this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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Trying to apply logic to JKR's writing leads to madness.
There's a good fanfic series that tries to apply science to the HP universe. I made it like 50 pages into the 300+ page book which is longer than I'd usually read a fanfic for.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? I think it clocks in at like half the length of the entire original series.
Oh great the foundational work of the rationalist community. Enjoy 650 000 words of Eliezer Yudkowsky' preaching and his self-insert smartly destroying straw-man after straw-man while everybody claps.
Eh, did you finish it? That's certainly how it starts, but that's not really where it winds up.
I am sure it gets really good after 400 000 words more. However, I would much rather spend my time reading something other than the writings of a guy who doesn't hold a degree of any sort, didn't even finish high-school, but claims to be an expert in all the topics he ignorantly speculates about.
At least he's tried to make critical thinking techniques more well known and accessible. That's more interesting to me than, I dunno, some linguistics PhD's fantasy slop.
It was an enjoyable read, and your strawman characterization isn't really accurate at all, except when lampooning one of Rowling's poorly written characters. Most of the book was Harry facing the consequences of smugly oversimplifying conflicts.
"The most ethical thing you can do is be unethical. QED. Now buy my book using this affiliate link."
Yeah that's the one - thanks!
There's a pretty decent audiobook in YouTube if you're into that
You and I have very different ideas of what the word 'good' means, lol. The first, like, two chapters were fine as lampooning the poorly thought out logic of rowling's world, but by chapter 8 or so it just was the same thing over and over again: mary sue thinker boy immediately noticing the giant flaws of the main author and having already rationalized the perfect exploit in a split second.
If it really became good later, well, first impressions matter and it had a pretty bad one.
I also say in the next sentence I only made it 50 pages in. Not really a fanfic person so hard to judge the quality of it (my prejudice would be that most of it is shite).
The fanfic that tried to apply logic to JKR's writing lead to an actual, real life murder.
O.o wait what.
Please explain
You mean the one by the AI wackjob/rationality cultist?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality