Ep. 1: A Podcast of Very Low Probability

Anthea introduces Jake and Elisa to the world of Rationality, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and HPMoR. A surprising level of empathy for Petunia Evans emerges.

Citations and further reading

• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapter 1: https://hpmor.com/chapter/1
• Neoreaction a Basilisk, Elizabeth Sandifer: https://bookshop.org/p/books/neoreaction-a-basilisk-essays-on-and-around-the-alt-right/850f22fb82ae27c6
• The Zizians series, Behind the Bastards. 12-21 March 2025.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mJAerUL-7w
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IqARk6Fru4
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWy5YGWHaNA
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OogotniaUXI
• Curtis Yarvin, Behind the Bastards. 17-19 September 2024.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYrPNvVhKLU
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpEg4LS3CT0
• Peter Thiel and Yudkowsky’s history is discussed in “No Death, No Taxes,” George Packer. The New Yorker, 20 November 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20140801231953/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes
• Curtis Yarvin, Neoreaction, Yudkowsky, and Roko’s Basilisk are discussed in “The Strange and Terrifying Ideas of Neoreactionaries,” Nathan J. Robinson and Elizabeth Sandifer. Current Affairs, 30 May 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20251111012737/https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/05/the-strange-and-terrifying-ideas-of-neoreactionaries 
• “Why is Mencius Moldbug so popular on LessWrong?” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6qPextf9KyWLFJ53j/why-is-mencius-moldbug-so-popular-on-less-wrong-answer-he-s
• Feynman Lectures on Physics Volumes 1,2,3. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4tHb1egFTm4Rlc3OEFrVmNGQUk/view?resourcekey=0-O8AOzf-ZN7FBDUoHR1WJrQ 
• Discussion of the cultic milieu: https://web.archive.org/web/20250424005912/https://www.vectorsconference.com/culticmilieu_eng
• “The Harry Potter Fan Fiction Author Who Wants to Make Everyone a Little More Rational,” David Whelan. Vice, 2 March 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20201108113155/https://www.vice.com/en/article/gq84xy/theres-something-weird-happening-in-the-world-of-harry-potter-168
• “'Harry Potter' and the Key to Immortality,” Daniel D. Snyder. The Atlantic, 18 July 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110725060304/http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/07/harry-potter-and-the-key-to-immortality/241972/ 

Transcript

Intro

Anthea 0:00

Hey, this is Anthony. Thanks for tuning in. The audio is pretty rough on my mic for the first 10 minutes or so. If you don't feel like suffering through that, if you can jump to the twelve and a half minute mark, it should be better from there out. And it will only improve as I learn what the hell I'm doing. Thanks for listening. A podcast about Harry Potter and the methods of rationality. I'm your host, Anthea Carnes. I'm joined today by my dear friends Jake.

Jake 0:50

Hello, my name is Jake.

Anthea 0:52

Alisa.

Jake 0:53

What's up?

Anthea 0:53

Hello. Once upon a time, there was a young man named Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowski, and he very nearly deserved it. On February 28th, 2010, he began publishing a story on fanfiction.net. A website I am delighted to report still looks in 2026 more or less exactly like it did in 2002 when I published my first story on it.

SPEAKER_06 1:13

Oh hell yes. Go.

Anthea 1:15

Fanfiction.net never changed. Never changed.

Jake 1:18

Web 1.5.

Anthea 1:20

Yes. This story, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, would eventually stretch to 122 chapters.

SPEAKER_06 1:26

Oh my god.

Anthea 1:28

122? The realization as my friends understand what I've wrote them into.

Jake 1:34

See, my reaction is like, I don't know if that's a lot or not for a fanfic.

Anthea 1:37

It's a fair number.

Jake 1:38

Okay.

Anthea 1:39

661,619 words, and dozens of verbose author's notes over five years.

SPEAKER_06 1:47

I used to be just like more of a drabble girly. You know, my output would be that. A hundred words or less. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anthea 1:53

Yeah. Uh it spawned a Parsec award-nominated podcast audiobook, Who Knows How Many Related Fan Works, years of breathless reviews and write-ups in mainstream publications like Vice and The Atlantic, and as far as I can glean, a non-zero dollar amount of donations to the Center for Applied Rationality, the Related Nonprofit.

SPEAKER_06 2:15

Uh, it also spawned one of the worst dates I've ever been on in my life.

Anthea 2:19

I'm gonna ask you about that. Excellent.

SPEAKER_06 2:21

I'm prepared to speak on the topic.

Anthea 2:24

It began as a more or less explicitly didactic work, written by Yudkowski to educate readers on his theories of rationality and to teach numerous basic concepts of science. Yudkowski describes it as not, quote, not a strict single-pointed departure fit, but a parallel universe. Or, as people who are actually in fandom would say, an alternate universe. An AU, Doc. An AU!

Jake 2:50

It's not a PU.

Anthea 2:52

Correct, yes. In which Harry James Potter is raised in a loving, scientifically minded home instead of by the Dursleys, and then brings his rational-mindedness to bear on the British wizarding world. It is extremely weird, and we're going to talk about it.

SPEAKER_06 3:07

So, like, is Harry Potter the Paul Atreides of rationality? Like Ooh!

Anthea 3:13

I you know, I think usually the the uh comparison given is Ender Woman from Ender's game.

SPEAKER_06 3:21

That makes way more sense.

Jake 3:22

So if that's the case, who's the Benny Jesseret of rationality?

SPEAKER_06 3:26

I think Quirl. You don't know how right you are! Yeah.

Jake 3:32

And I literally don't know because I don't understand what you just said.

Anthea 3:36

Yeah, alright. So, okay, I do want to level set slightly before I get into the other stuff that I've that I've got written here.

Jake 3:43

Um Jake, what's your what's your knowledge base going into this about the fic, about Harry Potter, about rationality, like uh so I am old enough that I had the first three Harry Potter books read to me in school.

unknown 3:59

Yeah.

Jake 4:00

Um, and then I have seen all of the movies.

Anthea 4:04

Okay, that's better than me.

Jake 4:06

Um Well, to be fair, I saw the rift tracks of all of the movies.

SPEAKER_06 4:10

Ooh. The best way to experience them, honestly.

Jake 4:13

Also also how I experienced Twilight. Um.

SPEAKER_06 4:17

Yeah.

Jake 4:18

And in regards to fanfic in general, I have read up to two. Um, one was a Pokemon fanfic when I was younger, and then I probably read another one at some point that I can't remember.

SPEAKER_06 4:28

What was the Pokemon fanfic about?

Jake 4:31

Uh, it was like this guy found gloves that gave him Pokemon moves, but they were cursed, and then also he kissed a girl at some point.

SPEAKER_06 4:37

Nice! Oh.

Jake 4:39

Yeah, no, it was kinda dope, honestly. I kept trying to find ones that were like it, but they were all worse, and then I assumed fanfic was not a worthy medium based on that.

Anthea 4:46

Many such cases. Yeah.

Jake 4:48

Valid.

Anthea 4:48

And you don't have any any like when I say rationalism or the rationality movement, that doesn't like mean anything specific to you particularly.

Jake 4:57

No, I can extrapolate based on what it's called, and knowing dudes who would call themselves rational. Yeah, but um, in terms of actually interacting with anyone or anything uh associated with a rationalism movement. No.

Anthea 5:13

Got cool, cool, cool. And Elisa, you do have some exposure to this fic already.

SPEAKER_06 5:17

I have some exposure to this fic already. Um The exposure that I have, it's two primary points of reference. One of them was actually not Harry Potter and the methods of rationality, but instead a Twilight fanfic inspired by the same principles called Luminosity. Luminosity! That's in my next notes! Oh my gosh, I'm psychic. Um, so Luminosity was recommended to me, and I did not enjoy it. It bounced off pretty quick. Um, I think because I like character-driven stories.

Anthea 5:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 5:56

And Bella wasn't really a character, she was just a collection of inductive reasoning pathways.

Anthea 6:04

This is interesting because I do think that a frequent uh uh uh critique of the original Twilight is that Bella isn't really a character.

SPEAKER_06 6:13

Bella, well, yeah, it was a lateral move from Bella who wasn't.

Jake 6:16

I thought you were talking about the original.

SPEAKER_06 6:18

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

Jake 6:19

I thought you were gonna speak how it well, and this one was different in these ways. No, no, no, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_06 6:24

The original Twilight is Bella is a miserable pile of not like the other girls. Yeah. And uh Emphasis miserable. It was like really hard to read the original Twilight, which I didn't finish the original Twilight. It was really hard to read it as an isolated high school girl because Bella is going, I'm such a I'm such an outcast, I don't belong, no one understands me, I can't tan. Um that was her thing. She came from Arizona, but like she could sort of tan a little bit, but in Washington State, she has no color. Um uh and like she comes to the school is immediately popular and hates all these fucking people who are wasting her time. And as an isolated teenage girl, I would have killed for people to give me the level of positive validation that Bella got, so that sucked. Yeah, luminosity sucked because uh for me, because again, pile of inductive reasoning. So that was point one. Point two is uh right after I graduated from undergrad, I went on a date in San Francisco with a Harvey Mudd alum who revealed to me over the course of the date, which is at like a fancy prohibition style whiskey bar. That part was cool. Um uh you had to make a reservation. So I thought that was, I was like, that's a good sign. That's really that's cool of him. Um he revealed that he and his friend had written a musical based on Harry Potter and the methods of rationality. And I said, Oh, well, I don't want to brag, but I've written a pretty highly acclaimed The Dark Knight Rises fanfic, and he broke in and said, It's not a fanfic.

Jake 8:09

Were they saying their musical wasn't a fanfic, or that rationality wasn't a fanfic?

SPEAKER_06 8:14

The musical was not a fanfic. And I didn't know what to say to that.

Anthea 8:19

Yeah, that's challenging.

SPEAKER_06 8:21

Challenging.

Anthea 8:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:22

And then he also, this is the guy who he tried to get me drunk when I didn't want to. Uh, super rational. Very rational. Yeah, rational. I want to have sex with this girl and she doesn't want to have sex with me. The rational thing to do is to change one of those conditions, and I can't not want to have sex with her. Um, and told me that he did not ask his female friends for dating advice because if you're a hunter, you ask a hunter and not a deer. These were the same guys. He was the same guy.

unknown 8:54

Wow.

Jake 8:54

I don't know. I would ask a deer where the deer are. The deer are probably in the know for that. They hang out with deer more.

SPEAKER_06 9:02

Now I'm having L'Esprit d'Escaler because, yeah, exactly. Again, so many things that I do, I was like, I don't know how to respond. Yeah. Wow.

Anthea 9:13

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 9:15

So that's my exposure to Harry Potter and the methods of rationality.

Anthea 9:18

Fantastic. Iconic. Great. Okay, cool. I also read some of uh Luminosity and also bounced off of it. Uh I wonder if we were recommended it by the same person.

SPEAKER_06 9:32

I think we may have been recommended it by the same person.

Anthea 9:35

Um and I think when I started reading Luminosity, I also did try to read some of HB Moore and uh and similarly bounced off of it.

SPEAKER_06 9:44

Oh, good for you though, doing the background research.

Anthea 9:47

You may have noticed I just started a podcast. Oh my god, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_06 9:50

What's this microphone in my hand?

