Why Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality Is So Good

August 30th, 2010

What Eliezer Yudkowsky has done so entertainingly in Methods of Rationality (which I first wrote about last month) is to respectfully poke fun at J.K Rowling’s writing. I didn’t get this at first because I found her writing a bit annoying in the first book and didn’t get very far through it, so I haven’t read the Harry Potter books, although I have seen the movies.

But early on I suspected what Yudkowsky was up to. An early clue was a conversation in chapter 7 about Quidditch:

“So let me get this straight,” Harry said as it seemed that Ron’s explanation (with associated hand gestures) was winding down. “Catching the Snitch is worth one hundred and fifty points?”

“Yeah -”

“How many ten-point goals does one side usually score not counting the Snitch?”

“Um, maybe fifteen or twenty in professional games -”

“That’s just wrong. That violates every possible rule of game design. Look, the rest of this game sounds like it might make sense, sort of, for a sport I mean, but you’re basically saying that catching the Snitch overwhelms almost any ordinary point spread. The two Seekers are up there flying around looking for the Snitch and usually not interacting with anyone else, spotting the Snitch first is going to be mostly luck -”

“It’s not luck!” protested Ron. “You’ve got to keep your eyes moving in the right pattern -”

“That’s not interactive, there’s no back-and-forth with the other player and how much fun is it to watch someone incredibly good at moving their eyes? And then whichever Seeker gets lucky swoops in and grabs the Snitch and makes everyone else’s work moot. It’s like someone took a real game and grafted on this pointless extra position just so that you could be the Most Important Player without needing to really get involved or learn the rest of it. Who was the first Seeker, the King’s idiot son who wanted to play Quidditch but couldn’t understand the rules?” Actually, now that Harry thought about it, that seemed like a surprisingly good hypothesis. Put him on a broomstick and tell him to catch the shiny thing…

Ron’s face pulled into a scowl. “If you don’t like Quidditch, you don’t have to make fun of it!”

“If you can’t criticize, you can’t optimize. I’m suggesting how to improve the game. And it’s very simple. Get rid of the Snitch.”

In other words, Rowling’s game design is iffy, and Yudkowsky is calling her on it, via his Harry.

The same thing was blatantly going on in chapter 18, when Harry meets Snape. So much so , that I had to compare that scene with the equivalent in the original. Here’s the original Rowling scene, emphasis mine:

‘You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,’ he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word — like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. ‘As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses … I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.’

More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Ron exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving she wasn’t a dunderhead.

‘Potter!’ said Snape suddenly. ‘What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?’

Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Harry glanced at Ron, who looked as stumped as he was; Hermione’s hand had shot into the air.

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Harry.

Snape’s lips curled into a sneer.

‘Tut, tut — fame clearly isn’t everything.’

The scene continues with Snape asking Harry more such questions, and him not knowing the answer. Now, here is Yudkowsky’s version of the same scene, into which I will interject:

“You are here,” Severus said in a quiet voice which the students at back strained to hear, “to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins,” this in a rather caressing, gloating tone, “bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses,” this was just getting creepier and creepier. “I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren’t as great a pack of fools as I usually have to teach.”

This is almost word for word, except that Yudkowsky is more realistic about the loudness of a whisper and points out how creepy Snape is, and thus hints at his unsuitability as a teacher, which later becomes the point.

Severus somehow seemed to notice the look of skepticism on Harry’s face, or at least his eyes suddenly jumped to where Harry was sitting.

“Potter!” snapped the Potions professor. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Harry blinked. “Was that in Magical Drafts and Potions?” he said. “I just finished reading it, and I don’t remember anything which used wormwood -”

Hermione’s hand went up and Harry shot her a glare which caused her to raise her hand even higher.

“Tut, tut,” Severus said silkily. “Fame clearly isn’t everything.”

“Really?” Harry said. “But you just told us you’d teach us how to bottle fame. Say, how does that work, exactly? You drink it and turn into a celebrity?”

This is a very good point! Rowling lazily has Snape talking about bottling fame without thinking about what that might mean, then has him belittle the concept of fame just a few lines later. It’s sloppy, and Yudkowsky calls her on it via his Harry. It’s beautiful. And it continues:

“Let’s try again,” said Severus. “Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

“That’s not in the textbook either,” Harry said, “but in one Muggle book I read that a trichinobezoar is a mass of solidified hair found in a human stomach, and Muggles used to believe it would cure any poison -”

“Wrong,” Severus said. “A bezoar is found in the stomach of a goat, it is not made of hair, and it will cure most poisons but not all.”

