Gondolinian

• Gondolinian 1 Jan 2015 2:26 UTC

  56 points

  on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes Jan­uary 2015

  Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

  In real life, real-life kings had real-life problems to deal with. Just being a good guy was not the answer. You had to make hard, hard decisions. Sometimes what seemed to be a good decision turned around and bit you in the ass; it was the law of unintended consequences. I’ve tried to get at some of these in my books. My people who are trying to rule don’t have an easy time of it. Just having good intentions doesn’t make you a wise king.

  — George R. R. Martin, Rolling Stone interview (emphasis mine)

• Gondolinian 4 Mar 2015 22:21 UTC

  40 points

  on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 116

  On /​r/​HPMOR, some have been speculating that Dumbledore coated the Philosopher’s Stone with Bahl’s Stupefaction, which you might remember from chapter 63:

  “Bahl’s Stupefaction,” Moody said, naming an extremely addictive narcotic with interesting side effects on people with Slytherin tendencies; Moody had once seen an addicted Dark Wizard go to ridiculous lengths to get a victim to lay hands on a certain exact portkey, instead of just having someone toss the target a trapped Knut on their next visit to town; and after going to all that work, the addict had gone to the further effort to lay a second Portus, on the same portkey, which had, on a second touch, transported the victim back to safety. To this day, even taking the drug into account, Moody could not imagine what could have possibly been going through the man’s mind at the time he had cast the second Portus.

  This would explain why Voldemort let Harry keep his wand after swearing the Unbreakable Vow, and now also might explain Harry’s recent actions.

• Gondolinian 12 Mar 2015 19:48 UTC

  31 points

  in reply to: MarkusRamikin’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 120

  Yeah, I feel like Harry was being kind of unreasonable in dropping bombshell after bombshell of worldview-shattering information on an already emotionally fragile mind, and then asking for an irrevocable decision, all in a span of thirty minutes.

• Gondolinian 1 Jun 2015 14:05 UTC

  26 points

  on: Tak­ing the reins at MIRI

  Good luck and I wish you the best! You’re one of the people I most aspire to be like.

Stupid Ques­tions De­cem­ber 2014

• Gondolinian 1 Dec 2014 0:42 UTC

  25 points

  on: I’m in a re­ally dark place right now, I think I need help.

  First thing to do would be to talk it out with friends or therapist (and I am now willing to spend money on it).

  Kate Donovan’s guide to getting therapy has been recommended by Scott Alexander, if you haven’t already seen it.

  I hope things start looking better for you. Good luck in whatever path you choose.

(Very Short) PSA: Com­bined Main and Dis­cus­sion Feed

Wel­come to Less Wrong! (7th thread, De­cem­ber 2014)

• Gondolinian 25 May 2015 12:05 UTC

  19 points

  in reply to: HBDfan’s comment on: Open Thread, May 25 - May 31, 2015

  It appears that MetaMed has gone out of business. Wikipedia uses the past tense “was” in their page for MetaMed, and provides this as a source for it.

  Key quote from the article:

  Tallinn learned the importance of feedback loops himself the hard way, after seeing the demise of one of his startups, medical consulting firm Metamed.

• Gondolinian 1 May 2015 18:04 UTC

  19 points

  on: Stupid Ques­tions May 2015

  There is a not necessarily large, but definitely significant chance that developing machine intelligence compatible with human values may very well be the single most important thing that humans have or will ever do, and it seems very likely that economic forces will make strong machine intelligence happen soon, even if we’re not ready for it.

  So I have two questions about this: firstly, and this is probably my youthful inexperience talking (a big part of why I’m posting this here), but I see so many rationalists do so much awesome work on things like social justice, social work, medicine, and all kinds of poverty-focused effective altruism, but how can it be that the ultimate fate of humanity to either thrive beyond imagination or perish utterly may rest on our actions in this century, and yet people who recognize this possibility don’t do everything they can to make it go the way we need it to? This sort of segues in to my second question, which is what is the most any person, more specifically, I can do for FAI? I’m still in high school, so there really isn’t that much keeping me from devoting my life to helping the cause of making sure AI is friendly. What would that look like? I’m a village idiot by LW standards, and especially bad at math, so I don’t think I’d be very useful on the “front lines” so to speak, but perhaps I could try to make a lot of money and do FAI-focused EA? I might be more socially oriented/​socially capable than many here, perhaps I could try to raise awareness or lobby for legislation?

• Gondolinian 21 Feb 2015 1:45 UTC

  18 points

  in reply to: Subbak’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, Fe­bru­ary 2015, chap­ter 108

  One of my favorite bits:

  I tried weakening Voldemort’s attacks, to see if it was possible for him to lose; at once the Ministry committed fewer Aurors to oppose me!