Anthea 9:52

Um, and then last year in March 2025, Robert Evans of Behind the Bastards published a four-part series on Bazizians, an online cult that sprang up out of the rationalist movement and was deeply influenced by HP Moore. Um, it's it's an incredible series, highly recommend it, it's very funny, it's very well researched. Um one of the things that I really appreciated about it is that Robert Evans uh wanted, was like, I wanted to really understand like the rationalist movement and not just be like one of these weirdos who killed a border patrol guard.

Jake 10:28

Um this was a capital C cult.

Anthea 10:31

Yes, yes. A small one, a little one, but very much a high control group. Um I don't feel qualified at the moment to like give the whole story, but it's it the the very short version is that um there was a young woman who went by Ziz who uh sort of started her own offshoot of the rationalist movement, um, got several followers, um, including one uh that she seems to have gotten into like a foliad do with on a boat in the San Francisco Bay. Um and that group eventually uh did I mean they're uh they're they're a little bit of a I would say they're a little bit of a death cult or a little bit of a like apocalyptic cult, um which a lot of rational a lot of rationalism is based around this like fear or or certainty of the AI singularity.

Jake 11:35

Um I'm gonna just go ahead and call a shot. I bet Rocco's basilist comes up at some point in all of this. Yeah, it does. Okay.

Anthea 11:45

And uh anyway, they um they killed several people.

Jake 11:49

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's an ascl- I guess you did say they killed a border patrol guard, but I guess they also killed some people too.

SPEAKER_06 11:56

Yeah, they yeah, they there were victims. Yeah. Um but uh I think also the other, you know, the thing that to me immediately if I had to justify in a sentence like what specifically screams Colt about the Zizians, it would be that Ziz had as kind of the framework for this offshoot of rationalism that she was that she was in charge of um that she started, was we can save the world if you all give me your psychic and intellectual energy.

Anthea 12:24

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 12:25

And I'll be the conduit for all of that.

Anthea 12:28

Yeah.

Intro pt 2

Anthea 12:29

Who cares? That was the question I had for myself. Who cares? Why have I conned my friends into starting a podcast about this fanfiction?

Jake 12:36

I know I've always been ready to do any podcast for any reason, so right?

SPEAKER_06 12:40

Yeah. Yeah. As you should. You have a great podcast voice. You really do, yeah.

Jake 12:45

As someone who's had a lot of jobs on phones, I appreciate the compliment, and I'm also kind of sick of hearing.

SPEAKER_06 12:52

Valid.

Jake 12:53

It's it's that, and oh, you mean Jake from State Farm?

SPEAKER_04 12:56

Oh god.

Jake 12:56

As someone who has never seen this commercial.

Anthea 12:59

That's astonishing.

Jake 13:01

I've I've structured my life to avoid advertisements as much as humanly possible.

Anthea 13:05

Nice. Nice. Well, okay. So at the outset, I want to lay out a couple of points about why I think HP Moore is significant and is worth me spending as much time as I have been spending on it. Um thing one. This fanfic escaped containment. Um and it was, it got, like I said, it got write-ups in mainstream publications in the in the like it started publishing in 2011, it finished around 2015, 2016, um, and it got a couple of write-ups like in that time, um, in big publications like Vice and the Atlantic. Um, and I think that that alone makes it worth some scrutiny. Like, what about this fic is so engaging that people who have never heard of the Harry Ginny Harry Hermione ship wars are nevertheless interested in this one? Why did your why did your terrible date like why does this guy read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and be and is so interested in it that he wants to write a musical about it?

SPEAKER_06 14:12

But it has to be experienced through the medium of song and dance.

Anthea 14:16

But will me jerk reject the idea of fanfiction otherwise, right? What is it about this work?

Jake 14:23

Is it because a man wrote it?

Anthea 14:25

Not no. I I mean, yeah, like I think we can just like put that one out there and and like say mystery solved to a certain extent.

Jake 14:33

Oh yeah, I I I know there's more to it than that, but I feel like I have to imagine a lot of it is society is a lot more willing to accept and give time and consideration because a dude wrote it.

SPEAKER_06 14:45

Absolutely. Totally. Like everything has more than one cause or more than one factor influencing how it became itself. But like, let's not lose sight of the low-hanging fruit.

Anthea 14:55

Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah. Um, HP Moore's popularity also made it a recruiting tool for the rationalist movement. In Less Wrong's own community polling, HP Moore has consistently ranked as the top way people find the rationalist community. And to be clear about the data, I did a survey of serve of their community surveys, right? I just like looked through it fairly quickly. Um a meta-analysis. Exactly. Uh and I could, if I had more time and energy and and knowledge about statistics, I could probably do a proper meta-analysis. What I'm gonna say is at the stuff that I looked at, it's pretty consistently somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of respondents say that they came to less wrong, which is the hub of the rationalist movement, through HP More. Um so it's not the majority, but it is the plurality. Plurality. Plurality, yeah. Even in the 2020s, a decade after the fic concluded, it seems to retain a fairly steady, if lower key, popularity. I looked at the Google search trends for it compared to another contemporary, like a fic that came out around the same time that also escaped containment, Snow Queen Ice Dragon's Master of the Universe. Oh hell. Better known as E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey, once she filed the serial numbers off of it. Um and HP Moore consistently outranks uh Masters of the Universe, Master of the Universe in in search popularity. Um I can't tell if that bums me out or not.

Jake 16:23

I have to imagine that's because there is now a you know a more complete version of it out there.

SPEAKER_06 16:31

Yeah, there's a competing intellectual property.

Anthea 16:33

Yes, yeah, fifty shades uh tops both of them, if you'll pardon the term.

Jake 16:37

Um I will not.

Anthea 16:40

Uh you know, it's an original property, it has a major motion picture series, and it has no calculus in it. So, like, easy easy, easy win. So we come to the rationalists. The rationalist movement being a weird little internet subculture full of old school nerds arguing on message boards, interests me for its place in the cultic milieu, a term that you brought up earlier. The cultic milieu is a term coined by sociologist Colin Campbell in a 1972 essay where he described a cultural underground where seekers test and share hidden and forbidden knowledge. So he's talking about I I'm not gonna do this justice because I wasn't able to find the actual essay or his revisitation of it in 2012, but like we're talking about an environment in which people are searching for what was there is another term for this that we used to It sounds like an esoteric society from like the old days. Yes, yeah. He actually like he he term he he coins the term we're talking specifically about like occult and esotericism um in the 70s. Um Are you thinking of stigmatized knowledge? Yes, it yes, stigmatized knowledge, yes. Um yeah, but like occult just means hidden, right? So I think that we can we we can and should think of this as like this is a place where people are looking for any knowledge that is heterodox, um not non-orthodox. Um and when he and and like in the in the like academic writing on cultic on the cultic milieu idea, um they're they're off they're talking about like environmentalists and political groups as well as like new age theory, you know, ideas and stuff like that. So um the the cultic milieu is an environment in which heterodox beliefs are explored, and it does not necessarily lead to the formation of high control groups that we would call cults, but it has all the ingredients to.

Jake 18:48

And I feel like anytime I hear it's not necessarily a cult, you've really been called a couple of colours. Yeah, that it's a cult. It's gonna it's gonna be a cult.

Anthea 18:54

It's gonna be a cult. It's gonna be a cult. And there's like, and there's I'm very, very I've been interested in cults for a long time, and like there's absolutely cult-esque aspects to the rationalist movement. So I'm interested in it for that, that by itself. Um and it has spawned a cult. It did, it spawned a cult that killed people. So at least one cult. That we know of, right? Like, so it's a it's a weird little internet subculture with real-world implications. And it goes deeper. We have to go deeper. Because the leading light of the rationalist movement, Eliezer Yodkowski, is not just a weird little guy on the internet. He is a weird little guy who's adjacent to Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin.

SPEAKER_06 19:35

Oh no.

Anthea 19:36

Oh no!

SPEAKER_06 19:36

Oh that's a power thruple.

Anthea 19:38

Right. Uh, according to a 2011 profile of Peter Thiel in The New Yorker, he and Yadkowski have a relationship stretching back to at least 2005. Um, when they met I think they met at a party.

Jake 19:51

Uh like Man, that sounds like the worst fucking party I've ever heard of.

SPEAKER_06 19:56

Was this one of the parties where Peter Thiel was like getting Christ pilled? Or Uncle. Is it the same period or not?

Anthea 20:03

Unclear. 2005, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_06 20:05

Okay. Um any any curious listener can go to Behind the Bastards again and find that that timeline.

Anthea 20:12

Um Gudkowski and Yarvin, Curtis Yarvin, I know you've heard the Behind the Bastards on Curtis Yarvin. Are you familiar with this guy?

Jake 20:19

Doesn't ring a bell.

Anthea 20:20

Okay, he's he's a real weirdo. You know what Peter Deal is, obviously. You have a reaction to that. Great. Curtis Yarvin um is a uh I regret to say thinker.

Jake 20:30

Um big old asterisk. Yeah. Self-described.

SPEAKER_06 20:34

Yeah. He also identifies as a poet. Does he really? Yeah, I have yet to find any of his work.

Jake 20:39

Um call yourself whatever you want to, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anthea 20:43

Identity is fluid.

SPEAKER_06 20:45

He had a podcast with Honor Levy, who was a dime square uh literary figure and baby baby writer. When they were like, you know, when they were like thinking they were gonna do like their neo-reactionary literature and cultural movement, and that was gonna really appeal to people, and then it didn't.

Anthea 21:01

Yeah. That's what they were hanging out. It's an artifact of that time. Great. So Curtis Yarvin wrote under the name mencious moldbug online.

SPEAKER_05 21:12

Strong start.

Anthea 21:14

Um and he uh he's a neo-reactionary, yeah, which is a term that I'm not gonna define well. Uh, but like he he's he's very authoritarian, um, he's very anti-democracy, like specifically. Uh and he uh influenced JD Vance heavily. Um so he's he's the I think he's the genesis of the phrase or of the the concept retire all government employees or rage, which is basically what Oh yeah, I have heard about this guy.

Jake 21:50

Yeah.

Anthea 21:50

Yeah. Um he's he's one of these guys who's like the federal government is full of bureaucrats and civil servants, and all of this would be bad. Better if we ran it either like a corporation or or I he he thinks that everything would be better if we ran things as a series of small city states that were run like corporations.

Jake 22:13

Yeah, you know, just go back to Babylonian times.

Anthea 22:16

Yeah, yeah.

Jake 22:16

There's there's no reason they stopped doing that.

Anthea 22:19

I think it worked out fine. Yeah. Yeah, and nothing has changed since then, so there's no reason that that context wouldn't be fine now.

Jake 22:25

Mm-hmm.

Anthea 22:26

Solid. Alright, broadcast over.

Jake 22:28

Yep. Solid.

Anthea 22:30

Uh Yudkowski and Yarvin are not friends in the way that he does have a relationship with Peter Thiel. Um, on a Less Wrong post titled, Why is Mentius Moldbug So Popular on Less Wrong? Yodkowski edited someone else's post to say he's not, and described his trajectory as, quote, politics mind-killed him. He cannot separate the normative and the descriptive.

Jake 22:54

Wow. So is this guy just a professional hot take haver?

Anthea 22:57

Yarvin or Yudkowski?

Jake 22:59

Yes. Yeah.

Anthea 23:03

Yarvin, I think, is a professional. I th I think to a certain extent they both are. Yudkowski has one take these days, and his take is AI will kill us if we don't, if you don't give me a lot of money. And that's kind of his his one thing.

