

Yudkowsky says quite plainly that he wrote HPMOR as a didactic treatise on rationality. That's not the same as just showing off his intellect, but if you're on the receiving end of his lectures, where it's often very clear what the author-approved position is, and especially if you don't wholly agree with the author-approved position, it can feel very similar.

Agreed it was meant for the author to open up people to "rationality" which in this case is more of Less Wrong's odd offshoot brand of that school of thought. He has also explicitly stated that Harry is not an author avatar and that Harry's actions should not be automatically assumed to be a good idea so I am not sure what you are picking up here.

Spoiler: Main Themes/Rants from the story?

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The main "Author Rants" that generally get thrown about from the story that I see people having issue with are ,
1) Death is bad and if you are against immortality you are an idiot
2) Hard work works and if you aren't good it's because you didn't work hard enough you slacker.
3) Trying to think things through and logically deduce the correct outcome is the only approach people should take to problem solving.

Obviously rephrased the general rants into their more antagonistic/preachy phrasing, but are these the themes people are taking issue with? Because they seem preaching but not to the level that should inspire this much dislike for the story... Is there something else that I am missing/overlooking?

Am I literally the only person on this thread who thinks the fic is decent?

I seriously no joke would like to hear what causes people to see this perspective with actual descriptions other than "Harry is an *******" or "Author self promoting his own pet theories" so I know what triggers this response from the seemingly overwhelming majority. Because I still don't see it. The friends I have talked to about it who dislike it dislike it for various reasons (Not liking the "Rationality" school of thought, Harry being too unlikeable a main character, liking the HP books too much and not liking how the story kinda ****s on them at random times) but they don't have the vehement hatred for it I see on the internet so often.

[5a Violista]

Spoiler: Main Themes/Rants from the story?

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The main "Author Rants" that generally get thrown about from the story that I see people having issue with are ,
1) Death is bad and if you are against immortality you are an idiot
2) Hard work works and if you aren't good it's because you didn't work hard enough you slacker.
3) Trying to think things through and logically deduce the correct outcome is the only approach people should take to problem solving.

Obviously rephrased the general rants into their more antagonistic/preachy phrasing, but are these the themes people are taking issue with? Because they seem preaching but not to the level that should inspire this much dislike for the story... Is there something else that I am missing/overlooking?

The way the fic treats some of its themes as the only correct way to live life (and treats people who disagree with a large amount of condescension; not to mention the way it treats anybody who doesn't know whatever theory is being presented at the moment)

Spoiler: For example, in a near chapter

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, Harry explains things to Hermione in an incredibly condescending way simply for not knowing it (thus, readers who didn't know it would automatically treat the explanation as "Main character of fic personally attacks the reader" rather than "Main character explains new idea to the reader").

Not to mention, compared to the original Harry Potter stories, Methods of Rationality leaves a lot lacking in terms of depth, plot, character development, character agency, character consistency, background, pacing, and so on, and it relies heavily on telling rather than showing. Non-HarryPotter characters tend to become silly and illogical and out-of-character at certain points in the story in order to make Harry Potter look better and smarter and more sane. And, it promises at the beginning to explore magic through a scientific lens

Spoiler: (but)

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but over the course of the story it relies less and less on science and more and more on the author's favorite brand of intelligence. In addition, while it preaches scientific principles, it fails to follow them, once again failing at the "show, don't tell", for example Harry chews out Hermione for "only doing one experiment" but in many situations he does zero experiments before arriving at the correct solution. Sure, sometimes he does experiments but even when he does it glosses over the actual science part, failing in the eyes of the people who wanted to read the story for the science-in-magic part.

Plus, there's all the (generally more minor than that 'rape' comment by Draco and Harry's non-reaction to it) casual sexism

Spoiler: For example, later in the story

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, while Hermione's Women's anti-bullying league is good, it's later essentially revealed that the intelligent men are basically allowing the women to do their thing. Or, as revealed in the ending, how Hermione (an intelligent, strong, capable woman in her own right throughout the story) doesn't really seem to have any motivation on her own. Granted, very few characters in the story seem to have any motivation of their own, but that's partially a consequence of the author's pet theories and partially a consequence of the author's poor writing style.

And all that's not including the themes you included in your spoiler and how many people's philosophical and sociological beliefs seem to contradict them completely.

