Comment by a_bonobo
5 days ago
His weirdo Harry Potter fanfic is 600,000 words long, which is the combined length of the first five real harry Potter books.
5 days ago
His weirdo Harry Potter fanfic is 600,000 words long, which is the combined length of the first five real harry Potter books.
Wait... Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality was written by Eliezer Yudkowsky? So that means he wrote that totally straight and its not a joke?
It’s real. The excessive length is one of several things that serves as a filter. Anyone dedicated enough to get through it is a believer by the end. It even includes completely unnecessary uncomfortable parts like the rape threat sequence which further filter out all but the true believers.
The ridiculousness of it all serves as a type of hazing ritual. To enter the cool club you have to grit your way through it and also The Sequenced.
Most people tap out early. Those who persevere get to join the cool kid’s club, where they haze others into reading it all too.
> Anyone dedicated enough to get through it is a believer by the end.
Got through the end, not a believer in anything. Not only your statement is wrong (because most absolute statements are) even the weakened statement of most who finished are believers is likely wrong because likely most people who read it are just fanfics enthusiasts like me.
> The ridiculousness of it all serves as a type of hazing ritual.
I have read way worse btw.
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Another PoV - it was just one weird-premises HP fanfic, in a world containing literally millions of weird-premise HP fanfics. If you felt that your only options with it were (1) read every word, in order, and (2) stop reading it entirely - that is your reading style, and your choice. Other folks may chose to peek at the ending first, skip over the parts they don't like, go back later to read one of the dreary & long-winded part that they realized was plot-relevant, or whatever. They may skip back and forth between reading HPMOR and reading some steamy superhero fanfic with a Batman/Spiderman romantic pairing - that is set on a jungle-style Venus, in the 1890's.
I was totally enjoying it. If you think that everyone needs to grit through it, as an initiation ritual, no less... The sneer club, I presume?
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As a perseverer, I can confirm it was a waste of time and, functionally, a poorly-written demonstrative exercise on the abuse of rhetoric to disabuse others of their beliefs, dignity and agency. Imagine my surprise when I found out about the cult stuff.
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> Those who persevere get to join the cool kid’s club
Are you sure “cool” is the correct adjective?
I read it for a while, when it first got published. It started very strong (first several chapters), then was weird and refularly was giving me vibes of Atlas Shrugged.
Then author got his diva moment, at least this is how I remember it. He constructed some impossible to solve situation and had tantrum that if readers won’t give answer how one of protagonists will solve it, author will stop writing the book. I think it had even time limit for readers.
After that I dropped the book and never returned to it.
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That's correct. Harry Potter fanfic is a huge part of the rationalist movement, the Zizians, and more. Behind the Bastards' episodes on the Zizians do a fairly well-cited dive into it.
It's a recruitment tool.
Personally, it’s my favorite book and I consider it better than the original series (although the original series is a hard prerequisite).
However, I wouldn’t call it “long” in the same way that I wouldn’t call The Count of Monte Cristo or Great Expectations long. Serialized stories are just naturally longer because readers want a sizable chunk every week/month, regardless of that inflating the total size or not.
I have not read nor heard of this, but umm, its fanfic. People write fanfic because they enjoy the world of the story and want more of it. Why would it be a surprise that a fanfic is overly long and verbose? I'd assume that just goes with the territory.
I think you should look into what it is. It's not "just a fanfic", it is considered a foundational text for the Rationalist movement.
It's not just relevant because Yudkowsky wrote it, it's relevant because it essentially serves as Rationalism's "Torah".
So we have Kant, Spinoza, Descartes, Leibniz, and the dude who wrote a Harry Potter fanfic.
Is it perhaps possible one of these is not like the others?
I'd be interested to see some evidence that it's "considered a foundational text" or is treated in anything like the way that observant Jews treat the Torah.
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Just like with L Ron Hubbard's work being a foundation for Scientology.
> enjoy the world of the story
I'm not sure that's the case here, because rationalist fanfics tend to instead try to tear down the world as illogical.
Example for Harry Potter and this fanfic. In Harry Potter magical currency is made of precious metals and there are bronze coints, silver coins and gold coins. And they have fixed exchange rate.
"But wait!", notices the rationalist. "Since those coins could theoretically be melted down, and rates for those metals on exchange is different I could make infinite money glitch and crash the economy. Those wizards are so dumb, haha, for thousands of years they never figured out the basic logic."
Congratulations you found an economical inconsistency in a children's book. Your next period is boxing against kindergartners.
In my mind if you were a fan of original work, you would not be doing this. You could find different explanation that does not try to paint the world as stupid. Simplest being https://xkcd.com/1494/
Critique and analysis is often something done out of love.
You’d have a point if it was longer lol
Besides there are other HP fan fics in this range
Other HP fanfics aren't foundational texts for a worryingly influential pseudo-philosophical movement.
be the change you want to see in the world
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My Immortal is a foundational text for tumblr.