SPEAKER_06 23:20

So yeah, and like one thing about Yarvin that I do kind of want to throw out here. As I recall, he is one of those people who's been like so brain damaged by the culture wars that, like I think a lot of conservatives, and as many conservatives in our era have latched onto, he has this understanding of power that isn't based on like who writes laws and has money and property and stuff, uh, but is instead based on institutions that have cultural salience, like academia and um calls it the cathedral and I think that's true.

Jake 24:00

So they just see attention as power.

SPEAKER_06 24:03

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that there's yes, or social cachet, right? Like there may be you may be a celebrated academic researcher who's doing a lot of really good work, but the level of influence that you have on how people live their lives is really, really diffuse compared to like some bullshit governor in a Republican state.

Jake 24:24

Yeah, yeah, no, if if academics had power, then grant writers wouldn't exist. Like they wouldn't have to be begging other institutions.

SPEAKER_06 24:32

Yeah. Bingo, they would just get all the money that they want. So I think it's it's one of those things where like it's not wrong to look at the attention economy and to look at like soft power as power, but Yarvin has completely gotten his wires crossed in his analysis of the political landscape in America and does not differentiate between soft power and hard power.

Anthea 24:54

Right, right. So I want to be I I bring up Teal and Yarvin and Yudkowski. Teal and Yudkowski have like a connection because they're both uh tech guys and they're both like tie like like Teal gave Yudkowski's various uh organizations a lot of money to study AI. Um and uh and so there's there's like a really strong connection there. I bring up Jarvin because they're in the same ecosystem, not because they are, not because I to be clear, I don't think I don't think Yudkowski himself is a fascist or an authoritarian, but I have not come to a firm conclusion on that yet, right? I do think I'm gonna um I'm gonna steal from Elizabeth Sandifer here, uh, who wrote uh a book called Neo-Reaction Abasilisk, and she describes him as a man who, quote, wanted described Yudkowski as a man who, quote, wanted to live forever in a computer and set about designing a worldview that supported this goal. And I think that's pretty accurate. He seems to me to be like to be a guy who is really hung up on his own mortality. Um, he's really into sci-fi, and he attracts a bunch of people who feel the same way, and it just so happens that a lot of those people are solipsistic billionaire white men who are exerting outsized power on our current fascist dystopia.

Jake 26:26

Well, they don't have power over death, and I'll laugh at them when they die.

Anthea 26:29

I sure, yes, but they want power over death. And Yudkowski thinks that it is possible to have power over death. Oh no.

Jake 26:36

Yeah, that's that's a normal thing to think when you're terrified of death and lack power as well.

Anthea 26:40

You gotta, you gotta think that. Otherwise, how do you get through the day?

SPEAKER_06 26:44

People do literally anything to avoid going to therapy.

Anthea 26:47

Yes, they will write so many words to avoid going to therapy. Um see also Elon Musk, right? Elon Musk, I think, is scared of his own mortality. Like. And that guy who that's Peter Teal's not the one who's getting blood transfusions, is he?

Jake 27:02

No, it's a dude that looks like him, though. Yeah. Like it's we can just call him Peter Teal anyway. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:07

Yeah, we'll do it.

Anthea 27:09

Um so yeah, so so Yudkowski is not the cause of our fascist dystopia, but I do think that he is a domino in it.

Jake 27:18

Um He's a fascism tastemaker.

Anthea 27:22

I think he might be, right? Yeah, and I'm I'm really, really curious about how we get from this Harry Potter fanfiction to fascism. Like, because it's not I d it's not a straight line, that is for sure.

Jake 27:38

But it sounds like fewer than six degrees of separation.

Anthea 27:40

Fewer s fewer degrees of separation than you think. Yeah.

Jake 27:43

It is closer to fascism than it is to Kevin Bacon.

Anthea 27:47

Uh, interesting. I don't know about that. I don't know what its Kevin Bacon number is.

Jake 27:53

Okay. Like, Yadkowski has fascism number sounds like two. So I imagine it's lower.

SPEAKER_06 28:00

Watch this space for the Kevin Bacon number of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

Anthea 28:05

Yeah. Um, so I decided to be the podcast I wanted to see in this world, and uh you guys uh didn't talk me out of it. Um, and in fact enabled me.

Jake 28:15

Yeah, no, I'll I'll enable most ideas.

SPEAKER_06 28:18

I have no right to talk you out of anything.

Anthea 28:20

So we are going to be reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality chapter by chapter until we either understand it or can't stand it.

Jake 28:29

I I was not told I was going to have to read anything.

Anthea 28:31

You don't have to read it. I'm gonna read it to you. We're gonna have a nice little story time. Uh yay.

SPEAKER_06 28:36

Uh that's great. When I was a kid, I asked my grandma to read to me, um, and she said, Don't you already know how to read?

Jake 28:45

So was your grandma a rationalist?

SPEAKER_06 28:48

Uh if by that you mean we think had undiagnosed depression, then yes.

Anthea 28:53

There uh uh survey says um there's a lot of actually one of the surveys one of the one of the surveys I was saying had a lot of people be like, no, I'm a rationalist and I don't have any mental illness, and I'm like, I do not believe.

SPEAKER_06 29:06

Oh, I don't believe you, I'm sorry.

Anthea 29:09

They were like, oh, there's a the the I can't remember what year that survey is from, but the person who was like compiling the data was like, we have an awful lot of self-diagnosers out here, despite the fact that the number, like the the percentage of people who were like, I have self-diagnosed with a mental illness, was quite small. It was like under 5% of respondents. So I don't know.

Jake 29:34

That seems lower than general populace.

Anthea 29:36

It does, it does. Yeah, I don't know. But it was before it was before TikTok in 2020. So maybe you know I do think that that that number has probably is probably a greater share of the population these days.

SPEAKER_04 29:47

Yeah.

Chapter 1 close reading

Anthea 29:49

Chapter 1. A day of very low probability. We open with a spooky haiku. Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line, black robes falling, blood spills out in liters, and someone screams a word.

SPEAKER_06 30:07

That's not a haiku. I know it's not.

Jake 30:09

Also, hy yeah, no.

Anthea 30:11

It's just formatted like kind of like a haiku. Oh, okay. Okay.

Jake 30:15

Haiku English is bad for haiku anyway. I mean, there's too many syllables in English. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:20

I see you driving around town with a girl I love, and I'm like, haiku.

Anthea 30:26

Um, I d I don't know what this this is. Can you can you repeat that? Yeah. I was busy counting syllables! I'm sorry, I screw you off. I I lied to you. Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fright Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line, black robes falling, blood spills out in liters, and someone screams a word.

Jake 30:51

Hey, that sounds like the shit I wrote in high school.

Anthea 30:54

Yeah, I I I assume that this is meant to be the death of Lily and James Potter.

Jake 30:59

Totally.

Anthea 31:00

Yeah, okay, yeah, and we did establish that you both have canon familiarity. Like, at least broadly. Oh yeah.

Jake 31:08

Yeah, broadly is doing a lot of work.

Anthea 31:09

Okay.

Jake 31:11

I think the last Harry Potter I consumed was I mean, less than a decade ago, maybe. But that's pushing it.

SPEAKER_06 31:17

Yeah. So I'm interpreting this as the silver is a knife and it's stabbing someone, presumably to death.

Anthea 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:27

Someone screams out of words. It's not two words, so it's not a Vada cadavera.

Anthea 31:31

Right.

SPEAKER_06 31:32

Stab them, so that or or used a knife in my the way that I'm guessing.

Anthea 31:36

Right.

SPEAKER_06 31:36

Uh and then the black robes falling is that one of the death eaters chose to get naked.

Anthea 31:42

One can only hope. Hope it's a hot one.

Jake 31:45

I was maybe I'm just not giving them enough credit. I thought they were just writing some edgelord shit. But I guess I guess I should be going into this with a rationalist mindset because these are clues of various obfuscations.

Anthea 31:58

These are clues. Genuinely though, part of the reason I wanted to do this with you guys is that I'm in some ways a very malleable person. Like, and so when I I have spent a lot of time reading this rationalist stuff and reading associated like like works to under try and un try try and get into Yadkowski's head in this. And it's very easy for me to start going, no, all this makes sense, and I really need a couple of assholes to be like, no, it does not.

Jake 32:34

It makes sense as they wanted to write some cool edgy stuff about silver and moonlight and blood and robes.

Anthea 32:39

Yeah, that's fine. I mean, and also like it's fine. I just don't know why it's I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_06 32:43

Um, wait a minute. You said that it's formatted like a haiku. That must mean that there's short lines with frequent line breaks.

Anthea 32:50

Uh yeah, it's three lines. Um the black robes falling uh clause is in parentheses. Okay, so it's only three lines. What? Yeah.

Jake 33:00

Uh it's We're giving them too much credit. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_06 33:04

Hey, there's a there's a method to my madness, or should I say a method to my rationality here? She said the name of the movie. What is the first letter of every line? I'm gonna acrostic this bitch.

Jake 33:13

This is gonna be at most a three-letter word.

Anthea 33:16

Uh capital B. Open paren. Uh technically the first character is an ellipsis, but B.

Jake 33:27

Okay, this is the name of an avant-garde restaurant. B paren ellipses.

SPEAKER_06 33:33

Look, this might not be the strongest work that I'm gonna do, but I'm not gonna be deterred by the two of you.

Anthea 33:38

You gotta you gotta you gotta take your notes. Alright. Um from here it's a hard cut, too. Every inch of wall space is covered by a bookcase. Every each bookcase has six shelves going almost to the ceiling. Some bookshelves are stacked to the brim with hardback books, science, maths, history, and everything else. Other shelves have two layers of paperback science fiction, with the back layer of books propped up on old tissue boxes or lengths of wood, so that you can see the back layer of books above the books in front. And it still isn't enough. Books are overflowing onto the tables and the sofas and making little heaps under the windows. This is the living room of the house occupied by the eminent professor Michael Varys Evans and his wife, Mrs. Petunia Evans Varys, and their adopted son, Harry James Potter Evans Varys.

Jake 34:23

So maybe I should have realized this way, way sooner, but this author is like all the way autistic, yeah?

Anthea 34:34

I can neither confirm nor deny. I wouldn't I would not be surprised. Um yeah, I mean, uh a dude who has spent years and years and years of his life creating a rigid set of rules by which to live his life.

Jake 34:48

Again, like I said, I probably should have realized this a lot sooner.

SPEAKER_06 34:51

No worries. I will also note that uh for the Jakes in the room, you may not recall, but Petunia is Harry's aunt in the books. Um, because she's his mom's sister.

Jake 35:02

Um was she like the wicked aunt?

SPEAKER_06 35:05

She sucks, yeah. Yeah, she's bad. But I think what's interesting here is that already Yatkowski has decided if I want Harry to have any chance of living a rational life, that that Dursley guy has gotta go. Petunia can stay, but she needs to pick a different man. Which I'm gonna put a little little page marker in that in terms of what about this fanfic overlaps so much with people who also like fascism. Because it is so right out of this DeFault Molyneux playbook of like, well, it started, the problem started when this woman chose a suboptimal man. That's that's really interesting.

Anthea 35:44

I hadn't thought of that.

SPEAKER_06 35:46

Yeah.

Anthea 35:47

Yeah, you don't even know where we're going with this.

SPEAKER_06 35:49

I actually am having a flashback because we watched that strange Eons video of like the fact that these guys apparently all sit around saying very rational things to each other and like doing logic puzzles.