Spoiler: Specifically, going through them one by one

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1) Death is bad and if you are against immortality you are an idiot
This goes against any sort of belief in an afterlife, against the trope that living forever is actually not that good, and against the canon in-universe in Harry Potter. ...won't go more into detail because of the rules against discussing real-world religions.
When this theme is treated as really preachy, it pushes away the religious and spiritual, many people who loved the original series, and the people who just don't like the idea of immortality.

2) Hard work works and if you aren't good it's because you didn't work hard enough you slacker.
Again, many philosophies, beliefs, and social theories fundamentally contradict this as well. ...won't go into more detail because of the rules against discussing real-world politics.

3) Trying to think things through and logically deduce the correct outcome is the only approach people should take to problem solving.
Honestly, the way it is implemented in the story kinda contradicts the scientific principles from many fields: in which real-world experimentation is more important than theorycrafting and thought experiments. Plus, there are many other problem-solving methods which don't involve logic or a single "correct outcome".

So, basically, those themes seem to condescend towards certain religious beliefs (which we can't discuss on this board), certain political beliefs (which we can't discuss on this board), certain scientific ideas (which we can discuss on this board), and certain personalities and decision-making methods, in addition to the aforementioned condescension towards people who simply don't know the jargon for his favorite theories, as explained by Harry Potter.

Oh, yeah. And the nerd elitism that shows throughout most of the story. That, too. Almost forgot about it.

((Edit: One more thing I just remembered: It fundamentally changes a bunch of things about how the Harry Potter universe works, without including those changes in the premise, and then it occasionally mocks the Harry Potter universe by mocking the changes or exploiting the loopholes it itself created. The original premise is "Harry Potter but with science" and the related changes that are necessary for that to happen, but

Spoiler: A few examples of the other things it changes

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How Transfiguration works, how Time Turners work, how liberally Time Turners are given out, who betrayed Harry Potter's parents, how horcruxes work, how ghosts work, how the afterlife works, what Dementors represent and how they work, Peter Pettigrew's transforming abilities, Peter Pettigrew's and Sirius Black's relationship, Dumbledore's personality, most of the Weasleys' personalities and plot-points relating to them, how prophecies work, how patronuses work, how Parseltongue works, what the basilisk was for, ...

Some of those are understandable in order to make the plot work. Some of them fill in details or plot-holes that were left in the original series. However, when there's so many unnecessary ones (that have nothing to do with the plot) and so many that are created for the express purpose of criticizing the original work through them (instead of just filling in the plot-holes), it starts to feel a little weird.

In my opinion, the above reasons are why many people dislike this story so much. At least, those are the reasons I dislike it so much.
It has a great premise, but its execution doesn't really hold up to the premise.

[Eldan]

Well this thread is making me look forward to the latter parts.

Although I do now understand why my hyper rationalist brother kept bugging me to read it, hrs always hated my belief in sky fairies (conversely I know sky fairy believers who wish I'd stop with this rationalist stuff, it's a matter of degree). Plus it shoves his exact opinion down your throat.

It just really makes me want to go back to Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles. It's stupid, probably a troll fic, and yet it's still much more fun to read than this is.

On the plus side, I've found the perfect sauce to cover Harry in before we dump him in the Forbidden Forest.

Oh, no new chapters yesterday because work was exhausting, hopefully some new ones tonight, it depends on when I stop hanging out with my friend.

Oh, you don't understand. I'm a rationalist who doesn't believe in sky fairies. But Yudkowsky does rationalism wrong. So wrong.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Oh, you don't understand. I'm a rationalist who doesn't believe in sky fairies. But Yudkowsky does rationalism wrong. So wrong.

Based on what I'm reading, sounds like he's the sort of figure who would unironically spout the Rick and Morty copypasta.

[pendell]

Following with interest.

I am a believer in sky fairies but I also have a strong bent towards the rationalist way of viewing the world. This is not often a comfortable mixture inside my skull, but I find myself neither willing to discard rationality nor discard faith; faith without rationality is, to put it bluntly, stupid. But I have never been able to approach the world purely on a rational basis -- not least because, well, rationality is the art of making observations , drawing logical conclusions from them, and then acting on those conclusions. But you need some kind of basis for those initial observations to even make sense ; no logical system can exist without some postulates at the bottom from which we can derive inferences and deductions. Since we are not in a position to test those bedrock assumptions, I submit all human belief systems start from a foundation of "faith", even rationalism.