“I didn’t say it would, I said that was what I read in one Muggle book -”

“No one here is interested in your pathetic Muggle books. Final try. What is the difference, Potter, between monksblood and wolfsbane?”

That did it.

“You know,” Harry said icily, “in one of my quite fascinating Muggle books, they describe a study in which people managed to make themselves look very smart by asking questions about random facts that only they knew. Apparently the onlookers only noticed that the askers knew and the answerers didn’t, and failed to adjust for the unfairness of the underlying game. So, Professor, can you tell me how many electrons are in the outermost orbital of a carbon atom?”

Which is awesome. Rowling’s Harry is a bit of a dunderhead. He just doesn’t know the answers. Yudkowsky’s Harry sees through Snape’s bullying.

In the Rowling version, Snape deducts points from Harry for being cheeky when he suggests that Hermione might know the answer. In the Yudkowsky version, he deducts ten points for Harry’s attempts at reasoning with him, and the situation escalates, with Harry ultimately threatening to leave the school unless Snape is fired for his bullying and abuse of students.

Without reading the rest of Rowling’s book I can’t be sure, but I have the feeling that Rowling has written Snape, at least in the first book, as an unsympathetic bully, and that her Harry just puts up with it. Perhaps her Snape is just a cartoon bad guy, and she hasn’t thought through the consequences. Whereas Yudkowsky knows exactly what the consequences of Snape’s actions should be and has his Harry explicitly treat him as he deserves to be treated.

In any case, Methods of Rationality is full of the right kinds of questions. Where Rowling briefly describes transfiguration, Yudkowsky thinks through the consequences: which are that if you turn a rock into a liquid and then drink it, it will kill you when it turns back into a rock.

And I’m not even half way through it, yet…

Incidentally, there’s a lot of stuff in Methods of Rationality about equality between adults and children. Yudkowsky’s Harry does not stand for situations in which children are treated as subordinates or children have to abide by different rules than adults. Again, I don’t know whether this is a dig at the way Rowling has written her story, or just a separate point Yudkowsky wants to make. There’s probably a more serious post I (or an education blogger) could make about that under the education category. Here’s a sample:

“This is not a request, Mr. Potter,” the Headmaster said. The full, entire force of the wizard’s gaze was turned on the boy. “This is your punishme-”

[...]

Harry’s visage grew even colder. “You mistake me, Headmaster, if you think that this is a joke. This is not a request. This is your punishment.”

“Mr. Potter -” Minerva said. She didn’t even know what she was going to say. She simply couldn’t let that go by.

Harry made a shushing gesture at her and continued to speak to Dumbledore. “And if that seems impolite to you,” Harry said, his voice now a little less hard, “it seemed no less impolite when you said it to me. You would not say such a thing to anyone who you considered a real human being instead of a subordinate child, and I will treat you with just the same courtesy as you treat me -”

First Post

August 18th, 2010

I have just moved into a new house. The first ever letter delivered to my new address starts off with:

OFFICIAL WARNING THIS PROPERTY IS UNDER INVESTIGATION

One guess who it is from. It continues to complain that I have not replied to any of their previous letters (I moved in yesterday!), warns that an enforcement division has been authorised to visit my home (go on, make my day), that I might be interviewed under caution, prosecuted and fined £1000.

Way to welcome new customers. Can you imagine the gas company behaving like that?

Beer Advert

August 15th, 2010

What I like about this beer advert, that I saw at the cinema last night, is that it’s an unashamed lifestyle advert. Drink our product and you too will get to hang out with beautiful people in the sun wearing hardly any clothes. The product being advertised is obscured until the end, so I kept waiting for the car crash and the drink-driving message, but no.

Update: The music is from a band called Billie The Vision and The Dancers. The song is called Summercat from the album I Was So Unpopular In School and Now They’re Giving Me This Beautiful Bicycle. All the band’s music is free to download, but if you like it you can donate. You get more of what you reward, after all. The songs are available in the excellent FLAC format, too. This is a business model I really hope can be successful. Perhaps doing the beer advert will bring the band lots of trade. I hope so.

Think Like an Austrian #1

August 12th, 2010

I struggle to hold my own in verbal debates with people who think radically differently to me. It’s easy to be distracted from my point by constantly having to correct misconceptions.

I keep meaning to write dialogues — imaginary debates in which I rehearse my arguments. This is a start, .

The thing about economics is most people think it’s about money supply and inflation and defecits and that there are formulae that relate these things and that the whole thing works like that computer with the pipes. This stuff is impossible to debate. The nice thing about Austrian economics is you can talk about it.

So where to start? Let me try this:

A: The government is cutting jobs in the public sector. This will ruin the economy and cause a double-dip recession.

B: You can’t spend the same money twice.