Anthea 36:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a lot of this. There is a letter lying on the living room table and an unstamped envelope of yellowish parchment addressed to Mr. H. Potter in Emerald Green Inc. The professor and his wife are speaking sharply at each other, but they are not shouting. The professor considers shouting to be uncivilized. You're joking, Michael said to Petunia. His tone indicated that he was very much afraid that she was serious. I don't want my primary mode of critique here to be proofreading issues, but I don't understand why we've switched tenses.

Jake 36:30

See, my primary issue was being distracted by wasn't the professor and his wife a lyric from Gilligan's Island opening theme?

Anthea 36:36

I think so, yeah.

Jake 36:37

So I lost the rest of it after that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:40

I thought it was a millionaire and his wife. Oh, is it? Yeah. The Professor and Marianne.

Jake 36:44

Oh, that's what it was. Okay. Well, I assume that those four were just a polycule on the island.

SPEAKER_06 36:49

I hope so.

Anthea 36:50

Yeah eventually, right?

SPEAKER_06 36:51

Eventually you have to.

Anthea 36:53

You gotta. You're joking, Michael said to Petunia. His tone indicated that he was very much afraid that she was serious. My sister was a witch, Petunia repeated. All I can hear is her si what was her sister? A witch. She looked frightened but stood her ground. Her husband was a wizard. This is absurd, Michael said sharply. They were at our wedding. They visited for Christmas. I told them you weren't to know, Petunia whispered, but it's true. I've seen things. The professor rolled his eyes. Dear, I understand that you're not familiar with the skeptical literature. You may not realize how easy it is for a trained magician to fake the seemingly impossible. Remember how I taught Harry to bend spoons? If it seemed like they could always guess what you were thinking, that's called cold reading.

Jake 37:39

And now the woman knows.

Anthea 37:42

Yeah, I I to your point about like this, like, oh, one of the things that has to change in this universe is that she has to pick a better man. I I the professor sucks.

SPEAKER_06 37:53

I don't like him. Um, so I have two things that are both one is like a yellow flag and one is kind of a green flag, okay. Yellow flag for me is uh why is she scared of him? Right? In a rational, in a rational environment, you shouldn't be scared of disagreeing with your spouse because um the best idea will win. The most rational. This is me assuming, because again, I don't know that much about the culture, but in my view of what would what would be rational, like the best idea will win, and then and there won't be any emotion necessarily invested in getting to that place. It's just laid out as a as a logic path. And then once you know the better logic, the rational thing to do is go, oh my gosh, thank you for educating me. Now I know better. Like why so the fact that she's scared of him is pretty wild. Uh two though, a green flag here. This guy's coming out swinging, but we know that he's not correct on this point. Right. So Yudkowski then would have to be setting up somebody who both inculcated Harry with all of this logic and rationality and a love of having so many books that you can't keep them on the shelves.

Jake 39:07

But you can count exactly how many are on each shelf.

SPEAKER_06 39:10

So good. So good. Um uh you think a rational person would just have an extra study. Uh, but um, but so so he inculcated these values in Harry or Harry with these values. Uh but he also is fallible because Well, okay, as of right now he's fallible. Right. Because um because of the way that he he's incorrect about this. Then again, if this scene unfolds in such a way that they demonstrate rationally and he completely changes his mind and comes on board and is then more correct than Petunia about something, I will reverse this green flag and it will become another yellow. Indeed.

Anthea 39:49

Indeed. Um, I do uh I mean yeah, I yes, you have all the same thoughts I had on first reading this. Cause yeah, I do I like in the in the interest of of fairness and and giving credit where credit is due, I do think it's interesting to set up this, like, this figure in Harry's early life of someone who is very skeptical and rational and also is totally wrong.

Jake 40:15

Like Yeah, and we're demonstrating that Harry has an insufferable role model in his life.

SPEAKER_06 40:20

Yes, yes, yeah, good stuff. I bet that'll make him he'll have a great picker moving forward for role models. Oh yeah. Um I do also think, you know, the other part of it, to steal man again, is like, um, and I'm not gonna do this on every single line. That's my job, it's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, but I do think like the other way that you could have gone with this is to be like, oh well, Petunia could have tried to hide it from him, but he's so rational and smart that he was able to piece it together.

Anthea 40:46

Sure, sure. So Petunia explains um that she was not always pretty. She's pretty now. In this in this universe, she Yudkowski references her lithe form. Oh, thank God we improved.

Jake 40:58

Yeah, I'm glad I'm not hearing about an uggo being written about.

Anthea 41:01

Yeah, yeah. Thank God we improved the woman. Yes, yeah. Um So she looks maxed? She looks, yes, yes. Uh she was not always pretty She wasn't always pretty. Um Lily was always prettier than her. And when Lily went to Hogwarts, uh Petunia begged Lily to make her pretty.

SPEAKER_06 41:20

And uh So that she could attract a high-quality man instead of Vernon Dursley.

Anthea 41:27

I mean, it it's kind of implied that it's because she was just jealous, right? And that she was sad about being less pretty than her sister. Oh, well, that's nice. Uh tears were gathering in Petunia's eyes, and Lily would tell me no and make up the most ridiculous excuses. Like the world would end if she were nice to her sister, or a centaur told her not to. The most ridiculous things, and I hated her for it. And when I had just graduated from university, I was going out with this boy, Vernon Dursley. He was fat, and he was the only boy who would talk to me. Oh my fucking god.

Jake 42:00

So I must back it up a bit. But if a centaur told me not to do something, I wouldn't do the thing.

SPEAKER_06 42:06

Yeah. I would do the thing. Centaurs are rambunctious losers.

Anthea 42:10

Yeah, yeah. Uh I was going out with this boy, Vernon Dursley. He was fat, and he was the only boy who would talk to me. And he said he wanted children, and then his first son would be named Dudley. And I thought to myself.

Jake 42:26

What a wonderful life.

Anthea 42:30

There is a very it's a wonderful life feeling here. I hate that Vernon Dursley has the gift of prophecy. And I thought to myself, what kind of parent names their child Dudley Dursley? It was like I saw my whole future life stretching out in front of me, and I couldn't stand it. And I wrote to my sister and told her that if she didn't help me, I'd rather just Petunia stopped.

SPEAKER_06 42:54

Hey Lily, this is gonna sound pretty convincing, but I had a vision of my future life, and if you don't looks max me, I'll jump in. I'll kill myself. Yeah, yes.

Jake 43:08

Yeah, I'm either gonna marry a fatty or off myself, and I don't know which one's worse. Yep, those are my make me pretty. Yep. I'm the protagonist.

Anthea 43:17

I mean, listen, like, I yeah, there's there's a lot about this that I find uh distasteful, to say the least.

Jake 43:27

What do you mean?

Anthea 43:28

It okay.

SPEAKER_06 43:29

The the thing that the thing that gets me about this is that within the I mean, so this is something that doesn't really line up with Manosphere Red Pilling because the Manosphere Red Pillars are very, very upset and have been for many years now. I gotta it's at least 20 at this point. Um they've been upset by the fact that a woman can basically go out and have sex with like any man she wants, no matter how ugly she is, because men are. Wanna fuck and women don't. Um and they kind of hate the idea of like free association.

Anthea 44:08

Right. Um but so I've been you know in in the sense of freedom of association rather than like free associating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 44:17

Freedom of association. They c they kind of hate that. Um and it's interesting because when I was this when I was the same age that Petunia describes herself being in this in this passage, I was constantly being told that like I didn't feel like I could, you know, get any guy or that I had a wide range of options. So the fact that she doesn't believe this to be true is one thing. Um but uh but like what I was always being told, especially by men, was that like, oh no no no, like you can really just go out. Like if you wanted to go out tonight and get sex, you could just do it. Um which was probably accurate. Right. Uh but like so, but I think that the difference between this is that it's it's a contrafactual to Harry Potter canon. Right. So we know that the difference here is that Petunia asked to be made hot with magic. Yes. And that we know that she has since become hot with magic. Yes. Nothing further, Your Honor.

Anthea 45:25

Um This also introduces something that we are going to see a lot of, which is Yudkowski taking side shots at the original book, like with the Dudley Dursley, like who would name their kid Dudley Dursley thing? That one I was like, good one.

Jake 45:38

Yeah, it's is is alliteration not part of rationality?

Anthea 45:42

I g I guess. I guess. Like, and I only as a learning aid.

Jake 45:48

It's also like a super British name.

Anthea 45:50

It's very British.

Jake 45:51

It's like hyper British.

Anthea 45:52

Yeah, yeah. Dudley is such a yeah. And you are free to disagree with me on this. To me, the number of pot shots he takes at the original canon feels disrespectful, and I have very mixed feelings about that, because I'm also like, how much respect should we give to Harry Potter at this point in the year of Our Lord 2026?

SPEAKER_06 46:14

Disrespect, JK Rowling!

Jake 46:21

I mean, I I don't feel like anything is should be immune from, you know, criticism or dissection or you know, people are like whether people are right or not, I don't think it matters. Like you know, you can take as many paw shots as you want at something. If it doesn't deserve those pa shots, then you just look dumb.

SPEAKER_06 46:40

Sure, sure. It is a little strange to be like, I'm gonna use this as my framing device. That I and I hate my framing device. That's that's part of it, I think.

Jake 46:50

It rings a of like I've known a lot of folks who have like, for example, like played World of Warcraft for 20 years and have done nothing but complain about how shit of a game World of Warcraft is. Right. It's like this this text is terrible. Let me write 600,000 words about it.

Anthea 47:05

Yes, yeah. And I and I understand I've I've written some spite fanfic before, like, and but this is not I I don't know, it it feels weird to me. And like partly I'm using this to to as an entree to say, like, uh outs like part of part of what I am struggling with in terms of this uh podcast, or you know, not struggling, but like one of the one of the things that I think about when when thinking about this whole project is like aside from I I think reasonable people can disagree reasonably about the quality of Harry Potter qua Harry Potter. Um what I don't think we can disagree about reasonably is that JK Rowling sucks as a person.

SPEAKER_06 47:51

Yeah.

Jake 47:52

Yeah. Like she made me stay late at work once.

Anthea 47:55

Did you oh that's right!

Jake 47:56

Yeah.

Anthea 47:56

Yeah, yeah. She's had she's had an actual well, but you made it.

Jake 48:00

I think she did other bad stuff too, but like that's that's I think the worst of it.

Anthea 48:03

Yeah. Like, whatever, whoever and whatever she was when she wrote Harry Potter, she is now hateful, disingenuous, and a hack. Um, and she uses her money and fame from Harry Potter to hurt people, specifically trans people, specifically in the UK. But uh, given historical trends, her pet project of trying to legislate trans people out of existence in Britain is pretty clearly paving the way for the return of old school homophobia and old school misogyny and fascism. Again, like that's not yet cow, like we're we're in a different, like there's another person who's who's Kevin Bacon number from fashion.

Jake 48:46

I was gonna say we have not glimpsed Kevin Bacon yet.

Anthea 48:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jake 48:50

Fascism, that's like the fourth time they've they've come to hung out.

SPEAKER_06 48:53

Yeah, exactly. Yes, yeah.

Jake 48:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 48:54

I do think also that in terms of the what it says to me is that the idea of here's my framing narrative that I don't like, and I'm gonna like make little I'm gonna take side swipes that. Yeah, it kind of does, it does heighten the feeling that more than anything else, this is a a propagandizing tool. Right.

Jake 49:18

Yeah, I mean I I I read it as just a blatant, like, look how much smarter and better of a writer I am.

Anthea 49:23

Yeah.

Jake 49:24

Like I could have written this so much better.

Anthea 49:26

I think, and I do think that there's a large part it it's it's it's interest, yes, I think that that's a huge part of it, right? Is that like is is a sense of superiority over the source text.