For myself, it took awhile to get through the first few chapters. Eventually HPMOR hits its stride right around the Quirrel games, then stalls out for a bit , then finishes fairly strongly. At least, in my view.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Eldan]

Based on what I'm reading, sounds like he's the sort of figure who would unironically spout the Rick and Morty copypasta.

More like the kind of person who would lecture for two hours at a party about why Bayesian statistics is best statistics.

[pendell]

Okay, Eldan, I'll bite. I had statistics up to second year of undergrad. Why does the author think that Bayesian statistics are so cool, and why is he wrong?

For my part, I know what a mean and a standard deviation are and can calculate a variance. I know what a normal distribution is and why it's important. I never explored statistics far enough to know what, exactly , Bayesian statistics is important or valuable vis-a-vis any other kind. My biggest problem with statistics is the data collection itself -- getting a proper representative sample is, in my experience, quite hard.

And for me, this is the real value of MOR -- yes, he gets science wrong, but he mentions enough interesting topics for the interested reader to follow up on their own.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Eldan]

It's not that he's wrong, as such. I mean, Bayesian statistics are very useful. It's more that he talks about it endlessly. Maybe wrong was the wrong word up there. But... a lot of it comes across as both very superficial and very preachy. More what you'd get from an enthusiast who can't stop talking about his new hobby than someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

[Tyndmyr]

Or in more accurate terms I'm going to read the fanfic and give my thoughts on it, planning on doing a chapter or two on every day where I don't have a shift.

Hurray! I love when folks do this.

Thoughts so Far
While I might reverse my opinion on this in the coming chapters, I feel like the story is moving too fast. One of the few things that the original books did absolutely right was establish Harry's home life to the point that once you got into the magical world it just felt that little bit more magical. Here we have the confirmation of magic and basic introduction to the world within the first thirteen pages.

It does start off quite rapidly, yes. This is pretty typical for fanfictions, in which it's largely assumed that the reader has read the original work, and thus some of the background can be skimmed over for the sake of getting to the new bits.

That said, it is one book that takes the place of seven. So, there's a certain degree of compression.

Ignoring the plot, we haven't had any science that I can definitively say is right or wrong, but I'm a bit suspicious that no conservation of energy automatically leads to a breakdown in causality. But I ain't no physicist, I'll ask my doctor friend about it some time.

Quite possibly. It's complicated, and gets into physics theory, but it's not technobabble. It's referencing existing theory. However, it's fine if you don't feel like researching that. There's a few such things in the book that reference obscure theories and what not, but you're not expected to chase them down unless you want to. If it's important to the plot, it's covered in more detail. Mostly this is just harry wigging out at something that he previously thought was impossible.

Writing wise, it's not anything special at the moment. The dialogue feels unnatural, but I'm willing to give the author a break on that seeing as Harry as already been established as utterly unrealistic I'm not expecting it to start feeling much more natural.

Also fair. Even leaving aside Harry as an exception, most kids here appear to be written as a bit older than they are in canon. Writing kids reasonably is something that a lot of authors are rough at. Movies, books...you get a lot of precocious children that sound like small adults.

However, the things you are noticing about Harry are entirely fair. From the way he talks to his hasty belief that he can do anything better...these are definitely part of his characterization.

So we've established that the financial system the author has established details for can be borked with a free weekend and a mini. Better hope that this book gives the protagonist a lot of stuff to do, otherwise we might have to sit through Harry Potter driving an armoured van into Diagon Alley in order to pull off this scheme.

I'd read the **** out of a Harry Potter: Hardened Criminal alternate universe depiction.

Actually, I quite like Draco, can we switch to him as our protagonist?

I think there's a chapter from his perspective at some point? In any case, I agree the character is interesting.

Ah, a D&D reference that isn't making me annoyed. See, this is all the last chapter needed, I see the words bag of holding and I begin to assume Harry knows D&D.

Yeah, this comes up a few times. In fairness, if I, or any of the D&D players I knew, suddenly had access to a magic item emporium, we'd probably got a bit mad trying to desperately munchkin up as much as possible, too. Maybe a specifically roleplayer trend.

Spoiler

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So the lesson is „always double-tap” then?
Unless you're a cheating cheater called Contessa that's a good lesson.

Spoiler

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Even Contessa knows that winning requires a good double-tap sometimes.