• Gondolinian 10 Mar 2015 19:34 UTC

  17 points

  in reply to: MarkusRamikin’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 119

  I did find that reference quite amusing. I had assumed Harry was being sarcastic in chapter 6:

  Professor McGonagall pointed toward a shop that looked as if it had been made from flesh instead of bricks and covered in fur instead of paint. “Small pets are permitted at Hogwarts—you could get an owl to send letters, for example—”

  “Can I pay a Knut or something and rent an owl when I need to send mail?”

  “Yes,” said Professor McGonagall.

  “Then I think emphatically no.”

  Professor McGonagall nodded, as though ticking off a point. “Might I ask why not?”

  “I had a pet rock once. It died.”

• Gondolinian 23 Jan 2015 11:49 UTC

  17 points

  in reply to: Artaxerxes’s comment on: Bill Gates: prob­lem of strong AI with con­flict­ing goals “very wor­thy of study and time”

  And he has a track record of actually doing things with his money, as opposed to the hundreds of other people who have lots of resources to throw at things they want something done about, but don’t in any significant way.

• Gondolinian 8 Dec 2014 14:22 UTC

  17 points

  on: Open thread, Dec. 8 - Dec. 15, 2014

  I motion to make the Stupid Questions threads monthly.

• Gondolinian 12 Mar 2015 20:17 UTC

  16 points

  in reply to: philh’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 120

  It looks like chapter 47 is where Draco tells Harry about Narcissa’s death, and I’m not seeing anything about Lucius’ being an eyewitness. The chapter seems to imply that Lucius was told, just like everyone else:

  “Draco,” Harry said, he let all of the hoarseness into his own voice, it would be wrong to sound calm, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for asking, but I have to know, how do you know it was Dumble-”

  “Dumbledore said he did it, he told Father it was a warning! And Father couldn’t testify under Veritaserum because he was an Occlumens, he couldn’t even get Dumbledore put on trial, Father’s own allies didn’t believe him after Dumbledore just denied everything in public, but we know, the Death Eaters know, Father wouldn’t have any reason to lie about that, Father would want us to take revenge on the right person, can’t you see that Harry?” Draco’s voice was wild.

• Gondolinian 24 Feb 2015 20:56 UTC

  16 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, Fe­bru­ary 2015, chap­ter 110

  My understanding:

  Start: Quirrellmort is trapped in the reflected portion of Hogwarts; Harry is under the cloak and thus not reflected, but still trapped in Quirrelmort’s ring; Dumbledore is on the other side of the mirror, unrestrained AFAIK.

  Dumbledore starts the time-freeze on the Hogwarts side; Quirrellmort reveals Harry, takes the cloak and puts it on himself so he then doesn’t have a reflection, and steps out of the reflected portion of Hogwarts.

  Dumbledore reverses the time-freeze to act on his side to protect Harry. Dumbledore then disappears from the mirror.

  End: Quirrellmort is free to roam about the physical world and has the cloak; Harry is still presumably trapped in the reflected portion of Hogwarts, but he is safe from the time-freeze; Dumbledore is frozen somewhere, but the Elder Wand and the Line of Merlin Unbroken have been left unfrozen as he cast them aside right before he disappeared; they are possibly now in the physical world with Harry and Quirrellmort.

  [edited iteratively]

Stupid Ques­tions May 2015

• Gondolinian 14 Jan 2015 0:18 UTC

  15 points

  on: I’m the new moderator

  Thanks for stepping up to take the job, and good luck!

  Have some karma as a token of our gratitude to you for doing it so we don’t have to. :)

• Gondolinian 8 Mar 2015 20:04 UTC

  14 points

  in reply to: William_Quixote’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, March 2015, chap­ter 117

  According to a post on /​r/​HPMOR:

  [EY] posted a comment a while ago that the short sad ending would have been Harry blowing himself up Transfiguring antimatter.

  ETA: Found EY’s relevant comment:

  In the profoundly improbable event that I’d needed to write [a sad ending], it would have just been Harry suiciding via antimatter (that went off prematurely as soon as it started to Transfigure) and Hermione waking up among the flaming ruins.

• Gondolinian 23 Feb 2015 18:46 UTC

  14 points

  in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 23 - Mar. 1, 2015

  Is there a good reason why he shouldn’t swear, in private, at least? I can see how swearing at school could get him and/​or you in a fair bit of trouble, which should be reason enough on its own to stay on the safe side of speech when he’s there, but if your True Rejection to his swearing in general is something to do with tradition or innocence or something like that, I don’t see how you can rightly punish him for saying what he wants to say.

  Alex, if you’re reading this, please, seriously, be careful about what you say in public, especially at school. It’s not fair that your father is liable for what you do, but that’s the way the system works, and I think it’s important to put yourself in his shoes so to speak, and think how you would feel if you were responsible for someone who was knowingly taking risks at your expense in addition to his own. Having said that, I feel you have the right to say whatever you want to say, up to and including strong swears, as long as it doesn’t adversely affect other people. The catch though is that it’s hard to know what will adversely affect other people ahead of time, which is why I strongly advise you to err on the side of caution. Remember that I am 16, and thus still a minor in the eyes of the law and society, as you are.