SPEAKER_04 49:36

Yeah.

Anthea 49:37

Um, because there's a sense of superiority over most things coming from Yudkowski. Uh anyway, back at it. Uh Petunia says that Lily gave her a potion that made her pretty. Michael offers a more reality-based explanation. He says maybe you got sick, and then when you were recovering, your skin cleared up and you got pretty.

Jake 49:58

Totally rational. I remember like every time I get a cold, and then afterwards I'm like, look at my jawline.

SPEAKER_06 50:04

Right, yeah, yeah. Yes, I frequently become more lithe after periods of illness.

Anthea 50:10

Petunia, Michael said. The annoyance was creeping into his voice. You know that can't be true. Do I really have to explain why? Petunia wrung her hands. She seemed to be on the verge of tears. My love, I know I can't win arguments with you, but please you have to trust me on this.

Jake 50:26

So wait, if you take the potion at different points in history, does it make you look different? Does the potion know what the current ideal like appearance is?

Anthea 50:36

Interesting.

Jake 50:36

Like if if you took this, you know, 300 years ago, would it fill out your figure and make your face rounder? Right. Versus making you live these days. Or is like, or is this potion is this a litheness potion that was crafted.

SPEAKER_06 50:50

Oh, right. Here's my magic hack for this. It's a beauty potion, and it and and if you source fresh ingredients, it will give you a beauty outcome that's contemporaneous with attitudes in the area and at the time period where the ingredients were sourced from.

SPEAKER_05 51:03

I like it.

SPEAKER_06 51:04

But if you got ingredients from really far away or you freeze-dried them or otherwise preserved them for hundreds of years, you might get a different result.

Anthea 51:11

I like it. I like it.

SPEAKER_06 51:12

Makes as much sense as anything else. I could have written the Harry Potter book.

Jake 51:17

So if if there's a lot of like olives in it, you'd be Romanesque.

Anthea 51:20

Yes. Yeah. I feel like there's a yes. I feel like you're making a joke that I'm also not entirely getting. Is it just about olives? Yes. Okay.

Jake 51:32

And the Mediterranean.

Anthea 51:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jake 51:34

I've been doing it. That's it. You were you were trying to give me more credit than I deserved for the joke.

Anthea 51:39

You know. Uh again, that's my job. Um, I hate this moment where she says, I know I can't win arguments with you. It's so sad. It makes me I like, I'm like, I don't should I I don't know why I care at all about Petunia, not Nursley, but I am like, this sucks! This sucks. I I mean I think it's indicative of something about Yudkowski's attitude towards women. Maybe.

SPEAKER_06 52:04

It just it's sad to see. What I've seen so far is that she's scared of her partner. She feels like less than him, and she's begging to be taken seriously about something that matters a great deal, both to her and to their child.

Anthea 52:16

And I think it's a weird, I do think it's like I think part of what strikes me as so strange about it is that this is supposed to be a better timeline for Harry. And that never and that like all indications that we get are that he had a good childhood, and this doesn't scream like stable household to me.

Jake 52:46

Yeah, like I it seems to be just thinking like, as long as he's not literally being physically abused or like blatantly emotionally abused, then it's fine.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

Right.

Jake 52:57

Even if there is, like Elisa was saying, like, there's still plenty of like psychological abuse going on for Petunia here.

Anthea 53:04

Seems like. Seems like.

Jake 53:06

But as long as you're not literally stuck under the cupboard or under the stairs, then like, you know, then it's fine.

Anthea 53:12

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't I mean, I might be I might be overindexing on it, but uh it bothers me. Dad, Mum! The two of them stopped and looked at Harry as though they'd forgotten there was a third person in the room.

Jake 53:24

Oh shit, we have a kid. Where'd the where'd this guy come from?

Anthea 53:29

Harry took a deep breath. Mum, your parents didn't have magic, did they? No, Petunia said, looking puzzled. Then no one in your family knew about magic when Lily got her letter. How did they get convinced? Ah, Petunia said. They didn't just send a letter. They sent a professor from Hogwarts. He, Petunia's eyes flicked to Michael, he showed us some magic. Then you don't have to fight over this, Harry said firmly, hoping against hope that this time, just this once, they would listen to him. Oh my god! If it's true, we can just get a Hogwarts professor here and see the magic for ourselves, and Dad will admit that it's true. And if it's not, then Mum will admit that it's false. That's what the experimental method is for, so that we don't have to resolve things just by arguing.

Jake 54:11

I saw a wizard on Fiverr. They'll come over and cast some spells for us.

SPEAKER_06 54:17

Um, okay. Holy adultification, Batman. Oh man! So I'm an 11-year-old figuring if I can just be rational enough, then my father will stop belittling my mother in front of me.

Jake 54:30

The parable of Cheedy Anagonier taught us that this is totally fine.

Anthea 54:35

The professor turned and looked down at him, dismissive as usual. Oh come now. Jesus Christ! Oh come now, Harry. Really, magic? I thought you'd know better than to take this seriously, son, even if you're only ten. Magic is just about the most unscientific thing there is.

SPEAKER_06 54:51

Oh, I'm sorry, he's ten, and trying to believe that if he's only rational enough he can convince his father not to belittle his mother in front of him.

Anthea 54:59

Yeah, yep. Harry's mouth twisted bitterly. He was treated well, probably better than most genetic fathers treated their own children. Harry had been sent to the best primary schools, and when that didn't work out, he was provided with tutors from the endless pool of starving students.

Jake 55:13

You can tell you're treating your child well when their mouth twists bitterly.

Anthea 55:18

At ten, they've known bitterness. Always Harry had been encouraged to study whatever caught his attention, bought all the books that caught his fancy, sponsored in whatever maths or science competitions he entered. He was given anything reasonable that he wanted, except maybe the slightest shred of respect. A doctor teaching biochemistry at Oxford could hardly be expected to listen to the advice of a little boy. You would listen to show interest, of course. That's what a good parent would do. And so, if you conceived of yourself as a good parent, you would do it. But take a ten year old seriously, hardly. Sometimes Harry wanted to scream at his father.

Jake 55:56

I mean, kids aren't people, so this checks out.

Anthea 55:58

I mean, yeah, like there's a strong element of like, no, you shouldn't take advice from a ten-year-old.

Jake 56:03

Yeah, I'm I'm honestly unclear what the story is advocating here. Like, is it saying his father was right to do this, or his father should have been taking him more seriously?

Anthea 56:12

Uh okay, again, like I I d like I said, what huh what when are we can you tell me whether Yudkowski thinks this is correct or not? Because I don't know.

Jake 56:24

I mean, conventional writing wisdom would be the protagonist is the one whose perspective we should sympathize with, so we should be treating his father as wrong for not listening to him more.

Anthea 56:35

Right. But right.

Jake 56:38

I I I don't know where to go with.

Anthea 56:40

But logic says that you should that it is totally reasonable to not take advice from a ten-year-old.

SPEAKER_06 56:46

Well, okay, so for me what I see wrong with this specifically is that he doesn't it's okay, all of the stuff that he's being given are resources. Um we don't even get information about why school didn't work out. Is it because he removed the glass in a snake's enclosure on a field trip? We do get this eventually. Oh, okay. Okay, but for right now we don't know. Yeah, right now we don't. So that implies something irregular, perhaps something that was traumatizing or emotionally damaging to Harry, but we don't get details. Then we get this idea that he never experienced a shred of respect.

Jake 57:22

Yeah, that's that's different than not listening to someone.

SPEAKER_06 57:25

That's yes, exactly. That goes beyond, but also like, you know, he like something that parents do, many of them do without ever reading a parenting book, or they just simply do it naturally, is go, all right, sport, which sweater should I wear out? Like, you know, uh, we're gonna get we're gonna get some groceries and then you can pick one thing. Like, we're all of these ways to show a child that their opinion matters and that their choices matter and that they are being listened to, even if you shouldn't necessarily take advice from a small child. Right. That helps kids uh build self-esteem. Yeah. So on the one hand, I would say that because again, of the laws, the laws of writing in fiction is that the protagonist is right. We also know that magic is real, so this guy is totally wrong. And the longer that he belabors the point, the more like a dick he seems. But on the other hand, the solution to the problem uh of Harry feeling like he's never gotten a shred of respect from his father would be for his father to acknowledge that there are things that don't have to do with provable fact per se. Like fact in the sense of like I don't know what's his specialty again. He's a biochemical. Okay. Something that doesn't have to do with what you would what you would prove through experimenting in the biochemical field. Um but that is empirically proven in like child development and psychological studies that you that that children need to children need to develop self-esteem, both by watching their parents model behaviors or whoever's raising them model behaviors that are positive, and by getting uh by by being given respect, uh being given opportunities that are developmentally appropriate to self-actualize, to have autonomy. Um and these are things that it feels like are are totally missing. But I think that if since the solution would be to involve something that's in the soft sciences, I don't know that Yankowski would be in favor. So it's a hard one.

Jake 59:34

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like anything that doesn't fit into the scientific method is just not worth considering in this world.

Anthea 59:39

It's funny you should say that. Mom, Harry said, if you want to win this argument with dad, look in chapter two of the first book of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. There's a quote Oh my god. There's a quote there about how philosophers say a great deal about what science absolutely requires, and it is all wrong, because the only rule in science is that the final arbiter is observation. That you just have to look at the world and report what you see. Um, off the top of my head, I can't think of where to find something about how it's an ideal of science to settle things by experiment instead of arguments.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:11

Okay, I take it back. Don't take advice from this kid.

Anthea 1:00:14

So I went to look for it. Here's what Feynman says. Philosophers incidentally say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive and probably wrong. What is the fundamental hypothesis of science, the fundamental philosophy? We stated it in the first chapter. The sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment. Um I I excerpted a whole lot more than that, but TLDR, Feynman says that some philosopher or other, which I take issue with, uh, it's said it's fundamental to science that an experiment done in Stockholm will have the same result if it's done in Queto. He dismantles this idea because, of course, it depends on the experiment. Keto and Stockholm are at wildly different latitudes, altitudes, climates, etc., so some experiments would be affected by those variables. Like if you baked a cake in keto because it's very high altitude, you would get a different cake than if you baked one in Stockholm. Um so Feynman's point is that science or the scientific method, or scientific philosophy, whatever, uh we uh he and Dudkowski talk about science like it's an entity instead of a methodology, and that's gonna happen a lot, and I don't know why I'm trying to train myself out of it. But science does not actually expect perfect reproducibility. Science expects that you do the experiment, and if it produces different results, you take what you see, what you actually experience, and formulate your ideas based on that. Anyway. This is an interesting poll for Harry to make because Feynman is talking about quantum physics and how scientists now have to recognize that you can't actually exactly predict things because quantum mechanics makes everything spooky. All you can do is take the average from multiple experiments. Rhetorically, I think Harry is making a fine point by suggesting that they perform a test of the statement magic is real and observe the results and accept who is correct based on observation. Scientifically, he's off a little bit because you should do multiple experiments.

Jake 1:02:16

I also think he's just being exhausting because this is just just you wizards exist. Just talk to one.

Anthea 1:02:23

I talk to a wizard, right. Like, I mean he's he's right, right? Like, what you do need to do is like have a wizard come and do some magic. Like, I he's he's totally correct here.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:34

Or have multiple wizards come and do some magic.

Anthea 1:02:36

Ideally.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:37

Or go to where the wizards are and observe how things work over there.

