I suspect that fiction can conveniently ignore the details of real life that could ruin seemingly good plans.
Let’s look at HPMOR.
The general idea of “create a nano-wire, then use it to simultaneously kill/cripple all your opponents” sounds good on paper. Now imagine yourself, at that exact situation, trying to actually do it. What could possibly go wrong?
As a first objection, how would you actually put the nano-wire in the desired position? Especially when you can’t even see it (otherwise the Death Eaters and Voldemort would see it too). One mistake would ruin the entire plan. What if the wind blows and moves your wire? If one of the Death Eaters moves a bit, and feels a weird stinging at the side of their neck?
Another objection, when you pull the wire to kill/cripple your opponents, how far do you actually have to move it? Assuming dozen Death Eaters (I do not remember the exact number in the story), if you need 10 cm for an insta-kill, that’s 1.2 meters you need to do before the last one kills you. Sounds doable, but also like something that could possibly go wrong.
In other words, I think that in real life, even Harry Potter’s plan would most likely fail. And if he is smart enough, he would know it.
The implication for real life is that, similarly, smart plans are still likely to fail, and you know it. Which is probably why you are not trying hard enough. You probably already remember situations in your past when something seemed like a great idea, but still failed. Your brain may predict that your new idea would belong to the same reference class.
While I agree that this is right, your two objections are both explicitly addressed within the relevant chapter:
“As a first objection, how would you actually put the nano-wire in the desired position? Especially when you can’t even see it (otherwise the Death Eaters and Voldemort would see it too). One mistake would ruin the entire plan. What if the wind blows and moves your wire? If one of the Death Eaters moves a bit, and feels a weird stinging at the side of their neck?”
Harry first transfigures a much larger spiderweb, which also has the advantage of being much easier to move in place, and to not be noticed by people that are interacting with it.
“Another objection, when you pull the wire to kill/cripple your opponents, how far do you actually have to move it? Assuming dozen Death Eaters (I do not remember the exact number in the story), if you need 10 cm for an insta-kill, that’s 1.2 meters you need to do before the last one kills you. Sounds doable, but also like something that could possibly go wrong.”
Indeed, which is why Harry was waving the web into an intervowen circle that contracts simultaneously in all directions.
Obviously things could have still gone wrong, and Eliezer has explicitly acknowledged that HPMOR is a world in which complicated plans definitely succeed a lot more than they would in the normal world, but he did try to at least cover the obvious ways things could go wrong.
Warning: HPMOR spoilers!
I suspect that fiction can conveniently ignore the details of real life that could ruin seemingly good plans.
Let’s look at HPMOR.
The general idea of “create a nano-wire, then use it to simultaneously kill/cripple all your opponents” sounds good on paper. Now imagine yourself, at that exact situation, trying to actually do it. What could possibly go wrong?
As a first objection, how would you actually put the nano-wire in the desired position? Especially when you can’t even see it (otherwise the Death Eaters and Voldemort would see it too). One mistake would ruin the entire plan. What if the wind blows and moves your wire? If one of the Death Eaters moves a bit, and feels a weird stinging at the side of their neck?
Another objection, when you pull the wire to kill/cripple your opponents, how far do you actually have to move it? Assuming dozen Death Eaters (I do not remember the exact number in the story), if you need 10 cm for an insta-kill, that’s 1.2 meters you need to do before the last one kills you. Sounds doable, but also like something that could possibly go wrong.
In other words, I think that in real life, even Harry Potter’s plan would most likely fail. And if he is smart enough, he would know it.
The implication for real life is that, similarly, smart plans are still likely to fail, and you know it. Which is probably why you are not trying hard enough. You probably already remember situations in your past when something seemed like a great idea, but still failed. Your brain may predict that your new idea would belong to the same reference class.
While I agree that this is right, your two objections are both explicitly addressed within the relevant chapter:
“As a first objection, how would you actually put the nano-wire in the desired position? Especially when you can’t even see it (otherwise the Death Eaters and Voldemort would see it too). One mistake would ruin the entire plan. What if the wind blows and moves your wire? If one of the Death Eaters moves a bit, and feels a weird stinging at the side of their neck?”
Harry first transfigures a much larger spiderweb, which also has the advantage of being much easier to move in place, and to not be noticed by people that are interacting with it.
“Another objection, when you pull the wire to kill/cripple your opponents, how far do you actually have to move it? Assuming dozen Death Eaters (I do not remember the exact number in the story), if you need 10 cm for an insta-kill, that’s 1.2 meters you need to do before the last one kills you. Sounds doable, but also like something that could possibly go wrong.”
Indeed, which is why Harry was waving the web into an intervowen circle that contracts simultaneously in all directions.
Obviously things could have still gone wrong, and Eliezer has explicitly acknowledged that HPMOR is a world in which complicated plans definitely succeed a lot more than they would in the normal world, but he did try to at least cover the obvious ways things could go wrong.
I have covered both of your spoilers in spoiler tags (“>!”).