A: Yes you can, money just goes round and around.

B: What I mean is, *you* can’t spend the same money twice. Let’s say I run a cake shop. I am forced at gunpoint to give you £100. You spend that £100 on buying my cakes. How has this helped the economy?

A: There are more cakes in existence than there otherwise would be. The world is richer.

B: The number of cakes I can make is fixed. I would have sold them to someone else and I would be £100 better off. Or, I would learn that nobody wants my cakes and I would find something to make that people *do* want.

A: But if I don’t get your £100, I will be unemployed and not doing any useful work.

B: The work you do can not be very useful if you can’t get people to pay for it voluntarily.

A: The work I do in the public sector will improve the quality of the transport infrastructure, thereby enabling you to get ingredients for your cakes more cheaply.

B: Yes, but if you were unemployed, I would still have my £100. I might use it to buy a better cake-making machine that will help me make cakes more cheaply. Or I might invest it in a transport infrastructure company.

A: How is that different?

B: Well, apart from the irrelevant (for the purposes of this discussion) fact that there is less violence involved, perhaps I might be better placed to decide how to spend my £100 than you. I might be better able to cut the cost of cake-making because I understand the business of making cakes.

[At this point the discussion veers off into the question of why distributed decision making is better than centralised control. Also, the parenthesis above is why I don't think of myself as a *consequentialist* libertarian. I would be opposed to the violence even if centralised control was more efficient.]

Unintended Consequences at Sea

August 10th, 2010

This morning I caught an interview on BBC Breakfast between a BBC journalist and a trawlerman. The item was about the high number of trawlermen who die at sea each year.

Looking down at the boat our Journalist says, “There are a lot of ropes and machinery down there, it must be easy to slip up.”

Replies the trawlerman, and I’m paraphrasing from memory: “Slipping up on deck is the least of our worries. Most men can keep their feet at sea. What’s worse is if the net snags on rocks. If the cable doesn’t break it can have the whole boat over.”

“What can be done to improve safety?”

“Very little. The job is dangerous by nature. However, as just one example, they brought out this ridiculous regulation that set stricter quotas on boats over ten meters in length than on smaller boats. So now there are a lot more small boats than there used to be, and these are more dangerous.”

Children’s TV Fails To Educate

August 7th, 2010

David Mitchell further expounds about the reluctance of children’s TV makers to include cultural references that their target audience might not get. He points out that this is a failure to educate, and further that children (and people in general) enjoy learning new stuff. And these days, a cultural reference you don’t get is an opportunity to google it.

I’m also rather fond of his rant about getting your hair cut, which I also hate.

Leaving Luggage Unattended

August 7th, 2010

David Mitchell expounds on the impossibility of following the instructions on the train to not leave your luggage unattended.

Doublethinking Teenagers

August 1st, 2010

There’s a programme on Channel 4 right now called Amish: The World’s Squarest Teenagers:

Amish: World's Squarest Teenagers: Season 1 Episode 2Amish: World's Squarest Teenagers: Season 1 Episode 2 TV Schedule

This episode opens with a conversation between Amish and British teenagers about drinking. The Amish girl is interested to hear that the British teenagers, who play music not in honour of god in a band, then get drunk after their gig. In fact they’ve been drinking to get drunk since they were 14, which is normal for teenagers in Britain.

“Have you ever thought of starting a band that doesn’t get drunk, and delivering the message that it’s not cool to get drunk and abuse the healthy body that God gave you?” she asks.

Replied the British teenager: “No. Because getting drunk regularly is fun. It makes socialising easier and helps us relax. It’s a good laugh and there are nearly no bad consequences. I mean, you can feel quite ill the next day, but you soon get over it. And if you only do it for a few years while you’re young and enjoy yourself there are almost no long term bad effects. I drink regularly and I am still healthy and I feel fine. The chances of becoming addicted to alcohol are small and problems like these can be overcome. Almost certainly the benefits of drinking outweigh the costs.”

Except, no, of course he didn’t. What he actually said was, “that’s a pretty cool idea.”

So here we have a teenager who is holding two conflicting ideas in his head. He knows from personal experience that drinking is fun and mostly harmless. And yet when asked he will parrot the government and BBC line that drinking is unequivocally bad.

We are creating a nation of pathetic, guilt-ridden sheep who are unable to experience unadulterated the wonders of western capitalist decadence because they think they are being naughty and should apologise for it. Instead, these teenagers should be proudly proclaiming that their way is better.

Steve Hughes

July 29th, 2010

Australian comic Steve Hughes gets good about two minutes into this video when he starts talking about health and safety and political correctness.

Olympics Lanes

July 29th, 2010

Olympics lanes?!