Anthea 1:02:40

Yeah, yeah. His mother looked down at him and smiled. I forgot about this. His mother looked down at him and smiled. Thank you, Harry, but her head rose back up to stare at her husband. I don't want to win an argument with your father. I want my husband to to listen to his wife who loves him and trust her just this once. Harry closed his eyes briefly. Hopeless. Both of his parents were just hopeless.

Jake 1:03:04

And she said that while staring at her husband. Am I reading that correctly? Okay, cool. That's sounds vaguely dissociative, almost.

Anthea 1:03:10

A little bit. Oh, that's heartbreaking. Now his parents were go getting into one of those arguments again. One where his mother tried to make his father feel guilty, and his father tried to make his mother feel stupid.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:22

She's not trying to make him feel guilty, though. She's expressing her needs. Her relationship needs. So put one in the column for Yudkowski thinks woman expressing needs is woman guilt tripping. Yep.

Jake 1:03:35

Yeah, feelings are things you're made to have from women.

Anthea 1:03:38

You're right. Yes, yes, that does sound true. Yes, yes. Uh so Harry goes to his room while Petunia and Michael continue arguing, and he starts to wrestle with the fact that the most probable explanation here is that his mother is crazy. But the explanation that feels true to him is that magic is real. That's really interesting. Uh some uh back to quote, quoting from the text. Except that some part of Harry was utterly convinced that magic was real, and had been since the instant he saw the putative letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry rubbed his forehead, grimacing. Don't believe everything you think one of his books had said. I did a little bit of searching because I wanted to see if I could figure out what book this is, because a lot of a lot of this is me being like, alright, Yudkowski, you're you're giving me reading to do, right? Implicitly. Let's find out what it is. Um my best guess is that it's Thomas E. Kita's Don't Believe Everything You Think, which was published in 2006 and recommended on Less Wrong in 2011. Uh it is possible that the phrase appears in other books about bias and rationality, and that's what Red Yudkowski is referencing here. Searching less wrong for the phrase turns up many results, and I would venture to say that the phrase runs the risk of becoming the most ironic thought-terminating cliche imaginable. As long as it's actually applied when it's invoked, it's probably fine, insofar as it's an injunction to yourself to examine what you're actually thinking, what Tiffany Aiking in Terry Prades' books would call second or third thoughts. What I would worry about with it is becoming a thought-terminating cliche like person A is talking to person B, and A says, I think the COVID vaccine is probably fine, and B says, don't believe everything you think. Have you considered how rapid the development process was and how much room for error that introduces? Have you considered the history of the US government performing medical malpractice on its citizenry for nefarious ends? Have you considered the economic pressures of pharmaceutical companies that could lead them to give you incomplete information about the dangers of a brand new vaccine? And the first person goes, ah, I do have to think about all of those things. I can't just trust my first thought. Uh, and in fact, I should not trust my first thought, even though, in this case, the first thought is correct. Like, because If you are a rationalist, if you're a relatively smart person, which I think the people who end up in the rationality uh community tend to be better read and than than the average person, which is not the same as intelligence, but you know, correlates. Um, you've very rapidly applied a bunch of heuristics to say the vaccine is probably fine. And like that's your first thought is the vaccine is probably fine. But then you get this this injunction to don't believe everything you think. Ideally, you consider all of those objections and you can dismiss them. But I think that you run the risk of people using it to just say the the first thing you think is always incorrect, or like that becoming the heuristic.

Jake 1:06:52

It sounds like one of those things that it can just be used so broadly that it's almost useless. It it's it sounds almost more just like a fancy way to say I don't agree with you.

Anthea 1:07:00

Trevor Burrus Because it's a thought term. Right, and that's the thought term you can cliche of it all, right? Yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. No, you said it much more succinctly than I did.

Jake 1:07:07

But it's it also sounds like the kind of thing that you would condition into a child who talks like Harry does in this novel to get them to stop talking.

Anthea 1:07:14

Right, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:14

Stop asking me why.

unknown 1:07:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:16

Don't believe everything you think. Stop asking me why and then quoting Richard Feynman.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:22

Uh but I'm glad that you brought heuristics into this because this does make me wonder about um rationalists. Uh it seems like they're kind that so far, what we've gleaned from this first chapter of HP Moore is like that you have to reason your way to everything from first principles. And yeah, it just sounds tedious. It sounds tedious because cognitive heuristics are an incr are an uh an evolutionary strategy that we use to sort information and save us time so that we can get on with stuff that actually matters.

Anthea 1:07:54

And I can tell you with certainty that Gudkowski knows this because I have read Influence, which he cites as one of his as something the um That's why you read Influence.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:07

Yeah. Um I was just like, well, Anthea has a range of interests.

Anthea 1:08:13

Um Influence is a is a 1981-82 book by uh social psychologist, uh Robert Cialdini, um, that I'll get into at a later date, I'm positive. Uh, but he describes it as the click whir uh of like uh you know uh that that brains get a stimulus and it's like pushing a button on a tape recorder and it just plays a tape. So he's like, you get a stimulus, click whir, you get a response. Like but he's talking about heuristics. He's talking about, you know, an algorithm that you apply, you know, just in general. Um right, and so don't believe everything you think is kind of saying like, don't trust any of your heuristics. Uh approach everything from first principles. And I'm I'm kind of making up a rationalist to get mad at, but I'm not. Uh so Harry decides he doesn't, he's not sure where this uh feeling is coming from, but he decides and he does have he does kind of wrestle with that a little bit. He decides to write a letter to uh deputy headmistress Minerva McGonagall saying, please send a professor to come prove that magic is real.

Jake 1:09:28

I'm a child, please give me a professor.

Anthea 1:09:30

Yeah, yeah. Uh his father was sitting in the living room and reading a book of higher maths to show how smart he was, and his mother was in the kitchen preparing one of his father's favorite meals to show how loving she was. It didn't look like they were talking to one another at all. As scary as arguments could be, not arguing was somehow much worse.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:48

Jesus Christ.

Jake 1:09:50

I've never pouted so much that I read a calc book in a different room.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:55

Oh no, that's relatable to me. Not the calculus per se, but I've I've done similar things.

Jake 1:10:00

I've been a pouty bitch before, don't don't worry. But just the idea of just like, you know, angrily reading a calc book being like she's gonna see how smart I am now, like, is kind of wild.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:11

The expression of virtue through reading non dense nonfiction texts at people is something I do relate to on a bone level. Um, but also like, gosh, that's also such a cynical framing of of how they're both reacting.

Jake 1:10:25

Yeah, no, I thought you were editorializing at first.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:28

No, that's that's the text. And it's coming from Harry's perspective, but it's also like, well, what happened to don't believe everything you think? Like, what if his dad is reading calculus because his emotions are wounded and he wants to retreat into something that gives him a feeling of certainty? And uh Petunia really does want to prove that she's loving, but not in a manipulative per se way. She just like wants to be like, look, no matter what, we're in this together and I'm gonna make your favorite food. But my feelings are still hurt. Right. Yeah. But of course, the fact that a 10-year-old think it goes to that cynical place about both of his parents um is another sign of something really fucked up in this house.

Jake 1:11:09

Yeah, I mean that's that's what honestly, one of the more realistic parts of the story so far is that your child in this environment would think those things.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:15

Yeah, the adverse childhood events of Harry Potter's home.

Anthea 1:11:19

Of Harry James Potter, Varys Evans, please. Oh, yeah, sorry. Varys Evans? Yes. Okay. The Feynman stuff is one of the things where I am like because my my dad used to quote Feynman a lot. Uh as an adult man.

Jake 1:11:38

Have you watched the Angela Collier video on Feynman? Not yet, not yet.

Anthea 1:11:42

Yeah, yeah. Um okay, where were we? Uh oh sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can I can wait. Um, I'm trying to see if I if I uh if I skipped anything important in that section. I don't think so. Again. Uh adverse childhood events. Mom, Harry said into the unnerving silence, I'm going to test the hypothesis. According to your theory, how do I send an owl to Hogwarts? His mother turned from the kitchen sink to stare at him, looking shocked. I I don't know. I think you just have to own a magic owl. That should have sounded highly suspicious. Oh, so there's no way to test your theory then. But the peculiar certainty in Harry seemed willing to stick its neck out even further. Well, the letter got here somehow, Harry said. So I'll just wave it around outside and call a letter for Hogwarts and see if an owl picks it up. Dad, do you want to come and watch? His father shook his head minutely and kept on reading. Of course, Harry thought to himself, magic was a disgraceful thing that only stupid people believed in. If his father went so far as to test the hypothesis, or even watch it being tested, that would feel like associating himself with that.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:00

Only I think it's I just think it's crazy that both Petunia and I'm sorry, what's his dad's name? Michael. Michael. That they're both being I what I'm getting out of this is that Harry is the perfect blend of emotion and rationality. But it's being portrayed as like, look, they're both wrong. Michael thinks magic is fucking stupid, and anyone who even tries to test the hypothesis is a childish clown. And Petunia wants to be listened to. Right. When you look at it that way, they both aren't perfect.

Jake 1:13:37

This this is just another instance where it sounds exhausting, where it's like, why don't they just write it's like, hey, Harry asked how to call them.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:44

Sure.

Jake 1:13:45

No, I have to have a hypothesis about what's the what's the way that's like, no, just like, hey, mom, how how do we call Hogwarts?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:53

Yeah. Right, right. It's giving fifty shades in the sense that everything must, every moment must be accounted for.

Jake 1:13:58

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:00

Man.

Jake 1:14:04

There cannot be implied interiority. There can only be explicit interior thoughts.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:08

There also can't be implied like passage of time or reasoning from point A to point D, um, or transportation. Right. Which is a Fifty Shades of Grey specific critique. Because every moment that they're in a vehicle in Seattle is meticulously documented.

Jake 1:14:25

Well, and also, isn't every single meal accounted for, or is that a different fanfic I'm thinking of?

SPEAKER_06 1:14:29

No, every single meal is accounted for in Fifty Shades of Grey, which is why it's one of the great modern unwitting depictions of disordered eating.

Anthea 1:14:37

I'm a hundred percent sure that.

Jake 1:14:40

That makes a lot of sense.

Anthea 1:14:41

Yeah. Only as Harry stumped out the back door into the back garden did it occur to him that if an owl did come down and snatch the letter, he was going to have some trouble telling Dad about it. But, well, that can't really happen, can it? No matter what my brain seems to believe. If an owl really comes down and grabs this envelope, I'm going to have worries a lot more important than what Dad thinks.

Jake 1:15:02

Well, also, if we want to keep this scientific, there should be another precocious child in the yard next door not waving a letter around to see if an owl swoops down at them.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:10

Indeed, he is. Right, because what if two owls both swoop down? Then it's just like there's something about little kids out in the backyard. Maybe there's just owls it's just it's just owl swooping season.

Jake 1:15:18

There can be two owls.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:19

Right, yeah. Right. Also, how sad for Harry, the 10-year-old, that he's like, hey dad, you want to come? Right, yeah. Oh, jeez. And then when his dad is like, no, he's like, yeah, that's what I thought, but I had to.

Jake 1:15:35

See, maybe I'm an asshole here, but I was kind of feeling for the dad in that instance where Harry's like, I'm gonna try to attract an owl with a letter. It's just like, this is this is my weekend kid. There's no owls. There's no just you can wave the letter. I'll watch you through the window. I just want to read my calc book poutily at your mom.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:52

Listen, this is my I look, I don't have children, but I don't rule out the possibility that someday I might. Um, and from what I've observed, just part of being a parent is dealing with stupid kid shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:05

Mom! Mom, I'm gonna do Dad! Dad, I can do a backflip! Dad! Dad, I'm gonna do like are you watching? Are you watching Dad! Dad, are you watching? You're not watching!

Jake 1:16:16

Yeah, no, like honestly, like this passage has having the thought of like, man, if I was on the fence, I'd have had kids before.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:21

Like, oh yeah, absolutely. Cause what if one of them turned out to be like hey, this this tiny child is not that far removed from like what the the range of children that there are that you could have.

Jake 1:16:33

Oh yeah, no, because especially if I had a kid. Like, there were like most of the forking paths in my life led to me being a rationalist asshole like this. It is This is absolutely through, you know, the grace of circumstance that I am making fun of them instead of being made fun of right now.

Anthea 1:16:48

I feel very, very, very much the same. Like, like their butt for the grace of something go lie. Like, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:58

Interesting. So I'm the odd, I'm the odd one out in this podcasting trio.

Anthea 1:17:02

Which is interesting because I, as far as we know, you're the most autistic.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:05

Yeah, that is true.

Jake 1:17:06

I don't know. I play a lot of Factorial. I have I have scheduled some elaborate train networks in my day, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:14

Wait, no, I'm gonna immediately backtrack and say that I don't know, but I do think that if there is a way to have a TISM off, that we should do it, and it would be funny.

Jake 1:17:23

But I think we have very different flavors.

Anthea 1:17:25

That's true. No one here is neurotypical. Oh no. Well, for sure. Yeah.

Jake 1:17:29

We're all performers, so you know, we pass as normies.

Anthea 1:17:32

Yes, yeah, yeah, we're overcompensating. Um, I I do, okay, I do want to stay on this topic though for a second. Of like, one of the things that I find fascinating is that like there is, I think that there's a very 10-year-old logic of uh I will go out with this letter and wave it around in the air. But like, real 10-year-old. Yes. As opposed to the weird 10-year-old that we got earlier in this chapter where he's like, I mean, there is the adultification idea that you, you know, or like possibility that you called out, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:07

Like, yeah, well, uh when where I see the adultification is in stuff like I want to get my parents to stop fighting, and it's my responsibility. It's my responsibility, and something I have the ability to do if I can just figure out the right way to do it. Right. That's adultification. Right. I think the I better, as a 10-year-old, extend an emotional olive branch to my father who is sulking. That's adultification. The mother, father, the purpose of scientific inquiry is that we that shit is like, okay, that's an uncanny value.

Jake 1:18:36

That is an adult man trying to write a child.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:38

Exact yes, yes. Like, what would a smart child say? And it's like a smart child would say weird, weird shit. A smart child would say, I'm gonna go outside and yell letter for Hogwarts and see if there's an owl. Right, yes, I'm gonna be able to do that.

Jake 1:18:49

Yeah, a smart child would show you their elaborate Minecraft creation.

Anthea 1:18:52

Right. Like, yes, and I do think that that is like, if I think of myself as a 10-year-old gifted kid, I'm like, yeah, I can totally I I have a I have a gen like fond memory of reading again, there but for the grace of God go I. Here, here but for the grace of God go I. I have a fond memory of being about 10 and reading a math book for kids that was explaining like how to solve for X, and I didn't get it, and my dad was like, let's grab a roll of Smarties and we'll just and we'll do a physical like demonstration of it. And I understood how to solve for X after that. Like, like doing or or you know, similarly, I remember uh when I was a little kid, uh I was like, d what's the difference between toilet paper and writing paper? And my dad was like, well, let's do an experiment. Let's see what happens when you get both of them wet, right? Like That's so cute. Yes, I I grew I did I grew up in this house. Yes, I thought that did normal stuff. Yeah, not quite this house. I did not grow up with this level of like like weird tension. Thank God. I don't know. I I have looked into Yadkowski's biographical stuff a little bit. I don't remember if his parents are divorced or not. Uh I do know that he dropped out of high school and uh is and describes himself or is described in everything I could find as an autodidact.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:29

Oh, did he drop out of high school because he made the glass in a snake's enclosure disappear? Unclear. Okay, well seems as likely as anything. Put a pin in it.

Anthea 1:20:39

Yeah, yeah. Um but yeah, I I j like, yes, the there's there's moments where this really does feel like a smart 10-year-old. And then there's moments where it's like, that is an adult man trying to write a child, and uh that's really jarring. And I again, I don't know which one I'm supposed to believe. Uh Harry took a deep breath and raised the envelope into the air. He swallowed. Calling out letter for hogwarts while holding an envelope high in the air in the middle of your own back garden was actually pretty embarrassing now that he thought about it.

Jake 1:21:14

Cringe.

Anthea 1:21:16

No, I'm better than dad. Yeah, you are.

Jake 1:21:19

How many times have I yelled that?

Anthea 1:21:22

Yell that in your back garden. No, I'm better than dad. I will use the scientific method, even if it makes me feel stupid.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:31

I'm honestly gonna say, like, that one's fine for a 10-year-old.

Anthea 1:21:36

Yeah. Yeah. Letter, Harry said, but it actually came out as more of a whispered croak. Harry stealed his will and shouted into the empty sky, Letter for Hogwarts! Can I get an owl?

Jake 1:21:48

Can I get an owl?

Anthea 1:21:51

Can I get an apex predator?

Jake 1:21:53

Apex predator.

Anthea 1:21:56

An old woman's face peered out from above the neighboring fence, grizzled gray hair escaping from her hairnet.

Jake 1:22:01

Holy shit, said Harry.

Anthea 1:22:03

Mrs. Fig, the gosh, wait! Oh, Arabella! Oh my god, this is Arabella! What are you doing, Harry? Nothing, Harry said in a strangled voice, just testing a really silly theory. Did you get your acceptance letter from Hogwarts? Harry froze in place. Yes, Harry's lips said a little while later. I got a letter from Hogwarts.

Jake 1:22:29

J just his lips said it.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:30

Wait, so like, so I assume that's like a his mouth moved without his permission type of thing, but it's not written very well. But okay, Jake. Arabella Fig is a minor character in the Harry Potter books who is one of the like uh uh what's the group? She's a squib, right? She is a squib, but I thought she was also part of the city.

Jake 1:22:49

One of those blood packets that explode when in Hollywood effects.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:53

Um I think that she was, but she's also part of the secret society.

Anthea 1:22:56

Oh, the Order of the Phoenix? Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:58

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it turns out in later books that there was this whole group of people that were watching over Harry his entire childhood, but apparently had no idea how to get in contact with mortal CPS. Um and also it's something that J.K. Rowling made up way later because it would totally make sense for Arabella Figg if she was really monitoring Harry.

Anthea 1:23:18

This is, I mean, I think that this is consistent with the first book, though. She shows up and she's. I think she does yeah. She's she's established in the first book as well. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:27

I don't remember that.

Anthea 1:23:28

Yeah. But I maybe the I think maybe the bit about like she thought she's been laughing over him the whole time is a retcon from book five.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:35

I think that she maybe what I remember.

Anthea 1:23:37

But she is I do think that she's around in the first book.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:40

What it could be I could be wrong about this easier. I could be too. Yeah. But but if she is in the first book, like she's just kind of established as like normal neighbor.

Anthea 1:23:47

She's yeah, she's just like a weird, weird old lady.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:49

Yeah. Yeah. And like, and then it becomes so, but then I but I think it's much more reasonable for her to be like, oh, okay, Kayfabe time is over. He's going to Hogwarts now.

Anthea 1:23:59

Right. I got a letter from Hogwarts. They say they want my owl by the 31st of July, but but you don't have an owl. Poor dear. I can't imagine what someone must have been thinking, sending you just the standard letter. A wrinkled arm stretched out over the fence and opened an expectant hand.

Jake 1:24:16

That's some Magnus archive shit right there.

Anthea 1:24:19

I do love that too.

Jake 1:24:20

That he's the Yadkowski is like The wrinkled arm reached over the fence on grasping expectantly.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:30

Oh my gosh. Um that that Yadkowski is like, there are so many kids from Muggle families who are wizards. Why don't they have uh two different at least two different delivery systems for letters? And to be fair, I agree with him. To be fair, J.K. Rowling's world building sucks shit. So, like, yeah. Yeah.

Jake 1:24:54

Yeah, I forget who I'm quoting. It might be Brendan Lee Mulligan, but it's like, why would you make the world's slowest bird deliver your mail?

Anthea 1:25:02

Right. Right. Hardly even thinking at this point, Harry gave over his envelope. Just leave it to me, dear, said Mrs. Fig. And in a jiffy or two, I'll have someone over. And her face disappeared from over the fence. There was a long silence in the garden. Then a boy's voice said, calmly and quietly, what? And that concludes chapter one. Oh What a cliffhanger. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:29

Yeah, it's a little it's a little bit of a letdown. Jake, this is a serialized story in the format of a TV series of set number of episodes.

Anthea 1:25:38

There is a I mean, to be fair to that point, there is a real, like, that is the moment at which it cuts to commercial, right? Like Yeah, totally. It's very, it's very it's it's it's Waden-esque.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:49

Yeah, and the moment in like a fanfic of that era where it's like, okay, well, ideally you're planning on releasing the next chapter the next weekend, and then everybody else who reads the story forever is just gonna be able to click from, you know, chapter one immediately chapter two. Right, right. Um but uh also such a funny speaking of like Wien-esque, there's something about like, again, he's he's like trying to set up like this cinematic long pause and Harry going, What?

Jake 1:26:19

Yeah, you shouldn't have the character saying what you should be presenting a situation that makes the reader say what and want to be what it is.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:27

And even then though, it is it's interesting because it's like it's trying, he's trying to achieve its sounds like like a zoom out function by saying there's a long pause in the garden and then a boy's voice says but I got it.

Jake 1:26:39

Is it the boy's voice or the boy's lips?

SPEAKER_06 1:26:41

I think it was the voice. Okay. This time no lips involved. Okay. Okay. This time the voice no no lips. He's doing a ventriloquism. Yes. Um, but it made me momentarily confused about whether this was a new character. Like yes, or whether it was Harry. And I think like it just ultimately doesn't succeed in conveying the moment that like I can see the shape of the moment that he's trying to convey. Absolutely. But when I first listened to it, all I'm thinking about is like, wait, is there anything? Wait, what boy?

Anthea 1:27:09

Yeah, yeah. Right. And I mean, this this speaks to the fact that this, I think, like most fan fiction, has no editor.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:19

Like really clearly does not have an editor. The f this chapter has been britt picked up through chapter 17. Right, right. That's why the that's why the math books say maths. Maths, yes. If my maths is correct.

Anthea 1:27:33

Yes.

Jake 1:27:34

Do we find out why Harry exists, but Dudley doesn't?

SPEAKER_06 1:27:38

No, I don't I mean, not as far as I Vernon never had sex with Petunia, and thus the prophecy could not come to pass of a boy named Dudley Dursley.

Anthea 1:27:47

Uh he said he was gonna name his first kid Dudley, so presumably whatever woman he did fuck, he and and and got Preggers, he named that kid Dudley.

Jake 1:27:56

It doesn't affect what James and other lady did, right. Right. Right. Yeah, I forgot there was no direct totally different sets of parents there.

Anthea 1:28:05

Yes, yes, uh, yes, James and Lily are Harry's parents. They're dead.

Jake 1:28:09

Right. I kept thinking Petunia was was Harry's mom, but that is not correct.

Anthea 1:28:13

Yes, right.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:14

What was with that opening s that opening sequence? What was with that opening sequence? What is it? Yeah, like literally we know how Harry's parents were killed, and it's with the death curse. Right. Crucially.

Jake 1:28:28

It's some edgy bullshit.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:29

Does Harry have a lightning-shaped scar?

Anthea 1:28:32

Yes. Interesting. Yes. It has not been established in this chapter, but yes, he does. Okay. It comes up later.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:38

Yeah. So but then we so then we know that that whatever that like stabbing thing was.

Anthea 1:28:44

Well, we don't know. Yeah.

Jake 1:28:48

So what was the passage again? Because I've already mostly forgotten.

Anthea 1:28:51

Yeah, it wasn't. I think this is gonna be really important. I think this is an Easter egg. We gotta come back to this. Is it a massive it's it's a massive piece of evidence in plain sight?

Jake 1:29:01

I think it's an obscure clue.

Anthea 1:29:03

I think it's an obscure, massive clue that's in plain sight.

Jake 1:29:07

Yeah.

Anthea 1:29:08

Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line, black robes falling, blood spills out in liters, and someone screams a word.

Jake 1:29:18

I think it's a metaphor for menstruation.

Anthea 1:29:20

That's that's plausible. I didn't know that's fair. I'll take it. Also, leaders? Yes. Spelled the spelled the British way.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:28

Aw, hell yeah. Oh yeah, that got britpicked.

Anthea 1:29:31

Yeah, it got britt picked as hell. Um part of the I I mentioned this uh I think to you off air, Elisa, uh, is that I or yeah, no, I mentioned to both of you. I I thought about playing the podcast, uh, the audiobooks, but I think that the uh that there are acting choices made in the in the in the audiobook that uh would affect your perception of the text. And it's not that my choices won't.

Jake 1:30:02

But you're affecting it in the way you want to.

Anthea 1:30:03

Indeed. And I'm trying, I'm trying to be I'm trying to be neutral. I'm trying to give you the text as the text.

Jake 1:30:09

Although it's a very rational way to behave.

Anthea 1:30:11

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, plus it's useful reading.

Jake 1:30:14

That wasn't necessarily a compliment.

Anthea 1:30:15

I oh man, oh no. Yeah, yeah. So that's the end of chapter one. How what are you what are you what are we thinking? What are your impressions at this point?

Jake 1:30:24

I mean, it's actually less tedious than I was expecting. I know I've I've already used the word tedious repeatedly to describe things, but it is I I thought it was gonna be way more like propagandistic towards rationality.

Anthea 1:30:40

Yeah, yeah. No, I I I had a yes, I think the first chapter is not that.

Jake 1:30:46

Yeah, like it does actually seem concerned with telling a story, which isn't necessarily what I was expecting.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:51

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um, and very and I think the positive side of like we're going to reason everything through first principles is that Yatkowski seems concerned with like how am I gonna navigate through the story to this same endpoint given the givens that I have. Um that's actually kind of a good way to tell a story, right? Is to go like, okay, I need to get a character from A to B, but it needs to be in their way so that it is internally cohesive. So that part's cool. Yeah. Um I'm also just so haunted by this household. Yeah. It's like what I wasn't expecting was like that there was it was gonna be so that there was gonna be so much like unbalanced emotional behavior.

Anthea 1:31:38

It's not, I would not describe this as an abusive household. This is not a household I would call CPS on, but I would describe it as a household that's gonna give this kid issues.

Jake 1:31:48

Yeah, yeah. Well, and it also didn't seem entirely unrealistic for how some academic folks I've known have had relationships. Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:56

Yeah, absolutely. Like I wouldn't say that it's necessarily abusive, but it does sound like there's toxicity.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jake 1:32:04

Yeah, well, I mean, like and like abusive is a loaded word. Like I think there are emotional abuses and psychological abuses that weren't demonstrated. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know when that becomes a quote unquote abusive relationship.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:14

When do you c yeah, when do you categorize the entire household environment as that? Right.

Jake 1:32:18

Yeah, I'm sure there actually is a very strict definition that there could be applied, but I don't know.

Anthea 1:32:23

Right, yeah, right. Well, and I do think that that is interesting because like because I don't think that you'd I think Kudkowski is is trying to depict a that that conflict that we were talking, you know, emotion versus like full emotion versus full skepticism. Um and I'm not sure that he's cognizant of how unsettling the end result is.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:51

Like uh which yeah, like I think that to portray without emotional violence or like either I think you can have two two options, right? For portraying the all rational and all emotional. Um and one is uh like the one is the outcome that we saw.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:17

Um and the other is kind of like this is if you're doing everything like realistically, right? The other is to portray the emotion-driven partner in the marriage as somebody who like really can't be taken seriously and potentially shouldn't be operating a motor vehicle, right? Like because of like just everything they think is like pretty much is pretty unfounded. Uh-huh. Um, and like I think the only way that you can do it without a result that makes you think one of those two unsettling things is to have them both be like larger than life archetypes and to make it really clear that like, but but because Yakkowski seems to want to be more realistic than Harry Potter, that's not something that's on the table for him. And so I think it leads to the mess that we see here.

Jake 1:34:02

Yeah, well, and if Petunia was supposed to be like the emotional one, we've grabbed the Overton window and moved it way over because she still seemed like v like in the scheme of things, pretty rational.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:13

Also, she's right.

Jake 1:34:14

She's telling the truth.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:16

She's right, and she's basing her belief that magic is real on a set of experiences that she had. Yeah.

Jake 1:34:22

Yeah, she never says, like, I just feel like magic's right, or like, you know, it just seems real to me. It's like, here are these observable phenomena that I experienced firsthand.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:32

Right. I do also want to come back to the to the looks maxing of this. Yeah. There's a way you could also have said, um, yeah, no, magic is real. My sister is a witch. Uh, she went off to s to magic school and then she became a witch. Okay, well, did you ever see her do any magic? No, but she went to magic school, and I know that magic is real. Like, right, that could have been it.

Anthea 1:34:56

Like, the I And that would be something where, you know, I think a a skeptical person could reasonably be like, well, uh did she though, or did your parents send her off to a troubled teen institute? Right, exactly, exactly.

Jake 1:35:11

But was she there for roughly nine months?

SPEAKER_06 1:35:13

Oh god, yeah. So so like there's yeah, there's so so you could do something where she had no experiential ground um that was informing her, and then that would get to like, I think also like the not so like detached from reality and the sci and the scientific method that that like you know, that she couldn't be trusted to like be a caretaker to a child, right? Um, but would give you like a oh, she really doesn't have a reason to think this apart from the fact that like it seems cool and she's getting some like you know, some borrowed glory from the idea of like I'm in a family that has magic running through its, you know, its veins or whatever. Like so I think you could do that. Um I am disturbed by the trajectory that we have here with Petunia of she. So the problem is, apparently, that she married Vernon Dursley instead of this extremely desirable biohem.

Jake 1:36:12

Yeah, no, I was having the same thought of like, so this is I guess they're an improvement technically, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:18

Who belittles people that he feels aren't as smart as he is. Yeah, like, ooh, what a catch. So to get that, the problem is, so it seems like on the one hand, you could say that, like, as I was saying, that um, you know, when when I was a a young and insecure girl, I had feelings like, oh, no boys even want to talk to me. And in point of fact, that was not true. There were things that I got away with in college that I like I basically had this like weird zombie movie night that I would hold in the in one of the Harvey Mud uh amphitheaters, uh, and a bunch of the guys helped set it up for me, and they came to all of the all of the um zombie night screenings, and that was not because they were so passionate about zombies. You know what I mean?

Anthea 1:37:04

So looking back That's rad though. Where to use your powers for good? Oh thank you.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:08

I had no idea that's what was going on. Sure, yeah, yeah, I understood. They those those young men would have done anything I told them to. Right.

Jake 1:37:15

Um so uh almost almost like they were zombies.

Anthea 1:37:18

Almost like they were zombies in the original sense rather than the flesh sense. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:24

Yes, pressed into service. Um but uh but um but the problem is if you wanted to show that that was just something that Petunia felt like, we would not need to have her transform into a live, symmetrical woman. So it seems like from what we are given, the way that she gets, the way that Harry Potter gets to the better timeline is I mean, I'm sure other things have changed, but the big changes that we see are that Petunia became hot, so she would not be consigned to the fate of marrying Vernon Dursley and bearing his spawn. Yes. Um and the way that she does that is by becoming hot, because regular Petunia Dursley could never have landed a guy like what's his face.

Jake 1:38:13

Who is evidence would suggest sterile.

Anthea 1:38:18

That's true. They don't appear to have any biological children. Yeah.

Jake 1:38:21

And like the only the only variable that's changed here is him.

Anthea 1:38:24

Yeah. Or maybe he's a never nude. Like, you know, like so you could you could still fuck.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:30

Yeah, doesn't Tobias have kick kid? He does indeed.

Jake 1:38:33

Um but uh but you can you can unzip the denim shorts.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:36

Yeah. That's fair. Um but like so I think there that also actually is another troubling implication is the idea of like like okay, what they need is for Harry to be the only focus of their parental, their parental attentions. And Petunia needs to get hot so that she can obtain a high quality man. I find this so disturbing. Yeah, yeah.

Anthea 1:38:58

Yeah, and it's one of those things where like, do I I I I feel like this happens a lot. Will happen a lot, is that I'm like, I think if I challenged Gudkowski on this idea, he would probably be like, no, of course I don't think that. But you wrote something that got there.

Jake 1:39:20

Yeah. Like Well, yeah, I mean that's it's the conscious versus unconscious bias.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:24

Right, yeah, yeah. Well then, but again, and yeah, and because then I would have to say, well, what role does what role does Petunia's prettification play then? Right. Yeah.

Anthea 1:39:34

Dramaturgically, why why is this here? Yeah.

Jake 1:39:36

And this also just demonstrates like Michael is is not being rational, he's just not believing his wife. Yeah. Because like she is saying, like, I looked one way, I drank a magical potion, and my body physically changed before my eyes. Right. And he's saying, like, well, slide of a hand, you know. Like, no, that's not that's not rational. It's just like, uh, my wife's just dumb and lying.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:59

Right. Right. Or like delusional, and like, well, I guess I'll keep her around because guys gotta eat. But like, like, what like what exactly is happening?

Anthea 1:40:08

Yeah, yeah. It's it's really fucking weird. It's weird. And that's chapter one.

Jake 1:40:15

Alright, good start. Strong stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:17

Strong stuff.

Anthea 1:40:18

Uh that's it for this episode of HP More and the Limits of Rationality, or HP More Alore. Uh, you should if you're listening to this, you should subscribe on however I'm putting this out there. You should share it with your friends, you should leave a review wherever you're listening. Um, I hear that that helps out. I would I've I've put a lot of hours into this at this point, and I've conned people into doing it with me, so I want it to succeed. So when do I get paid? Uh anyway, we'll see you next time on HV Moralore.

Jake 1:40:49

That's our iconic sign-off. What when do I get paid?

Anthea 1:40:52

When do I get paid? The Harry Potter universe is copyright to JK Rowling, and Harry Potter and the methods of rationality and the sequences are copyright Eliezer Putkowski. This podcast may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner for the purposes of commentary, criticism, and transformation, which are protected under the doctrine of fair use. This podcast is released under a Creative Commons attribution share like 4.0 international license. The music you heard in this episode is The Watchmaker's Secret by Nikolai Haydwas on Hook Sound.